In my new story The Victorian Duplex I explore using fantastical mind control (hypnosis) indirectly, as a means of controlling a man’s inner circle to help influence that man, through non-fantastical manipulation, to do what the controller wants. I was wondering which stories here explore something like that. It’s a weird hybrid, it’s not a fake hypnosis story, it’s not a story without mind-control, it’s like mind-control assisted psychological manipulation.
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Also, do you find this kind of “low-tech”, less efficient, limited way of influencing someone, hot? It’s almost the opposite of those methods where men become numbered robots with no personality.
One aspect of it is that it’s non-coercive, the target is influenced but not actually controlled or forced. His actions are therefore consensual.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a story where hypnosis was used to influence the object of love’s inner circle instead of hypnotizing said person. The closest I remember reading always has had the desired man to end up hypnotized as well.
One example could be @EdIam’s “I think…” series. If remember correctly, from the second chapter onward the controller captures and transforms each member of the Petersen family, leaving the main target, the father, for the end. Yet I don’t think the side conquests were there to influence the father. They were just exhibits of power, and a test to what he could do.
To me the only condition for the path you’re proposing to work is that the targeted man has at least a potential interest towards homosexual love or sex. Him being gay, fluid, bi, or pan, for instance.
That or on the darker side, getting to the extents of using the inner circle to blackmail the target or to put him in a spot where they must obey otherwise something terrible may happen to him or the people he loves.
I like your take better 
It might be a question of definitions, but I don’t see the main target, Caleb, in my story as fluid, bi or pan. I think he never at any point experiences sexual attraction for the controller, Julius.
Spoiler
Two things occur, Caleb develops a genuine deep friendship for Julius because he is in awe of him and he feels himself evolving in his presence, but that’s not a gay thing, he is even surprised when he does learn that Julius is gay. The second thing is that Julius manipulated him into a gay for pay situation, so that’s the only reason he has sex with Julius at all.
It is possible to have sex with love but without desire. Usually though, there must be some external motivation to do so, like in this case.
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Asexual people exist, and they can have sex but need not enjoy it. For example because they were blackmailed into a gay for pay situation.
I did want to leave a comment responding to your very first post in the thread. Psychological manipulation as mind control, that is probably one of the most dangerous topics you could put onto this site because it’s realistic. Hypnosis, telepathy, pheromones, technology which rewrites people’s brains, these are all safe to dismiss as kinky fantasy. But breaking down someone’s resistance with manipulations, destroying their self-worth so they can be pliant, well, that’s pretty much textbook abuse.
Fortunately, that’s kinda the opposite of what happens in my story. But you’re right that there are ways that manipulation as a device could be too realistic for a kinky fantasy. I used manipulation more as a non-destructive influence, a sort of gentle nudge towards behaviors that the target would have been willing to indulge in. No coercion at all. The type of manipulation you described would be out of line for this site and would never interest me anyway.
Agreed. I think where it gets a little bit tricky is when someone is doing a Dom/sub scenario with no fantasy elements otherwise in the story, and the Dom is of course putting some pressure on the sub to be compliant. So I think that it’s important as erotica writers to be aware of the potential for abuse and make sure it’s a fantasy.
In fact, the ending of the story gives awareness of some incidental damage on someone the characters had not realized, and it becomes a sign for them that it is time to stop.
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