My personal struggle

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Fucking amazing post @FiddlerBear

Really, top shelf honesty.

One piece of advice I have is (if this is any good to you. I might be way of course); Let the ‘other people’ think the thing; don’t preempt it.

As in, you seem to spend a lot of your time explaining yourself, then reading over your explanation, then adding an edit you feel ‘needs to be added’ to adjust for what ‘they’ will think reading it.

If you take a deep breath and look at what your doing, you’ll see that those ‘they’ are all product testers in your firm, on your payroll.

The twitter doxxers about to strike you, and the people here on GSS reading that post above who ‘needed those edits you added’. No one here has in fact said “wait a minute! it’s import you tell us how things ended up with this guy!”

Them scrutinizers you’re editing for, are employees in your own building. You probably hired them as extra troubleshooters, legal defense and prelaunch critics, etc, to stop yourself doing the kinds of things that blew your life up so catastrophically in your formative years (but for your very understanding would-be-abusee).

Second point, and this one is more general, and I’m half talking to myself here. When whatever happens to us, happens to us in our formative years, it seems to stick.
I wish it didn’t, but it seems it does. I have residual father issues that will probably never fully go away. I have protective instincts for others that will never fully fade (even when it’s a stranger who needs help and it’s none of my business). I will always be slightly arrogant and head strong, etc, etc,

I can adjust psychologically until the cows come home, but the “animal me” will always remember the physical and emotional shapes and project that onto any other trauma or stress within 100km of me, automatically, before I catch myself and adjust for all the learning I’ve done since. Stuff like how to behave as an adjusted adult.

It’s good that you

don’t want to hurt anyone again.

It’s not ideal if the anxiety of not fully trusting yourself ever is constantly clawing at your every sexual encounter.

Forgive yourself for what you did; you were a dumb kid and you eventually learned from it (it took you a bit to learn, but learn you eventually did).

Forgive yourself and endeavour to ‘own your own destiny’. New sheriff in town; You’re not that 12~16 y.o. anymore. You’re an adult; forgive yourself, love yourself, and allow yourself to make that transition into living as a self-regulating, enlightened adult in command of his own sexual destiny from now on.
And if you’ve already done this, then good for you dude! :grin:

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42

I can relate. I was raised Catholic and even today I still think of masturbation as a sin and I’m 53. The stuff that happens growing up does get etched into our psyches. I struggle with the morality of my writing but I can say one bit of advice I received about it. The fact that you are questioning and searching yourself shows you are a man of character and thoughtfulness.[Paraphrasing] ’ A truly bad person would never dare to look inside and have doubts. The fact that you have doubts means you are creative, humble, and compassionate.’ I hope this helps. I understand though that it often takes a while for things to work their way inside the multilayered onion that is our minds.

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my struggle

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I’m late to this but in my case, I told my close friends and family already about my writing. I didn’t want them to read what I’ve written though. The thing is, I’m still proud of my writing and it’s a bit annoying that people are still so prude nowadays that they stigmatize this genre of writing. As if it wasn’t real writing. It is exactly the same skills that are involved in writing those stories, the same as writing any genre fiction. Even literary fiction benefits from those skills too. I don’t feel like it should be a source of shame, so I pre-empted the whole thing. The reaction is uncomfortable support from these people typically. I don’t think I would keep anyone close to me who would react in a worse way than this. These kinds of revelations can be really beneficial to identify who are your real friends, it can allow you to do a good house cleaning.

Right now I’m exploring a bit more the morality question and struggles in my stories. Some people dislike it because it breaks the magic of the fantasy a bit, but that’s just how my writing evolved.

I thought we were rid of this people who play violent games are more likely to become violent rhetoric, which was always debunked. But now the tought policing is so strong that there’s deliberate effort to control what we are exposed to in terms of ideas because we might not be grown up enough to deal with it properly and make up our own minds. Such a step backwards.

I’ve had a straight friend in my life whom I told 15 years ago and is a bit younger, in his thirties now. Recently he contacted me because he thought that because he fit some of the criteria of the people controlled in my stories that I had been ‘grooming’ him just by telling him about having written them. Of course, it must have been a real long-term grooming because he only reached out to me 15 years later to try some sexting. It went all according to plan, mwahaha.

The thing is, most of us create these fantasies in our heads and in text not because that’s the way we would act in those same situations, but because we know we would not act like that in those situations. We indulge in stimulating what if scenarios that are stimulating mostly because they are fictitious and we avoid all the real life stuff that would make it less perfect and magical. For most people here, writers and readers, none of that stuff is things they wish would happen in their real life (although they might wish it would happen in as magical a way in some sort of pocket universe that would not influence their real life).

