Dumbing Down?

That’s why I prefer if such a story is told from the perspective of the person being changed and dumbed down (or made slutty etc.). I’ll see myself in that person and then my conscience is staying quiet and it’s just that much hotter for me.

As for the reasons why this appeals to me… I guess we just have to read A Metaphor for Kyle, Derek has explained it plain and clearly :slight_smile:

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See the SF story Flowers for Algernon

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Oh, but ‘Flowers for Algernon’ is incredibly sad! I mean, it is fantastic, it’s an awesome book and I strongly recomend it for any reader, but the dumbing down there is so heart breaking and tragic.

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made all the more sad by his knowledge of what was happening.

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Based on these comments I downloaded an e-copy of Flowers for Algernon from my local library and am almost finished with it. Oh my - what a tear-jerker, from start to (almost) finish.

I’m thinking about how one could create a suitable GSS story based on Keyes’s novel. If you’ve ever dealt with people with mental disabilities you know that some have “quirks.” One of these quirks can be the frequent desire to touch one’s genitals or even to masturbate (even with young kids who can’t yet experience orgasm).

For a story, I’m thinking that a scientist - let’s call him Dan - will visit an institution, intending to find a subject. He finds this one guy (let’s call him Tom) who has limited speech abilities, and seems to play with himself. So Dan takes the kid on as an experiment in a controlled environment and goes through some process where Tom develops a high IQ. But, as in the novel, the emotional intelligence of Tom is stunted. So Dan tries to be more personal with Tom and after many months - to make a long story short - allows the kid to discover orgasm and sex, and the emotional gratification and growth that comes from that. Tom discovers that he loves to rub off on Dan, especially his leg.

Alas, the experiment is only temporary, and so, over many months, Tom regresses to what he once was. Meanwhile Dan is pulled away on some other matter (perhaps a family member is fatally ill) which also occupies him for many months. He hears that Tom can no longer be alone and is returned to the institution. Eventually Dan’s family member passes away and it turns Dan’s life upside down.

By the time he’s able to return, Tom has been at the institution for a while. Staff tells Dan that Tom has become non-verbal and more withdrawn since his return. So Dan tries to see him. He enters a room with lots of mentally disabled adults playing or idling. He sees Tom, waits and then calls out to him. No response. He walks up to him and tries to talk to him. Tom sees him and initially has no response. Then after a few minutes he starts showing some kind of recognition. He goes up to Tom’s leg, hugs it, and humps himself off. After orgasm he verbalizes for the first time in months and winds up hugging Dan’s leg.

Will require a delicate touch given the disability, I think.

Good luck with it.

Dumbing down is heavily associated with S&M relationship dynamics imo. From the POV of the dominant partner, dumbing down makes one more pliable and easier to control. From the POV of the submissive, dumbing down allows one to relinquish control and become a “slave to pleasure”, kind of like what Chris Kane was describing earlier.

Yes.

I’d even say that dumbing down is necessary for the mind control story to work. Being mind controlled basically means you become not-self-sufficient, you lose your decision making right…

I personally hate stories in which the victim is aware of all the changes and suffers incredible humiliation. I call them “evil” stories. Dumbing down makes the mind control less evil.

In one episode of Hímringyó (hopefully I wrote it well) - which is btw. one of the best reality changing / straight to gay / unaware / slutification story series ever written - there’s a moment in which one character becomes aware about what is happening - and it’s awful. He decides to rather become mindless himbo than to live through the humiliation the changes bring.

I do find it interesting that dumbing down stories often take a very intelligent and high-functioning person and reduce them to an imbecile. I think that this is often the fantasy of intelligent subs, who are playing with the idea of being “freed” from the burden of intellect.

From a dom perspective, why not just enslave a hot dumb guy and cut out the middle man? Makes a lot more sense than shopping for an engineering student and making him an illiterate.

