(07 Apr 2022, 08:35 )GCRhoads Wrote: Another way that SB is unethical is SB is really a man pretending to be a woman.

(06 Apr 2022, 19:55 )9795103903 Wrote:

(03 Apr 2022, 14:40 )Flow Wrote:

(31 Mar 2022, 18:18 )saffi_t Wrote:

(31 Mar 2022, 08:28 )GCRhoads Wrote: Some people seem to be missing my point. SB said something to the effect of "How can I market files to straight guys better?" My answer is to mention when a file contains gayification suggestions that a straight person is not going to want. Who is going to spend $40 or $50 on a file when regardless of description, there is say a 95% chance the file will contain suggestions that the person doesn't want?
My comments were not intended as a criticism of people with other preferences. We all have our own sexual preferences and fetishes, and I am not going to denigrate somebody else's wants simply because it differs from mine.

This is the same thing that has always been said about her/his hypnosis. It is the reason some choose not to listen. Its also the reason some do choose. I used to be the same way.

Which is why the facebook auntie politics that have crept into the files in recent years are a no-no. If the verbal ambiguity and suggestions concern sexuality, I'm on board. I mean, kink-wise it's easy to work out what the deal is on the website, and that's part of the contract in this sub-genre of erotic hypnosis. But if the files are being used to circulate someone's political views (whatever they may be) then it's a jolt, and an obvious deal-breaker.

I have been lurking here anonymously for years and have been following these recent conversations. I'd like to share my own experiences with SB -- and offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to Like Ra for setting up and maintaining this forum space! Also, thanks to everyone who has posted their experiences and comments here (including SB).
1. My first experience with SB:

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I’ve had a hypnosis kink for as long as I can remember, and to this day I have mostly played via audio & video files.
I began listening to SB files some 10 years ago. I remember my first listen feeling so much more effective than any of the other file-induced states I had ever experienced. I remember that potency feeling thrilling.
…Actually, I remember it feeling terrifying! I recall writing my first email to SB in my first few months of listening. I felt I was still in a suggestible state. My hands were trembling, my heart was racing, I was sweating all over.
That first email response a decade back was met with a nearly immediate reply. The reply turned me off from listening again for at least a year. Okay, at least a few months.
So there I was, following the instructions from the recording: I had written a short email professing my desire to submit. Hours later came the reply: “Now that I’ve got your secret,” the email read, “You have to do whatever I say.” It took me right out of trance with a bad taste in my mouth.
In retrospect, I’m not really sure what I was expecting from an email reply, but I was so new to hypnokink and still quite ashamed of anyone finding out about it, that I had aeady quickly exited any states of suggestibility and hadn’t budged time or energy for what SB was apparently proposing: a slow, back-and-forth blackmail play session.
And the email was so thoroughly “in character” that I didn’t feel I could exactly respond by saying ‘Sorry, there, er, what did you say I should call you? Yes, Master. Sorry there Master, but uhm, I’m actually not that into this particular fantasy just this moment. But let’s maybe try something entirely different next week?” So instead I just didn’t reply.

