Mind control category?

[trained23]

Anyone write in there? It’s my goal to but I struggle with writing long enough stories (I haven’t written in a very long time)

What do you like about it? What’s your favorite story?

 

[Bamagan]

The content there is, I would guess, about 75% power trip fantasies, many of which would go in Non-consent/Reluctance except for the supernatural or sci-fi elements. There are a fair few stories about loss of power, loss of inhibitions, and various cautionary tales of accidents and irresponsibility with power, though.

I like the fantasy/sci-fi elements, but much of the stuff that gets pushed into the MC category avoids extensive world-building that's common in that genre, so it tends to be more character-focused (even if the main character is often reprehensible). On the other hand, so much of it follows the trope of 'young man gains power and gets every hot girl he encounters' that it can get kind of tedious if you become weary of variations on that theme. Especially the stories that cater to the subset of the readership that is intensely interested in the nuts and bolts of the control mechanism, and who have presumably spent time thinking of exactly how they'd use their powers if they acquired them. But to be fair, they tend to be very enthusiastic consumers of any story that invites them to entertain a new type power fantasy (even if they lose interest in the contents of the story itself).

 

[yowser]

The content there is, I would guess, about 75% power trip fantasies, many of which would go in Non-consent/Reluctance except for the supernatural or sci-fi elements. There are a fair few stories about loss of power, loss of inhibitions, and various cautionary tales of accidents and irresponsibility with power, though.

I agree with this.

Some variations exist, often incorporating a magic talisman or the like (more 'the mind IS BEING controlled' rather than 'I'M doing the controlling of another's mind.')

A semi-recurring challenge would pop up some of these, (I've done one) see the 'Amorous Goods' stories in MC: https://search.literotica.com/?query=Amorous Goods&categories=29&where=desc&page=1

 

[bumpercars]

I've written a few stories in there. Mine are about a woman who can 'borrow' other people's bodies, so when she has date night with her husband she sometimes does it with another woman's body instead of her own. I like that the category lets you step past boundaries without requiring force.

My impression of the category is that, while there might be a common formula, readers don't get mad at stories that deviate from the norm.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I've done one which did okay, On My Way Up. The problem for me is writing ethical mind control. I find too much of it sleazy, unethical, adolescent and non-consensual, the psychic or magical equivalent of roofies. While I support the freedom to write just about anything outside the 'whips-n-toddlers' genre, I've pulled my own NC content because I didn't like the way it made me feel.

 

[AlinaX]

Ethical is boring. The challenge is making it erotic anyway, and it's a lot more fun when the mind controller isn't fully in control.

Get into everyone's heads. Make it real, and not just an adolescent fantasy.

 

[StillStunned]

Ethical? Who cares about ethical? Mind control is pure fiction, so let writers and readers indulge in the power fantasies. It's better than rape-in-all-but-name NC. I'd rather have readers fantasise about what they'd do if they could magically control other people than about blackmailing or physically assaulting someone.

 

[alohadave]

Ethical is boring. The challenge is making it erotic anyway, and it's a lot more fun when the mind controller isn't fully in control.

Get into everyone's heads. Make it real, and not just an adolescent fantasy.

I have a dormant WIP where the main character finds a ring that can control people. But it has restrictions that he doesn't know about, so it keeps going wrong for him.

Rather than it being a magic device that gave him total control, I thought the limits make for a more interesting premise.

 

[Flybynite1892]

The ethical question is interesting. I agree it's all pure fiction and, as someone who writes in BDSM, I always try to include notes at the top of my stories emphasizing that what's going on is fantasy and that in real life consent is, obviously, super important.

But people *love* that mind control idea. My most popular series is a noir detective femdom thing that has to do with hypnosis; I didn't think people would like it as much as they did. I thought it would be too weird. I guess the reason I felt OK about it, though, was that it didn't feel like punching down at my mind-controlled character - he was still his own person with agency, despite being under someone else's control. And there was a certain amount of poetic justice to it, since he'd been someone who had never really respected women much prior, and who - by virtue of the whole mind control thing and the mystery he was trying to solve - wound up having to work with them. In like a "I don't have any power here, can you help me" kind of way.