Anytime I’ve even come close to abusing the trust of someone at 1% the level at which it’s done in my stories, I’ve felt miserable. I’d never be happy acting out these things in real life even if possible. It’s not evil to enjoy things. Many moral warriors from religion or the new religious-like ideologies of today are miserable and want everyone to be as miserable as they are and so they label everything that is enjoyable as evil and bad. Don’t play their game. I know who I am. I know I wouldn’t be able to do things to someone without their consent even though, sometimes, I fantasize about it precisely because when I fantasize about it there is no consequences.

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45

Hundred of pics? Hahaha. I have a 500 Gb external drive full of videos and images because I don’t trust online sources to still be there the next day, I keep everything. I always forget to tell my brother to erase that drive if something happens to me.

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That is a lot of pics. I find my standards going higher as I try to pick only the “best photos” which I think is also linked to my desire to not be obsessed with muscles etc. My mind is like “oh a naked jock, how boring.” That seems to my justification in what pics I do copy.

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47

In a way, I think talking about one’s fantasies is similar to coming out to one’s family. One hopes that their love for you will override any details about your thoughts. But as many stories have revealed, that’s not always the case, and sometimes the results can be unpleasant. One question I would have is why one feels the need to reveal this information to others, particularly when the response will be unexpected.

Mind control by itself is absolutely old. Ever hear of Trilby and Svengali? Even in the 1890s mind control captivated people so much that there have been multiple plays/musicals/movies made of that story. I’m sure many of us can recall numerous movies or television episodes involving mind control. The only thing new is the combination of mind control with a sexual context (although that’s also understated in Trilby).

Nevertheless, I think it is extremely brave of you to have revealed such information. It’s really a challenge to the other people to recognize that you’re absolutely the same person who has entrusted them with deeply personal information. I hope they are able to recognize the trust you put in them.

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I don’t think it’s new. The thought of mind control always had a deeply sexual angle. From both sides. I think controlling people and being controlled triggers the very same areas of the brain as sex itself, power and submission are directly wired to the pleasure center.

It’s more a matter of understanding and admitting that, and even more so, do that in public.

It’s seen as shameful to admit your personal kinks and what turns you on, as it reveals that, in the end, you’re just the same mess of hormones and irrational desires as everyone else. But we all try to uphold a public image of the serene, controlled person, which - in the end - is always just pretense.

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I’ve heard of Svengali. It’s now also a term to describe manipulative people like cult leaders.

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I think my point is that for most of us, a big part of the fantasy is that it’s a fantasy, that it’s not only “what if I could do these things” but “what if I could do these things and not care about the immorality of it and in a world where it all goes smoothly and there’s no consequences”. Because of that, these fantasies are harmless, they’re not a slippery slope to actual non-consensual sex in real life, they do not encourage that at all. In a lot of these fantasies, the same means of control are used to make people forget, what some people call an happy ending, and that’s another sign that part of the fantasy is to be able to cause no lasting harm. I think the mind control kink, for gays, is often a means of coping with the fact that only 10% of the population that we are attracted to are actually available to us. We want to be able to fulfill our desires without harming anyone, so although non-consentual, it’s not essentially rape really. Of course, there are lots of exceptions to everything I said, a lot of diversity of kinks.

I enjoyed the part in @EdIam ‘s “I Love Him But…” where the controller made the controlled control him briefly to remove his moral sense of wrong so he could enjoy things freely.

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I agree, fantasy is one thing and I think it is super heathy but doing it for real? I would like to think we know the difference. You’re braver than I am, telling people what you write, not in a million years could I do that.

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If I did start writing porn, and it ever came up so that my friends learned that I did, well, I’m pretty sure most of my friends would ask to see it. Most of us have kinks in common, though sadly not hypnosis. Not so, for yours? Or did you have to tell any curious friends that you weren’t comfortable sharing it with them?

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Most of my friends are straight, so the only queer person who knows I write is my husband. He asked if I’d be interested in sharing, I said no.

On one hand, I’d love to have a whole group of friends into my kinks. On the other hand, I kinda like keeping my kinks secret.

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I have just started “coming out” to my gay friends as into hypnosis and erotic fiction. My group of friends is relatively kinky (pup play, bondage, varying degrees of open/poly). The response I got was mostly a big shrug. On one hand, it was nice, because I didn’t feel judged at all. On the other hand, I was disappointed that I didn’t have many people to share my kink with.

