My boyfriend has been cloned. Two of him are dopple-gangbanging me while another watches. I'm lying on a circular bed with velvet blankets and satin pillows in what appears to be the cabin of a space ship. One of the clones has his head between my legs while the other kisses me and runs his fingers over my throat, my stomach, my nipples. The third clone sits nearby on a stool, reading out loud from a red book, pausing to watch every so often. I can't understand the words he's reading, but they sound Greek. Literature is hot. What am I doing here? Have I been abducted? Am I a part of some alien experiment? I don't care.
I'm biting my lip and digging my nails into the shoulders of Clone One (who is expertly probing my Virgo clitoral cluster) when I hear a familiar voice coming from some unknown part of the cosmos.
"When you're ready, I want you to leave the room and go into the hallway," says Dr. Amy Marsh, Board Certified Clinical Sexologist, hypnotist, hypnosis instructor and ex-Dean of Students at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. "Once you leave, you'll enter a second door where another erotic fantasy awaits you."
I pull myself from the titillating triplets, go to the second door and reach for the knob... (the door knob, you perverts). Even though my mind is telling me that I just had a freaky foursome with my boyfriend's clones �" in reality, I'm lying back in a chair in Marsh's East Bay office �" and I've been erotically hypnotized.
If you think this sounds hokey, I don't blame you. I'm a skeptic too. Having spent most of my life in the conservative confines of rural Maryland, my only exposure to hypnosis was through ridiculous TV shows and tales of Dracula. But this experience was actually nothing like I expected. When I was in a trance, it was like lucid dreaming. The subconscious ran amok and I just played in whatever environment my hypnotist constructed for me. It was trippy, hippy dippy, and sexy as fuck. It reminded me of why I moved to San Francisco.
So what exactly is erotic hypnosis? And why would anyone want to do it?
Unlike sexological hypnosis, which Marsh uses in her clinical sexology practice to help clients deal with sexual issues and dysfunction, erotic hypnosis is used more for recreation. It's good for exploring the naughty crevices of the mind, creating connection in relationships and adding variation to routine sex lives.
Marsh had a female client with polyamorous desires who was in a monogamous relationship. The client used erotic hypnosis on her male partner to bring out personality traits in him that he wouldn't usually express.
photo: Krissy Eliot
"She would feel like she was with a different person," Marsh said. "So she got her needs for variety met."
Erotic hypnosis is hot in the Bay Area BDSM community, because submissive partners or "bottoms" like to be turned into what Marsh jokingly calls "robot dollies" �" slaves to the will of their masters.
Chastity play, where bottoms are prohibited from sexual gratification, is a favorite of erotic hypnotists.
"Some people don't want to use hypnosis to have an orgasm," Marsh said. "They want hypnosis to ruin their orgasm."
I didn't want my orgasm ruined �" but I did want to see if erotic hypnosis was a hoax. And if it wasn't, I wanted to see if I could unlock a deep, sexy secret about myself that even I didn't know.
"What comes out in erotic hypnosis isn't actually sexual acts, but a glimmer of this erotic world that most of us barely ever touch," Marsh said. "What people have inside them is so much richer than they're (usually) aware of."
So where was I in my hypnosis story? Oh, right... So she tells me to leave the clones and go through a second door. I do, and find my boyfriend, again. But this time, he's not cloned �" and two of my sexy dude friends are with him. I relax on a bamboo chair, sitting on the patio of some futuristic dome-home. All three guys are shirtless and kneeling before me. They feed me fruit, recite poetry, massage my feet, and worship me as their goddess.
Wow, so �" I'm not completely narcissistic or anything.
Marsh's omniscient voice tells me to move on to the next fantasy.
I go through a third door and find myself stepping onto a white ledge overlooking a beautiful beach. (Is that a mermaid in the distance?) The three guys from the last fantasy climb up onto the ledge next to me. Then, out of nowhere, we all throw our arms out to our sides and fall forward. The world rips open and I'm suddenly dropping through the blackness of outer space. My whole body tingles and my crotch feels happy �" in a milky way.
Marsh tells me to exit the third fantasy and go get my reward for letting myself experience so much pleasure. I walk to a cabinet in the hallway and open it to see my surprise: Albert Camus' The Stranger covered in fondue. I'm really into smart guys. I lick the book.
Marsh tells me to tap my left pinky with my right index finger and come up with a descriptive word to encompass my experience.
I say, "Otherworldly."
She explains that by tapping my pinky, I'm anchoring the experiences to a body part, allowing me to trigger memories of the fantasies any time I want.
So if you see me tapping my pinky in the freezer aisle of Trader Joe's, just know �" I'm being dirty.
So what did I learn from this cerebral cluster-fuck? That I'm even more gay for space than I thought. I also have a fetish for the literati.
Take me to your leader, sexy earthlings. Call me Krissy, the Robot Dolly.
To register for upcoming hypnosis events, sex coaching and counseling with Dr. Marsh, visit www.dramymarshsexologist.com.
Readers can contact Krissy by email at class=Hyperlink0>[email protected] and view her previous work at www.krissyeliot.com.