Back to Second Life

It has been, as you can no doubt tell, many moons since I've posted to my blog. I apologize for that.

Definitely, I enjoy writing, and posting here on my blog was fun for me. Unfortunately, some personal circumstances forced me to focus on real life for a time.

Now I'm back and I look forward to continuing the conversation regarding what it means to be a second life submissive. Certainly, there has been no reduction in the number of people in second life with an interest in hypnosis and submission (and combinations of the two). Interestingly, when I left sl for a while, my "Second Life Submissives" group was about 16 people. While I was gone, it grew amazingly to over 70.

There seems to be an intense interest in this lifestyle and a great deal of interest in hypno submission. I'll talk more on this in a minute.

First let me affirm that I am still a sub in heart and mind. I don't think this will ever change for me. I don't think it's ever been any other way. It's just that, for most of my life, I never understood that about myself. In the real world, I was never able to express that part of myself, so it was a part of myself that remained dormant.

So I discovered this about myself in sl, felt increasingly that I wanted it to be part of my real life, but, for months, have not been able to express it in either world. I have a life, I have responsibilities, and I have commitments which I've made and must keep. So I continue to hold my submissive urges in check.

My previous mistress was understanding when I let her know I had to leave sl for a while. But even now, having returned, I realize I don't have time to be the kind of submissive I want to be.
I can't devote myself to someone because my real life is too set and too demanding.

Frustrating, but there it is.

Someday I may be free to immerse myself in the D/s lifestyle, but for now, I wait. That said, I still flirt with the lifestyle in sl, but my friends see in me the hesitation and the emotional toll of wanting to really become a submissive but not being able to become a submissive. On this, however, I just don't have a choice. We must all live with the decisions we've made.

So, back to the topic of Hypno Submission. This lifestyle seems to have really gained a lot of steam in the past six months. You can now see the emergence of better and better tools and techniques to help trance submissives, and some of these tools are very impressive.

One of the best I've yet seen was created by Viridian Dryke who runs a store called "Standard Deviations." V created a HypnoHUD device that you can wear and a spiral covers your entire visual field, with a nice soothing background hum along with the visual.

The real innovation, however, is that another person can wear a controller HUD, allowing the dom to control scripts used and to even insert their own text at will as part of the trance process. It allows for a very personal session between two people, and I have yet to see anything like it.

Tools like this are becoming increasingly available and I see more and more individuals visiting places like HypnoDolls to learn more about this particular practice. It is perfectly natural, in my opinion, for subs like myself to gravitate towards hypnosis as there is a very real process of submission to another person, and you leave yourself open to the other person to a considerable degree.

I like hypnosis because I think it's very sensual. To me, hypnosis is a form of seduction, and that is one of the things that seems to resonate with my personality. I really enjoy the seductive nature of hypnosis and, when I feel safe, I wholeheartedly give myself over to trance.

We'll talk about what it means to be "safe" on another day.

For now, however, suffice it to say that I think many, if not most, submissives could be taught to enjoy hypnosis. If you have an interest, feel free to IM me.

I've also asked Viridian Dryke in the past to coach and counsel my fellow subs in the art of hypno submission. I don't think he would mind if you stopped by his store sometime to ask him about it.

On Becoming a Sub...

In another couple of weeks I'll have been in SL all of four months. To be honest, I did play around in SL about a year ago. I joined, spent a few days exploring, decided the whole thing was boring, complicated, and made no sense, and stopped.

I don't even remember what my old name was from that time, I just forgot about it. But then I began reading articles all over about SL and ways that the community of users was growing, so I came back. I started out again in the rough, not knowing where to go or what to do really.

But I did find some areas that I considered to be fun. Hypno Dolls was then and still is one of my favorite hangouts. If you read my previous post, you know that I'm into hypnosis and submission and that I've given it a lot of thought. The fact is, there are some fascinating tools to be found in SL for hypnosis, and a very active group of those who use those tools to induce others or be induced into hypnosis.

So I spent more and more time at Hypno Dolls and began to think about what it might be like to play either the Domme or the sub role. I did a little bit of each with other part-timers like myself, but either way I was not satisfied.

Second Life can be quite hollow if you do not connect on a personal level with others, and I had not done that yet. When I tried, I often found, not rejection, but just apathy. An attitude of "we do this when we feel like it," rather than a serious desire to explore these roles.