There were only 2 interested people: My partner, who slowly gotten into hypno stories a little, and a friend who is into real-life hypno sessions only. Unfortunately, I prefer to keep my hypno entirely in the realm of fantasy, so I stick to my stories.

I think that connects to the first point on this thread: I don’t have any moral concerns or worries about reading and writing stories on this site, because they are in the realm of fantasy. The stories I enjoy mainly involve kinky-but-impossible ideas around non-consent. Even for the more ‘realistic’ stories, I would be horrified if I thought anything like that was going on in real life (outside of fantasy roleplay).

I think if you are aware of the line between fantasy and reality AND clear on consent in roleplay scenarios, you have no reason to feel guilty about your kinks.

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I’ve told my close friends (most of whom are straight).

I don’t bother go into it with partners. My real-life sexual tastes are so vanilla compared to what I write about, there’s almost no bridge between, you know?

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Years ago I developed what has become a life-long fetish with boots (and leather). I was afraid of wearing boots outside because, frankly, wearing boots to me was like walking around with my dick exposed.

Then one day a friend pointed out to me: “To you your boots may seem a dick; but to everyone else, it’s just a pair of shoes.” That’s generally the way I’ve dealt with fetishes. :slight_smile:

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Ok. I’m off to get into my full drone rubber suit. I need some stuff from the groceries!

(just kidding, I really appreciate your advice and I generally agree… I wish it were always that easy to live one’s fetish though!)

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Spent months trying to figure out how to add my take to this thread, because I think that my tf writing contributed to my relationship breaking down.

My ex knew about the site from near the beginning of our relationship. He’s not into TF at all, so I think it was one of those “to everyone else it’s just a pair of shoes” situations. He didn’t get it, didn’t want to get it, and let me keep my use of the site private.

Back in July I started posting tf stories on Tumblr and had some good success. It was the first time in almost 10 years that I felt really excited to write fiction, and I did a degree in Creative Writing during the last decade. As I wrote more and started making friends in the community with people whose writing I’d looked up to for years, I started realising that my kinks run a little deeper than I had thought, and I am definitely less monogamous than I’d thought.

My ex really didn’t like that I had unilaterally decided to post my writing and get involved in the community. It seemed like infidelity to him. We had some bad fights in September and I decided to take a break from writing to focus on him. By November it became clear that our values and needs were never going to align, so I moved back in with my parents this week.

Our friends sort of took sides (we had the sort of fight that results in friends knowing about what’s triggering the conflict). Some of them considered that my writing erotica was a totally normal way to explore my sexuality, while others treated it as if I had been fucking other guys in our bedroom.

I don’t know if this really has a point, haha. I just wanted to get it off my chest. The relationship probably wasn’t gonna last indefinitely anyway, but I can’t help feeling like my insistence on writing tf porn kinda caused the final rift, you know?

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59

While relationships often involve some degree of compromise, no partner should ever require you to make a choice between them and a hobby you find enjoyable. You have every right to write whatever you wish; it’s unfortunate that your partner and some of your friends don’t see it that way. I can’t imagine why someone would feel like writing porn is cheating on them. That completely baffles me. :man_shrugging:

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Thank you for allowing us this insight into your personal struggles. And I guess many of us can relate in some ways.

I faced similar challenges, for me it’s not just about writing erotica, I also happen to host one of the most notorious kink erotica sites on the web :slight_smile:

My husband is very tolerant and doesn’t care about me writing, reading and wanking to erotica or other porn. Thank heavens. But he doesn’t share ANY of my kinks, which makes our sex life rather bland. I love him, I adore his body, but I can never fullfill my kink fantasies with him. He tried, he just can’t.

We were talking about having an open relationship, he agreed under certain conditions (like only save, even with him, etc.). But I never implemented that either. We’re living in the same house, I just can’t imagine telling him, “dear, I’m leaving now, fucking some other guy…”.

So, as with any relationship, we have to find some middle ground. I live my kinks only virtually (in stories and porn), he doesn’t interfere or judge me. And we’re living a happy life as a couple.

You shouldn’t feel guilty and you shouldn’t blame your writing for your breakup. This guy was not the right partner for you. He tried to own you, forcing his values onto you. It’s not his right to do that. So you were right in ending this, even if this is hurtfull for you. In the end, it will be the best way!

I hope you’ll find someone to share your kinks with. And then I will be endlessly envious of you :slight_smile:

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