2. How kink consent + this forum changed SB files for me:

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Despite that first turn-off, SB left an impression. And in issuing me my first-ever blackmail threat, I knew that SB was “edgy.” Of course, in this case, “edgy” means “does not practice basic consent (let alone p.r.i.c.k., r.a.c.k., s.s.c., etc*)” …but I told myself that even if SB didn’t play by any rules… Well, wasn’t that the point? Isn’t not knowing the rules part of the fun? So I thought I understood those risks. In fact, I did not.
Cue to the montage: For the next many years I sent a few thousand dollars SB’s way “at my own pace”: I simply purchased these “edgy” training files and fantasy files, purged them from my computer and phone, and then bought the same files again. Sometimes I would get back in touch with SB again, but I would always find myself turned off by the transactional or sometimes inscrutable responses.
I remember once receiving an email I thought must have been someone just copying and pasting from a template that was very jarring to receive while still feeling suggestible. Many times over the years I asked a question or requested things that would allow me to submit more sustainably, and SB would read the emails (I used Streak CRM’s free gmail read-receipt plugin to verify this over many years), but never respond.
It was around that time that I discovered this forum thread, a few years ago. I’ve been lurking here, checking back here first before re-engaging SB’s files. I had reached a milestone in my relationship to these files: now, it was a known quantity. When I first arrived here I hadn’t quite learned what healthier, consensual and safe hypnosis felt like (spoiler: it’s MUCH more pleasurable and sustainable for me) but I did have the years of experience to know that I needed to approach these files with a different kind of intention to self-care, or else I would find these files getting in the way of the rest of my life: getting to bed chronically late, feeling obsessively anxious before during and after listening.
And then, thanks to discovering this forum a few years ago, I came to understand that other people like me had similarly powerful experiences, and that a community of thousands of people curious about these files had assembled to do what the creator has apparently never done: break the “fourth wall” of the opaque fantasy facade publicly to allow for people to safely and anonymously learn about the content and share our experiences and thoughts with each other.
*These acronyms I learned on my own, no thanks to the hundreds of hours I’ve spent engaging with SB’s content! They come from kink safety guidelines from various scenes/communities.
P.R.I.C.K. = Personally responsible, informed consensual kink
R.A.C.K. = Risk aware consensual kink
S.S.C. = Safe, sane, consensual

3. Thanks to Like Ra & why I rarely listen to SB anymore:
Content note: mentions abuse, addiction, c-ptsd, therapy

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Thank you, Like Ra, and everyone else who has bravely posted here over the year, making this forum possible. Thank you for attempting to provide a community where the creator of these files has not. Thank you for prefacing the entire thread with a content note that the files may be harmful to some, and descriptions of how and why that might be so. Thank you for no small part in my own healing.
In my case, I recognize now that the trembling I used to have was the reactivation of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which I had acquired through growing up in an abusive household. Growing up, gaslighting was a constant looming threat, and my submission to it (even though I knew better) was a survival skill I saw modeled and which I mimicked to protect my loved ones.
What I have come to realize now is that part of the thrill of “losing control” was a return to a familiar feeling: I had learned to associate safety and security in my family of origin with submitting to a constant state of vulnerability to loss of control.
In my case, in order to identify all that… I needed to do a lot first. I needed to exit an abusive relationship, I needed to leave an abusive workplace, I needed therapy, and ‘natural’ kinds of therapy like spending time in nature. I benefited from cannabis which helped me to appreciate what I liked about SB’s files while encouraging aftercare after listening (rather than obsessive anxiety after listening) I needed an intimate relationship where I was able to talk about and explore my submissive side without shame, and also with trust that my vulnerability would not be taken advantage of.

4. Ethical criticism of SB’s covert business model
Content note: discusses fear play from the perspective of a c-ptsd survivor susceptible to revictimization (i.e. experiencing fear play as coercion)

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I now feel it’s quite unethical and harmful for SB to offer no free safety files (which is a common practice). Even worse, the closest thing I’ve encountered, “Wipe Clean V2” is not only not free– it also contains some harmful suggestions even as it supposedly is there to remove them.
For me, experiencing consensual erotic hypnosis after years of SB’s ultimately coercive "fear play" style was game-changing. Of course I’m sure SB would prefer to use the term “covert,” but from my experience as a survivor of abuse, covert is still coercive. Now, we could get into a philosophical discussion here about consent and coercion, but what can’t be seriously contested is that even if SB isn’t coercive, at best SB banks on plausible deniability:
That is, SB is just about as ethical as the cigarette industry claiming that they don’t "force" anyone to smoke… Yes, but your products are designed knowing that they contain addictive ingredients, which some people will be vulnerable to in ways that lead to self-harm.
In SB’s case, SB knows well their hands aren’t clean, and yet they don’t care enough about the *thousands and thousands* of interested listeners to ensure that they safely engage in healthy ways. Every day, untold numbers of people are getting shown SB’s YouTube videos that are geared towards first-time listeners, with no age restriction or text or audio warnings on the video files or in the descriptions!
No, in fact, SB’s income stream is essentially dependent upon a model where any licensed hypnotherapist could tell you that a significant number of listeners *will* be feeling unsafe as they listen. In my opinion as a submissive, you simply can’t leave it up to guesswork as to whether or not you’re practicing the “consensual” part of “consensual non-consent.” But since SB doesn’t include consent and safety warnings, and as far as I'm concerned that means the business model banks on a certain amount of non-consent as collateral damage.

