CNC Relationships and Dynamics in Hypnosis and Conditioning

Resource by Sera Deep
Trigger / Content Warnings: Discussion of coercion, abuse, and consent violation. Some discussion of specific CNC activities including interrogation, punishment, consensual blackmail kink, emotional masochism, and more. Rape role-play is mentioned but not a focus (despite the misconception of CNC as another term for rape role-play, it’s just one of many things under the umbrella of CNC)

Disclaimers and Caveats and Overview

• When writing beginner-level resources, I recognize that the truths within will always be partial in nature, but try to make the resource more helpful than it is harmful or misleading by nature of being incomplete.
  • No one is an “expert.” I’m one person, and this is one framework. There are many other valid frameworks and ways to look at things which I also value.
• Class Description: Many people have the fantasy of, or are in dynamics, with heavy conditioning involved as a part of power exchange. This conditioning often undermines some aspects of traditional qualified consent. How do you stay communicative and play safer when consent has been intentionally, mutually compromised? This presentation explores traditional qualified consent, the ways it can be damaged by dynamics with lasting change and conditioning, and provides additional safety models and tools for both tops and bottoms for dynamics that operate in ways where permission is not enough.
• Basically, we are talking about Consensual Non-consent dynamics.
• Content warnings may include: “Consensual abuse,” old-school brainwashing like sleep deprivation and gaslighting, and generally edgeplay of all sorts. This isn’t a presentation that’s particularly hypnotic language-y, but it is edgeplay. We are also talking about consent violation in this class, and some of the words used to discuss things may be shocking if you are not used to CNC approaches to kink. I embrace the extremes. I consider it a fantastic experience if I’m left with nightmares or traumatic reactions to mundane things in my daily life. I present with the belief that if you thoroughly introspect on what you want and how to explain it, why you want it and what emotional needs it fulfills, and seek it with awareness, it’s okay to want what you want.
• The presentation is in three main parts–Part 1 is defining and discussing consent. Part 2 is discussing how dynamics focused around manipulation and conditioning undermine that, and ways that can manifest. Part 3 is about mitigating risks with negotiation and debriefing, and about alternative safety models when you are intentionally messing with consent.
• Q&A at the end if time is available, and questions with raised hands welcome throughout!

What is CNC?

• The term Consensual Non-Consent (CNC) is understood differently by different people. I interviewed many. Here’s some highlights that show how varied answers are:
  • “Negotiated scenario that includes a dynamic that otherwise would be non-consensual.”
  • “You have my consent to violate my consent. I love feeling like my consent doesn’t matter.”
  • “Consenting to a dynamic, not activities.”
  • “Here is the sandbox we are both going to play in. Here are the rules and limits of this dynamic. You can play in there without asking or if I say no.”
  • “Difference between a session (like an abduction fantasy) or CNC as in “free use” or play without asking first.”

Wait, what actually is “usual” consent?

In our community, we often put qualifying words in front of consent, such as ongoing, enthusiastic, sober, risk aware, affirmative, and freely given.

• Ongoing: Consent isn’t giving permission once or at the start of a scene. It’s given in a fluid, ongoing way similar to an emotional headspace, and can be withdrawn or end at any time. Consent is also collaborative, not just coming from one person.
• Enthusiastic: Consent isn’t saying “maybe we can try that”–if someone tells you maybe when negotiating or during a scene, take it as them saying no. “Enthusiasm” can look different in some types of play, such as emotional masochism–but this term represents, at the end of the day, a genuine desire.
• Sober: Consent isn’t given without a clear head. You can’t consent while very tired, stressed, emotionally vulnerable, or while anything but completely sober.
• Risk aware: Consent requires knowing what you’re signing-up for and consenting to. But this isn’t a legal exchange; in BDSM, there can often be risks or consequences unforeseen by anyone involved.
• Affirmative: Consent isn’t “they didn’t say no”–not saying no isn’t saying yes. Yes is saying yes.
• Freely given: Consent isn’t something given under pressure, when afraid or nervous to say no, when there’s a benefit or bribe to say yes, or when power dynamics create imbalance that forces a yes.

What is “usual” consent?: Breaking that down

• So many things can impact ongoing, enthusiastic, sober, risk aware, affirmative, freely given consent, that some modern progressive discourse questions if this ideal consent can truly be achieved.
  • Put another way, one could argue that all kink is consensual non-consent. Even if the play doesn’t intentionally impact those qualifying words, there’s inherent risk of them being unintentionally impacted.
• All play carries risk. Most of the time when things “go wrong” in BDSM, there was no malicious intent, but the harm and impact is there. Acknowledging this inherent risk is not an excuse to blame someone that is harmed. Play with willingness to accept consequences, and to offer support if things go wrong.
• Some types of activities or play may inherently or intentionally impact those qualifying words about consent. That’s where CNC comes in.

What is CNC?: So in general, what is it?

• What makes CNC different from other kink? Ongoing enthusiastically consensual, but there’s an element of non-consent:
  • The non-consent is “this activity or dynamic inherently compromises or damages usual, properly shared consent and the ongoing consent is less direct.”
  • The non-consent is NOT “surprise” in a relationship or “we didn’t negotiate or agree to this.” It could involve aspects of that, but then it’s still within this same understanding of navigating kink when proper consent is compromised.