More and more I began to gravitate towards the sub role, but could not find a serious Domme to connect with emotionally or physically. Truth be told, I longed for the emotional connection more than the physical. There was this hunger in me that was very new to me, and I wanted to find a way to satisfy it.

But at least I was connecting with others on some level. I satisfied myself with that and continued to expand my horizons and explores the endless reaches of SL. And I did what I tend to do best, I shopped.

One day, I began shopping for an anatomically correct part for my avatar and stopped by a shop to see the "FireBrand Venus." When I walked into the store, another woman began immediately chatting with me and asking for help to figure out how to get the product.

I won't tell you my real age but please understand that, while I was born at night, I was NOT born last night. My gut told me this person was trying to get me to buy her something. So I just chatted and played ignorant myself. What can I say, I can look stupid if I want.

If she had just asked me to buy her the Venus directly without any games, I probably would have. It was just 400 lindens after all.

But, nope, she was trying to play me, and I don't like being played. Not that way at least.

About five minutes later, however, the store's owner, Vee, appeared. I think she was in the area working and saw us there, so she came to see if she could help us.

As soon as I saw her, I found myself being very attracted to her. Maybe it was her sense of style. Perhaps it was just her presence. She was rather quiet, but still, I just felt her presence.

I won't go into the way Vee handled the scammer. I will say she was perfectly polite and helpful every second of the time the other person was there. But eventually they gave up trying to scam her, and left.

Suddenly I was alone with this woman who I felt so attracted to. We talked and I just wanted to be near her. It was weird, but also quite powerful.

I was hoping that perhaps I had found a Domme who would be interested in me. But when I asked if she was a Domme, she told me she was a sub who belonged to a Domme.

She did, however, invite me back to her place and showed me around. Perhaps she understood that I was a sub seeking a Mistress.

While we were talking, her Mistress showed up and I was introduced. I found myself getting very excited and hopeful. I wanted not only to meet someone who was a serious Domme, but also someone who would be willing to take me into her family. This woman was obviously a Domme. You could see it and feel it.

At one point, Vee kneeled before her Mistress while I stood nearby watching. What should I do? I had no idea!

I wanted to go and kneel before her too; wanted that with every part of me. But I could not assume such a thing. Then Vee's Mistress called me over and told me to join them. So I kneeled down as well and it was thrilling. I loved kneeling down before this Mistress. It felt so good to submit to her.

Vee's Mistress began asking me questions.

She asked me if I was attached to anyone, if I had ever served as a sub before, and several other questions. I did not realize at that time that this Mistress was making sure I was not already owned. True Dommes have a serious code they follow, and unless a sub has been given their freedom, they will not be taken in by another Mistress or Master.

Of course, I had never been taken by anyone before, so Mistress agreed to take me on to train me; first on a preliminary basis. Perhaps later, I was told, she would collar me and take me as her own if I were found to be suitable.

I was so excited. The very fact that Mistress did not simply collar me and say "okay, you're mine now," told me this was a real Domme. Eventually Mistress did Collar me and did take me as her own, and that was a wonderful day for me.

I love the sub lifestlye. While I cannot practice it in real life, in SL, I belong to my Mistress. It is a pleasure to kneel before her, and to tell her I love her, and to just spend time with her. It is not about the physical, for me it is all about the emotional.

And Mistress knows that about me. She knows she does not have to bed me to make me happy. I offered my submission and she accepted it. She has taken the time to understand my needs and my desires, and I love her for that.

But understand this, even if I did not love her, I would still serve my Mistress. I understand this about myself, that I am a sub.

I have no wish to ever be a Domme. I'm not a Domme in training or any such thing. I am a sub now and will be always. And while I'm still learning about sl and the code that I must follow as a sub, I'm very happy to be in this role.

It is funny, because I don't even remember when exactly Mistress collared me. And it does not matter to me. I'm just happy to belong to Mistress, and happy to be sister to Vee.

Submissively yours,

Chels

True Subs/True Dommes

In Second Life, there are many who play at being either a sub or a dom/domme. They think of themselves as part-timers.

I would argue that you're a sub or you're not. You're a Dom/Domme, or you're not.

I first entered Second Life some months ago, beginning my journey like so many others, thinking the place was just a message board on steroids. Then I began meeting various people and learning how vast and very complex is the world of Second Life (SL).

And I discovered that people were beginning to step outside of their limitations there. So I thought, perhaps, I would also.