I guess to me it feels more "ethical" if you have a character who, despite being mind-controlled, is still their own person. You're still writing them as an actual person. Plus, it's just way more interesting to read that mental back-and-forth.

 

[nice90sguy]

Mind control is where most of my stories live, but they could fit into NC/R equally well I think

 

[Rob_Royale]

I haven't played on the ball field yet, but I'm sure I'll get around to it. I have a hypnotism idea where a woman who had used it to stop smoking finds a clip of herself online doing debaucherous things. She's no memory of the act and she's both horrified and turned on.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The only ethical mind control is when the controlled is fully aware and simply plays along.

I'd be interested, just in the interest of science so to speak, on your opinion as to whether or not I managed to stay 'ethical' in On My Way Up. The protagonist has the power, but attempts to use it minimally and for the general good.

 

[LiterallyLiterate]

I started off in MC, though I’m writing seberal new storylines in other categories now, so my first series will go in the back seat for a while.
For me it’s mostly about the ‘what if’ of MC, simply a way to live out sordid fantasies because they’re impossible, rather than obsess about my RL students and co-workers.

The category is very much alive, and people seem to appeeciate my stories, but to be honest I write them as a creative outlet to begin with, and then tweak them to what the audience wants, within reason.

 

[Hypnobitch01]

Hello! I write mind control and I mostly do it because it’s what turns me on. This story is a one and done that I wrote and adore.

 

[oneagainst]

Have definitely gone into MC - writing as low-level erotic horror mostly (most recently Tranced in Vegas) because I'm not sure how you do mind control without facing up to non-con elements. Plus, it makes for a good twist.

Though, there are the hypnosis scripts in that category too, and they're a different matter entirely. The possibility of the horror/noncon aspect goes up exponentially. Anyone ever seen those? Any views on them?

 

[VallesMarineris]

Ethical is boring. The challenge is making it erotic anyway, and it's a lot more fun when the mind controller isn't fully in control.

Get into everyone's heads. Make it real, and not just an adolescent fantasy.

Agree. Optional mini-essay on ethics and literature below.

About half my stories are MC, and I’ve never understood why that genre gets picked on. Can I point out that the most popular categories on this site are Incest/Taboo and Loving Wives (meaning cheating)? I don’t see much hand-wringing about the ethics in those stories.

And it’s not just here on Lit. Every murder mystery has a murder in it, right? Most plots in literature and movies involve someone trying to do something unethical. Many of us recently witnessed a hit movie villain kill half the people in the galaxy! The cop-out for these stories is that the villain gets it in the end, but as a critic once wrote about Milton’s Paradise Lost, “The Devil gets all the good lines.”

I try to write “benign” MC stories, in which the MC-trick doesn’t force the target to do something they find reprehensible, but instead pushes them through a barrier so they’re able to try something they’ve always wanted to do deep down. For example (if you’ll let me toot my own horn a bit, while trying to avoid spoilers):

In The Secret App, a young woman is seduced by an AI app surreptitiously installed on her phone. But she turns the tables on the app’s creator.

In Telekinesis, a man discovers how to use his power to seduce women, but then becomes a hero by using his power for good.

In my new WIP, A Nerd Girl’s Story, I turn the tables on the tired trope of a nerdy guy getting control of women. A nerdy young woman figures out how to control men for her sexual pleasure. Being the nerdiest of nerds, she doesn't realize that men all want-- oops, no spoilers!

Life is not ethical. Mosquitoes suck blood. Tigers eat lambs. Viruses steal proteins and nucleic acids. Most crimes are not solved by clever detective work and evil dictators take over nations with propaganda, a real form of mind control. The Universe itself is cruel, with earthquakes, floods, pandemics, fires, etc. Ask a dinosaur if the Universe is ethical.

One could make the case that most dramas are idealistic fantasies in which bad people always get punished and good people always win. That’s what I try to write, even in MC stories.

 

[TheLobster]

About half my stories are MC, and I’ve never understood why that genre gets picked on. Can I point out that the most popular categories on this site are Incest/Taboo and Loving Wives (meaning cheating)? I don’t see much hand-wringing about the ethics in those stories.

It’s because of the prevailing ethical mores of our time.

