Tristan Taormino - The Ultimate Guide to Kink - BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge

I call my second recommended method “LILO,” which stands for “lie in; lie out.” (Any coders out there reading this? Recognize it? Remember GIGO?) This one’s pretty simple: if you manipulate the information going into the brain, it will make decisions consistent with that information. Obviously this method has a lot to do with both the Control the Info and Less Is More rules. Manipulating sight and sound is part of this technique, but it also involves useful lies like using a replica gun, switching their clothes for larger clothes in a shrinking scene, or just holding something sharp on the balls. Here’s my favorite example of LILO. I did this mindfuck class once where I pulled a victim from the audience and had her holding a small baggie with a little stick in it. I told the whole class about my recent experience with poison ivy (true), read aloud a whole bunch of shit about how nasty and pervasive the active ingredient is (true), talked about how it fucking drove me crazed to feel that itching (true). Then I put on rubber gloves and took out the stick, holding it very, very close to my victim’s skin. She was freaking out, especially when I finally touched her tits with it. Only then did I tell her it was some twig I had found outside the hotel—not poison ivy at all. Lie in; lie out.

Finally (and easiest of all), use silence. Silence just about equals mindfuck. It can be eerie, discomforting, and disturbing. For one thing, it deprives the brain of aural information. For another, we all know someone’s guilty when they plead the Fifth. Remember, the real psycho killer doesn’t tell it to rub the lotion on its skin. The real one doesn’t say anything at all. Just looks at you. Freaky fearful fun, that.

Now, the easiest way to put together all these rules and methods is to think of mindfuck as a kind of theater or performance sex. This means you need to think about plot, setting, props, characters, movement, and climax.

Plot’s a biggie because every mindfuck has a plot. The plot guides the events, structures the dynamic, and suggests the arc of the scene. The plot needs to be discussed but not scripted—there should always be room for improvisation. What’s great about plot is that we live in a culture of stories. That means that for any given plot in any given mindfuck the bottom already knows how it ends. And, because they do, that’s where their head goes. The moment you invade their home, they’re thinking about the rape. The moment you pull out the gun, they’ve already been shot. Thus any plot can be used to “make them mindfuck themselves.” But more basically, the plot lays out the scene.

Setting is important, too, but dammit, setting is tricky, because it’s often hard to get it authentic . For example, I don’t know how things are where you live, but by me all the best abandoned warehouses have already been converted into very trendy lofts. When it comes to setting, sometimes you just have to do the best you can—and sometimes that turns out to be even better. For example, I once played with this Jewish guy who wanted to be the kike to my Nazi. I thought about investing in the big swastika flag and all that; I even looked at a few online. But man, I knew if I bought that online my name would end up on some interesting lists—not just with the government but with some scary-assed companies. So, instead, I printed out a bunch of pages from White Power websites and highlighted some key passages. When the kike arrived, this material was lying on the coffee table. And you know what? It worked even better. Let’s face it, Nazis today don’t live in some freaking Reichstag. They live in apartments and condos and suburban houses. It ended up being a more realistic setting and the scene was fucking hot . Less Is More, you see?

Depending on the mindfuck, props can be really important too. Sometimes these are easy. Want someone to think you’re making them shrink? Give them clothes to wear at the start of the scene and have the exact outfit two sizes larger waiting for them at the end of the scene (all tags ripped out, of course). In a case like that, props make the scene. In all cases, consider what would be appropriate, and then also consider what can be approximated. Like good theater, believing can make something real. For example, one year at IML this guy in the lobby was totally freaking because a bud of mine was in uniform and had a plastic gun. The guy knew it was plastic but it still freaked him out. Control the Info, my friends. Replica guns look and feel very real. (They’re great for pistol-whipping, too.)

I’m a sick bastard so one of my favorite props is a body bag. I don’t mean a bondage bag or a sleepsack. I mean a body bag —you know, the kind they put your corpse in so that your decaying juices won’t get all over the place. What do I do with it? Nothing, really. I just leave it out. Let them see it. If they ask about it, I change the subject. Control the Info. Less Is More. (Told you I’d sound like a psycho killer. I’m not, really.)

If you’re the Top you’re also going to need to develop a character. This is like role play, with one minor, crucial difference: the Top is playing a role but the bottom absolutely cannot be. They just have to be themselves, because if they feel as if they’re playing a role they know it’s not real. But the Mindfucker needs to be absolutely convincing, and sometimes that means thinking inside the bottom’s head and then beyond it. Let me tell you about the psycho killer. He’s not angry; he doesn’t yell. That’s not how to freak out a bottom. Instead, the psycho killer is perfectly calm—a little too calm, if you know what I mean. Fucks them up every time.

I should point out that characters play a role primarily in fear-based mindfucks. In some fantasy-based ones, both of you might be playing a character. In faith-based ones, neither of you should, since it’s all about bringing trust and submission to a whole new level.

True for all mindfucks, though, is that you need movement (or development) and a climax: the scene has to be going somewhere. It might be someplace the bottom knows, or not. For example, in a castration scene, you’re clearly building up to a climax. How fast do you want to move to it? Whatcha gonna do when you get there? As the Top, you should plan these elements in advance and then direct the scene like a theater director.

Before any mindfuck you need to have communication. As a Top, you need to know what the bottom’s trip is and what makes their trip their trip. As a bottom, you need to think about the details. So you want to be kidnapped. Okay, but how? Grabbed and put in a van? Chloroformed? Spiked drink? The details make all the difference. The information should flow mostly one way, of course (see Rule One) but this communication is vital for the bottom too. Does this Top “get” you and your scene? Does she get your head space? You have to know before you show up.

And showing up takes some trust. Fuck, any good scene takes trust. In a mindfuck there needs to be some core of trust—but just enough. As I said before, there should be just enough trust for both parties to show up and start things off. More than that and it’s just going to get in the way. Now, sufficient communication will go a long way in building this trust, but different bottoms will need different levels of assurance. Of course the exception here is the faith-based mindfuck, which is all about trust, which builds on trust already in place.

The last thing you need to do before a mindfuck is have a plan. Spontaneous mindfucks are possible (just run into me at the bar and find out), but the better ones, the more elaborate ones, take some time, some thought, and often a lot of planning. The Top may need to gather specific resources; if nothing else, she should be planting suggestions about what may or may not happen in the bottom’s mind.