There is of course an intersection with the kink of ruination. Enslaving the hot dumb guy doesn’t change his circumstances to the degree that enslaving a very smart guy and converting him into someone who can’t read, write, or form complex sentences does. In raunch-related ruination stories the author doesn’t typically start with a pig, he starts with a preppy or high class guy and ends with him being a pig. And it’s obvious why; it’s the journey down that holds the appeal as much as (or even more than) the destination. So I get that, even though it’s not exactly my thing.

That being said, I do feel that this kink is over done and I’m generally skipping stories that focus on it now because I’ve had enough.

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Hey @amul you hit it for me. For me, one of the best dumbing down stories is Volunteers. That was a story that got a lot of people’s attention. I feel one of the multiple reasons is that the main protagonist, Eric, recognized what happened to him, begins to come out of the regressed state, but chooses to permanently regress to save his friends. The story also acknowledges characters’ desire to regress and not be burdened with adult cares.

In general I’m kinda neutral about regression, but @Mindwiper’s excellent writing made this one of my favorites.

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I agree, that was an exceptionally provactive story that spurred intense discussion (as well as being enjoyed by a lot of people).

One thing that makes regression stories different from the general dumbing down stories though is that central to the fantasy of regression is the idea of the sub being taken care of. This reaches its apex with abdl play where the regressed sub is literally cared for as one would a child, with sex typically being secondary or even absent entirely. Whereas with the more generic dumbing down stories we see the dumbed down sub used as a sex slave or even reduced to the status of a sex object.

Forced regression stories are somewhat rare, and understandably so. With the sheer number of guys and gals who would jump at the chance to live out that fantasy, grabbing some random non-abdl shmuck off the street and subjecting them to it is doubly cruel. And since almost everyone who would write that kind of story is secretly or not-so-secretly self-inserting, it’s rare to see a truly involuntary subject, even in fiction.

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Well, you - as a dom - don’t “cut out the middle man” because there basically wouldn’t be any change to the sub. If he’s stupid, he’s easily manipulated. So there wouldn’t be any thrill of manipulating such person.

And from the point of the sub, you are right. It’s to be freed from the “burden of intellect”. But that’s not the entire thing. It simply makes sense that when you become horny, you stop to think. It’s even scientifically proven that the closer to orgasm you are, the less your cognitive part of the brain works… and that men could be very easily manipulated to do something just to get release.

Well, you - as a dom - don’t “cut out the middle man” because there basically wouldn’t be any change to the sub. If he’s stupid, he’s easily manipulated. So there wouldn’t be any thrill of manipulating such person.

But we’re not talking about manipulating an intelligent person, rather this is taking an intelligent person and destroying that intelligence.

That’s a terribly dark thrill, even as fantasy. On par with stories in which the sub is surgically modified to be unable to resist, such as by amputating his limbs (such stories exist but are not allowed on this site).

I do think it’s fair to ask “why not cut out the middle man and just go for a guy who is already dumb.” And I think we can all admit that the reason is not because the story is about a dumb sub, it’s about destroying the mind of a functional sub.

That was pretty much my point~

I am more amenable to stories in which such dumbing down is merely temporary. Who is going to care for all these mentally disabled subs anyway? The overthinker in me struggles with these stories for a variety of reasons.

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The dark - incredibly dark - is actually to keep the sub intelligent, so he would be aware about how his life is ruined forever. The most frightening stories here are those in which the sub knows what’s happening to him and can’t do anything about it.

As I said before, such stories aren’t just dark, they are humiliating and evil. At least, when you make your victim dumb and unaware, they won’t suffer. Ignorance is a bliss.

And I’ve never had problem with who’s gonna take care of the disabled sub. Obviously the person who disabled them.

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To my mind, if the sub is going to be treated in such a way that they’d genuinely be better off as an imbecile, then nothing is going to rescue the story from being evil.

Most dumbing down stories do not have the sub being treated quite so horribly, but still as an essential element reduce his intelligence to the point where he is legitimately disabled (illiterate, can’t do basic math, no complete sentences etc.)

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Guilty – but I’ve always given them an amazing body in trade!

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You are certainly one of the authors who can give me a guilty erection. It’s a talent. :joy:

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You describe this beautifully. I’d like to read one of your dumbing down stories!