5. I actually kinda like *some* of the politics:
Content note: transphobia

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For what it's worth, I actually appreciate *some* of SB's use of "political" topics (to be specific, I apprecaite SB's apparent study of the quite nefarious history of advertising, corporate media, and how the label of "conspiracy theory" in the larger context of the manufacturing of consent for war can be weaponized to dissuade critical thinking, etc).
I actually think this aspect and all of SB's work could be very salvageable if better consent and safety warnings were included in SB's website, subscribestar, youtube, etc... But absent that, while I might still "try it on in private", I have never shared SB's work with anyone and wouldn't recommend it to anyone without also recommending that new listener first get to know about this forum thread
And yeah, while I haven't experienced it in any of SB's hypnosis files, the creator's other YouTube presence does engage in at least one really glaring dig at a high profile trans woman, which... Knowing how much this same person clearly enjoys gender play, it just seems silly. I mean, we all know what SB likes, but does SB know?

6. How I enjoy hypnotic play these days:

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All to say, even outside of my having survived abuse or identifying underlying trauma relating to my hypnosexuality, I thank SB to the extent that I blissed out A LOT to the fear play for many years. I still engage from time to time, knowing the limits of what kinds of fantasies and what kind of pleasure I can derive from it.
In recent years, I’ve found several creators who have free, consent-oriented content (as well as intense power play) in easy-to-access places like YouTube, with paid private chats that actually have well-understood guidelines to ensure safety and respect boundaries. At first it seemed "tame", but even just experiencing other doms' techniques gave me a different appreciation for SB's work.
I got familiar with a few trigger-removal and safety scripts, audio files and videos from other creators and I generally use them before, during or after (or the day after) an SB-file play session.
For me, having experienced hypnotic play that is consensual, intentional and honest about ethics, I have actually been able to conceive of and even experienced deeper self-trust and self-safety, which has meant I have experienced even deeper states of absorption, dissociation and suggestibility. I'm personally really into amnesia, brainwashing & time distortion... Yeah, I've had some (im)memorably-good mind fucking recently!
For me, rather than getting in the way of my growth, my life and ultimately even my pleasure, these days hypno kink seems to actually increase my emotional awareness, enrich my rest and imagination, and enhance the other areas of my life. SB's files were a huge step on that path for me, as was this forum.

All that to say: Thanks again Like Ra for starting this thread! I learn so much from the conversation.

(07 Apr 2022, 23:16 )Ellie Wrote: Question....so is SB transphobic? And are those political type deals right wing bullshit? I've avoided those and just wanted to make sure. If so, I'd appreciate knowing and I'll delete any and all things SB from my computer

(07 Apr 2022, 09:53 )Like Ra Wrote:

(07 Apr 2022, 08:35 )GCRhoads Wrote: Another way that SB is unethical is SB is really a man pretending to be a woman.

Errrmmm... What do you mean - pretending? SB never addressed to himself as "she", didn't he? Same as MsJ, Kei, GG ...

(09 Apr 2022, 08:08 )GCRhoads Wrote: It seems quite clear to me that SB is passing himself off as a woman.

(09 Apr 2022, 20:06 )horse Wrote: Given that hypnosis requires some degree of immersion,

(09 Apr 2022, 08:08 )GCRhoads Wrote:

(07 Apr 2022, 09:53 )Like Ra Wrote:

(07 Apr 2022, 08:35 )GCRhoads Wrote: Another way that SB is unethical is SB is really a man pretending to be a woman.

Errrmmm... What do you mean - pretending? SB never addressed to himself as "she", didn't he? Same as MsJ, Kei, GG ...

Samantha is a female name.  Furthermore, SB's avatar is clearly of a woman.  Also, numerous videos contain images of Samantha as a woman and SB has never referred to himself as he or him.  It seems quite clear to me that SB is passing himself off as a woman.