Consent is stupidly overvalued, to the point that its presence can override any other moral concerns. It is very easy to justify both incest and adultery if all you care about is whether the parties involved were consenting adults.

Someone, of course, will inevitably point to the legions of LW trolls who are raging under every story where the cheater wasn’t burned enough for their transgressions. But that doesn’t refute the above, because the very fact we can identify those trolls as a distinct group is precisely due to them holding a different moral standard than the ubiquitous “everything consensual is fine.”

MC gets the flak because it flouts the consent-based ethics even more than NC/R. In the latter category, the requirement that the “victim” has to enjoy it on some level is essentially mandating that at least a modicum of consent is granted retroactively. MC has no such qualms; it’s perfectly okay that the subject may not even know they are controlled, making it impossible for what’s happening to them to be in any way justified or excused under consent-based ethics.

 

[AlinaX]

We go through life anxious about being rejected by those we love for a hundred different reasons. It's rare and precious to find someone who we can be honest with and wholly accepted by, and vice versa. The Mind Control category is largely about the fantasy of not having to fear rejection, and having the people we want be the people we want them to be.

Mind Control has all the fundamental violence of Non-Con but without any of the consequent trauma; and because Mind Control usually deals with magical or science-fantastical themes, it works much better as a fairytale than Non-Con ever does. Extreme Mind Control is adolescent absurdity; extreme Non-Con is callous brutality.

Mind Control lets all women, even sisters and mothers, be bimbos and cumsluts, not because they necessarily are but because that's what we (i.e., erotica readers) want them to be. Disbelief is suspended the moment you enter the category.

 

[kiwibat]

most my stories are in the mind control/transformation genre, but I’m not a fan of the nerdy guy gets powers or a device and starts sleeping with anyone he wants. It’s much more fun writing from the woman’s POV whose being hypnotized/brainwashed/transformed. sometimes it’s because someone’s doing it to her, sometimes it’s random, and sometimes she’ll even use it to her advantage to live her best life.

but it’s important to me that they always enjoy it. most of the time it’s something that deep down they secretly wanted but felt pressure to conform to societal norms.

it’s also important that they retain most of their personality. too many bimbofication stories where it’s basically personality death after becoming an entirely new, unrecognizable person, physically and mentally. id rather she retain most of herself and learns to enjoy her new body & desires.

 

[tristianc]

I’ve written one years ago. I have always had a thing for power in fantasy, hypnosis and mind control being an element of those fantasies. I think it’s important that the one with the power shows their joy in control and the one without control has at least thoughts of fear about the lack of it. That way both kinds of readers get what they want from it.

 

[SimonDoom]

Disbelief is suspended the moment you enter the category.

I agree, and I think this is precisely why this category SHOULD get more of a pass than it does. Nobody can pretend that it is real. The devices by which one person gains control over another's mind and libido are almost all ridiculous fantasy or sci fi. The fantasy element is what separates it from the non-con category, and what gives it its special appeal for those who like it.

 

[APilgrimSquare]

I just published an MC story and it’s by far my worst performing so far, from an engagement perspective. It’s written from the perspective of a mind controlled man, and focuses more on the power dynamics between him and his controller rather than sex per se. I think it’s pretty good, as far as writing goes, but maybe just not the kind of thing MC readers are looking for.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I can't help but think about David Tennant's character in Jessica Jones, Kilgrave, when mind control comes up. How fucked up would you become if you actually had this kind of power no matter it's source. Makes me shudder...

 

[Rob_Royale]

I can't help but think about David Tennant's character in Jessica Jones, Kilgrave, when mind control comes up. How fucked up would you become if you actually had this kind of power no matter it's source. Makes me shudder...

I've had the same thought. I wouldn't trust me with this power.

 

[lovecraft68]

I can't help but think about David Tennant's character in Jessica Jones, Kilgrave, when mind control comes up. How fucked up would you become if you actually had this kind of power no matter it's source. Makes me shudder...

You too? I think that all the time especially because that season of JJ dealt with the very real PTSD of being violated both physically and mentally.

It's a good look at what this category-which is pure non con in every way-really represents.

Not that people aren't allowed their fictional fantasies, but the denial of what MC really is just obtuse and ignorant.