On Fet-Life (a “kinky” social networking service), there are 12,490 people who are “Into” or “Curious about” erotic hypnosis-a one-click function similar to the Facebook “like” button. It’s also a twist on BDSM, an expression of sexual power and submission at its most extreme. Sex without the muss or fuss, or, for that matter, the pregnancies, STDs or awkward goodbyes.
It sounded a little like Erica Jong’s “zipless fuck,” but better. Under hypnosis, it was claimed, a subject could achieve a climax without being touched at all. From what I could gather, erotic hypnosis is a fetish, but if its proponents are right, it is also a new form of sex-safe, certainly, but also dangerous-seeming in its own way. I clicked something, and something else, and soon I was knee-deep in YouTube videos of Eastern European models entranced by men in bowling shirts, hypnosis blogs (Emily is one such blogger) and forums filled with arguments about proper technique. My own interest in the subject started where basically everything does, online. Now, she’s become a practitioner of hypnosis herself. But she could still revisit the sense of panic she’d felt, the result of an experiment with erotic hypnosis. Emily laughed as she retold the story on a chilly day in McCarren Park.