One aspect that has always been a secret part of my life is the whole sub-culture of hypno/hypnosis. In college, I experimented with hypnosis for a while as part of my psychology program. I found that hypnotizing others was much easier than I had ever thought it could be. But after college, I left it all behind. At least, I left it mostly behind.

But over all the years from then till now, I still thought about it. It inhabited my fantasies and most secret thoughts. And I did a lot of additional research on the subject; not just of hypno domination, but of domination and submission in general.

One of the most relevant studies on the subject was performed by Stanley Milgram in 1961, just as Adolph Eichmann's trial began in Jerusalem for his acts against Jews in WWII. Eichmann's defense, which mirrored the defense of thousands of others who were part of the Nazi war camps, was simply that he was "following orders."

This defense was so prevalent that Milgram wondered if perhaps submission to authority wasn't a more powerful factor than previously thought. The experiment he crafted at Yale University could never be performed today due to the ethical questions his experiments raised, but what we can learn from this research is enlightening.

Here is a description of the experiment that Milgram ran, in his own words:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

When you read the details of what went on during the study, you cannot help but be amazed at how subjects behaved. Despite the fact they fully believed they were taking part in a memory experiment using electric shocks with real subjects (the subjects were actually part of the research team and were pretending to feel pain), they continued to deliver mounting levels of electric current as directed by the "authority" figure, played by a researcher in a white lab coat.

Here is a telling quote regarding the results of Milgram's first experiment on authority:

Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. All of the poll respondents believed that only a sadistic few (average 1.2%) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock.

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock [emphasis mine], though many were very uncomfortable doing so. At some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. No participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level.

So, what does this say about us as human beings? It is hard to say. Perhaps it says that many of us respond naturally to authority. Obviously, this can be both good and bad.

When it comes to hypnosis, this tells me that -- while it is true people cannot be made to do things they truly do not wish to do -- people will go much farther than they first believed if they have given another authority over themselves. Ultimately, people will go farther than even they might believe; under the right circumstances at least.

This is a long aside, but one that is very relevant to my discussion on true subs vs. true doms/dommes. After wandering through some of the various highways and byways of SL -- my favorite being Wildefire Walcott's Desperation Isle -- and experimenting both as a domme and a sub, I know that I am a true sub.

I find that, for me, serving my Mistress is pleasure; that her wishes are my desires. I have left behind most of my hypno fantasies because I don't need them any longer. I have a Mistress who adores me and I adore her. I will do things for her that I would not do for any other because I have given her authority over me.

And that is the difference between a true sub and a part-time sub. I do not roleplay while I'm in SL; I do not play games with my Mistress's heart. I love her and she loves me.

I have CHOSEN to submit and she has accepted my submission and my service. And this choice -- freely made and freely accepted -- makes all the difference.

In addition, my Mistress does not play the Domme role, she is a Domme. And so my desire to serve is perfectly matched with her desire to be served, and we both appreciate the gifts we offer each other.

Please don't think this is an unnatural thing. It is very natural, with duties and responsibilities for all involved.

I've made my choice based on the fact that I know my heart's desire. I cannot follow that desire in the real world, but I've found that I can fully express it in SL. And with that I'm very content.

Submissively yours,

Chels Blanco

Welcome to Second LIfe Submissive...

Welcome to my blog. My name is Chels Blanco and I am a "Second Life" submissive. What is "Second Life" and what is a submissive?

• Second Life is "Web 2.0." It is literally the next step in the evolution of the Internet. In 1994 and 1995, the appearance of the Mosaic and Netscape web browsers served as the foundation for the first Internet boom. Here in the early 21st century, the news "browsers" are services like Second Life, which serves as browser, platform, and even operating system for people all over the world.
• A "submissive" is someone who derives pleasure from, in a sense, belonging to a master or a mistress. Being a submissive in Second Life means, for most of us, wearing a collar, identifying our submissive status in our profiles, kneeling before our masters or mistresses, and various other forms of verbal and physical submission. We submit to our Dom (if they are male) or to our Dommes (female).

In the real world, I am not what you would consider submissive. I'm certainly a team player, and also quite competitive with my team members. In Second Life, I have a loving Mistress -- my Domme -- whom I love and serve. When I go "in-world" as you might often hear, I get to express a part of my self that exists in the real world, but has never been expressed.

Which is why, in the real world, I have no idea what the world of BDSM is like. I must, unfortunately, keep my two worlds seperate.

Except for this blog. This blog is my bridge between the worlds of Second Life and real life.

Submissively Yours,

Chels