People Are Using YouTube Hypnosis Videos to Help Reach Orgasm

She's telling you to feel her voice "pouring over your mind." Feel a "pulsating heat" that starts at your crotch and streams through the rest of your body, she says. It's in your stomach, legs, toes, arms, fingertips and finally your chest. It grows stronger with every breath. She wants you to imagine "looking deeply into the eyes of someone whom you desire above all else. Look into their eyes, taste their scent, feel the feather-like brush of their skin against yours."

So commands the soft-spoken female narrator of a popular YouTube video called "Erotic Hypnosis for an INTENSE ORGASM." Set against a whirling, mesmerizing red and black spiral, the unnamed woman promises viewers that she will grant them sexual climax through hypnosis. It sounds like a tall order, but believe it or not, lots of people are watching — and, presumably, getting off.

Erotic hypnosis is far from being a random, one-off video destined to disappear into the Internet's dark void. It's part of a keen community of YouTube kinksters. Searching for "erotic hypnosis" on YouTube — the video-sharing platform famous for keyboard cats, dramatic gophers and Justin Bieber — yields over 20,000 results. 

Full of trippy rotating spirals, titillating photos, written instructions and authoritative narrators, the videos dangle the promise of sexual gratification in front of hungry viewers — and viewers eat it up.

"The subconscious mind is capable of directing your emotional, physical and sexual functions," the narrator explains. "And right now, the best thing for you to do — to get as [much] pleasure as possible out of this recording — is to allow me to direct your subconscious mind."

Some videos feature porny photos of scantily clad women in bed; in others, anime characters lie languidly smoking hookah together. Some are all about the classic hypnotic spiral; in others, that spiral is superimposed onto a pair of buttocks. "Erotic Hypnosis Hands Free Subliminal Brainwashing," advertises one. Another clip features a "Hypnotic Relaxation Session" with a "Vampire Seductress," while yet another assures you, midway through, that you'll "remember your lesson, slave."

The comment sections are filled with effusive praise. "When she said the vampire was biting me, I acculy [sic] felt a little 'shock' through my neck," marveled one viewer after watching the vampire seductress. "That felt sooooo good oh my god I loved it I wanted more," reported a different viewer. "Well, it worked. ... Made a mess," offered another.

What is erotic hypnosis, exactly? Put simply, it's a way of using hypnosis to bring out and satisfy sexual desires. It can be performed in person with professional hypnotists, as well as through women called hypnodommes, who sell erotic hypnosis recordings for as much as $70 a pop to a fleet of eager customers. 

The YouTube community, however, takes more of a grassroots approach. Free to watch, the videos are made by users who offer a broad range of samplings. Lisa West's videos, for example, tend to veer toward the bizarre end of the spectrum; many of her videos mention cats, and her comment sections are full of people saying "meow." Jacqueline Powers opts for a more streamlined and orderly approach to her content; almost all of it uses the same bright pink spiral, and her body of work is organized by category. Still other accounts are helmed by identity-less operators and go by vague usernames like "Hypno Videos" and "hypnoplay."

Watching an erotic hypnosis video is a curious experience. They can feature phrases like "You continue to crave, and you crave to continue," mind-bending visuals and sassy commands. It often feels like someone is right there with you, experiencing what you're experiencing — a much different sensation from more passive and voyeuristic traditional pornography.

While each video differs in content, each is explicitly sexual. Yet these are not your typical naughty videos; there's a noticeable lack of graphic material, and they rely on sounds and the spoken word rather than nudity and smut. They want to get you to your special place using the power of your own mind — an especially difficult task when the only thing goading you along is a flight-attendant-esque voice coming from your speakers, urging you to breathe deeply and let go of your inhibitions.

Some users, however, manage to get the most out of it. A few of the more popular accounts, like Lisa West and Jacqueline Powers — who have over 2,000 and over 25,000 subscribers, respectively — appear to have relationships with their commenters fueled by power dynamics. Many commenters refer to the women as their mistresses ("Yes, mistress. The Walken obeys you"; "Mistress I want to be your empty vessel. However, can I please touch. that was so hard not to do"), while others continually compliment the hypnotists on their craft.

The videos are relatively scattered, and there are erotic hypnosis videos for seemingly every group: foot fetishists, submissives, massage enthusiasts, erotic dreamers and even tentacle porn enthusiasts. 

It's all about discipline and practice. Despite the eagerness present in the comment sections, it appears as though practice makes perfect when it comes to erotic hypnosis. (The research for this story, for what it's worth, yielded nothing in the way of "results.") 

As one commenter put it, "It does work, though as with all hypnosis it may take time and repeated listening for it to do so and may require experimentation with a few different sessions to find the one that pushes your buttons."

According to one client of a hypnodomme, the scene attracts fans who are seeking new thrills and don't mind a challenge.

"This scene is not for everybody," the client told Vice in March. "You have to train and practice in order to achieve something. Some people are more suggestible than others and experience trance differently. Through training and repetition, you will probably reach your goals, but if you go into the adventure half-hearted, your rewards might be limited."

Well, there's always Pornhub.

Check out a selection of erotic hypnosis videos below: