I Think I Have My Answer

Over the weekend I went to DejaVu with some friends to see Tony Lucero's erotic hypnosis show.

The evening was mostly enjoyable. We got in just as volunteers were coming onstage and were there for the whole show, which lasted about an hour.

As I surveyed the volunteers on stage, I began to sort them into a few catergories. There were the eager to please, the doubters, the uncomfortable, and the general poor responders. My intuitions were well founded as the three I had tagged as doubters were off the stage during the first set, the uncomfortable left during the set where the hypnotist suggested they try the imaginary weed he was handing them, and the eager to please girls had outrageous responses to his suggestions throughout several sets.

What probably surprised me the most throughout this performance was how little Lucero had to do in order to get them to follow along. This is the wonderful thing about having a self selecting group. On top of the fact that they volunteered to be on stage, they all came from an audience who came to see an erotic hypnotist, including the bachlorette party that showed up to the club in a van covered with penis drawings.

The other thing that surprised me was a sort of awe that some of the volunteers had for what was happening. I suppose I've seen similar responses in my vanilla, one-on one hypnosis, and it makes sense that the shock would be slightly bigger when rather than say, having your hand locked in the air you're working your way towards an orgasm without any touching.

This was sort of concerning to my friends who have the "They're in his power" view. One of my friends even likened it to "mind-rape of the feeble" and said her faith in humanity was ruined by the way the audience responded to it.

I thought it seemed to me the people on stage were having a wonderful time; particularly the girl with the cucumber halfway down her throat and the woman compelled to dry hump anyone who congratulated her after the show.