What is CNC?: It’s not transactional consent

• “Obtaining consent” as frequently said in medical or legal industry is not the same thing as consent in scenes/dynamics. Consent is not “contractual” or “transactional.”
• Consent is not indefinite after being “obtained.” While that may make sense for undergoing a medical procedure or a one-way legal decision, it doesn’t for signing-up for a long term relationship/dynamic or scene (unless you’re unconscious in the scene, I guess?). If you cannot “withdraw consent” it’s non-consent (and I am using “withdraw consent” very loosely–consent is not granted/revoked, consent is a collaborative state).
  • Something can become non-consent after consent is obtained, even in legal and medical fields. If that wasn’t the case, no one would ever leave a job or apartment they rented. That’s why contracts that are not for a simple procedure or one-way decision usually have clauses for how they are exited.
• CNC is recognizing that the scene, dynamic or play going on exerts pressure or otherwise undermines some or all of those descriptive qualifiers in front of consent (ongoing, enthusiastic, sober, risk aware, affirmative, freely given…). Putting pressure on someone with a threat of punishment, kissing a sleeping partner’s forehead, playing without a safeword–these all impair that definition of consent, so if that’s what consent is, then CNC activities do indeed involve genuine non-consent (and so does most sex).
  • Even if “consent was obtained,” once those qualifiers are impacted it still involves non-consent–but it can still be something participants want to experience! So we need to be very aware of the impact on consent. What keeps it safer and keeps that first C in consensual non-consent is what surrounds it.
• CNC is often present in D/s dynamics, but doesn’t have to be.
  • …which is why I’d like to start by discussing CNC and D/s.

CNC and D/s: Different types of dynamics

• D/s can heavily overlap with these sorts of dynamics, so I’d like to touch on it.
• In most D/s dynamics, the s-type doesn’t have to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. It’s generally pretty good advice to say this, too! But, in many ongoing CNC dynamics, discomfort may be a primary goal.
• To achieve that mutual goal of genuine discomfort, a CNC D/s dynamic may involve ongoing collaborative consent to the dynamic, rather than to individual actions–but often also to individual actions.
• Within many CNC D/s dynamics, a key difference may be that a sub’s behavior need not correlate with treatment. This is an intentional undermining of “traditional D/s,” where creating that safe space through clear expectations and dominants sticking to their word is essential. Instead it may be creating a false sense of that to intentionally, consensually, mess with expectations and make things kinda scary and uncomfortable.
  • Again, this is something done with intent and awareness that’s what you’re doing, not lack of awareness and unintentional abuse. If you are interested in darker dynamics like this, it is essential to not skip the first part of actually learning the rules before you can break them. Both from a safety perspective, and the perspective that you can’t subvert rules in a hot fun way if you don’t know the rules in the first place.

Limits in CNC

Many people into CNC think about limits differently than usual ways people use the word “limit.” Reflect on your mutual goals for a dynamic or play!

• Many CNC dynamics are a form of “total power exchange,” with the sub giving significant authority to the dom.
  • They may enjoy the idea of “not being allowed limits” and having to do whatever the dom says.
  • Or they may have limits, but want a dynamic where they trust the dom with the freedom to push or break them.
• Many people who CNC dynamics or scenes have low limits or limits that are harder to explain than something like “no clamps.”
  • Sometimes, limits can only be learned through experience and are very specific.
  • Some people may have limits they absolutely never want touched, or ones they’d only be okay having pushed or broken in a CNC context like emotional masochism or a punishment.
• For many including myself, some limits are about interpretations of consent theory, such as not wanting to do things that could impact someone outside of the dynamic.
  • This may be directly, like common concerns about why play in public spaces can be inappropriate.
  • Or indirectly, like how it’d impact people in your life who care about you if you developed an uncontrolled physical or psychological issue from kink.
• Limits may be less about actions and more about emotional objectives or goals of a scene or dynamic. If a particular act or way of going about a kink doesn’t go towards the shared goals of a dynamic, it may be avoided. These are very specific to different people, so I’m offering some personal examples:
  • Example 1: Dynamics I have often emulate abuse, and I like being controlled in manipulative ways. I know from experience that threats of abandonment push me away and break fascination in someone, not make me want to do better to please them. So I sometimes describe threats of abandonment as a limit because it can damage control they have–and the point is for them to have control.
  • Example 2: For me as an emotional masochist, what I want is an emotional sadist being the one hurting me. My emotional limits are less “things I will never do or topics you can’t mess with” and more “things that are likely to become me making myself hurt by getting too lost in my own head.” That takes control away from them being the one making me miserable, and that’s against shared motivations because I want to give control that they want to have.
  • Example 3: I’m into sleep deprivation play. But, it depends on the goal behind doing it. I want my partner to be getting-off on using sleep dep as a sadistic act to hurt me. Or using sleep dep to break me down and make me easier to manipulate. Or pairing it with a torment or task, during sleep dep or the next day, to either have my focus challenged or be made more mindless or subby. Without a motivation framing it like that, I’m not into it and losing sleep is just frustrating.
• Motivations matter a lot for understanding what consent looks like and how to reflect on what your goals are, and how to communicate about safety needs. Read on…

Part 2: Compromised subjects

A note about terminology–again, content warning, I’m going to be talking openly about abuse here–I like to say, rather than “abuse” or “not abuse,” intentional and aware versus unintentional and lacking self-awareness or mutual awareness.

It’s underselling the associated risks with really headfuck-y play to ask like we can just magically compartmentalize and prevent it from “being abusive,” I think. So, I’m saying all that to be clear, I am essentially describing abuse in this section, and I believe it’s best for safety to be honest with one another in a dynamic that that’s what it is.

It’s funny, because it can be hard to define exactly where the line really is with manipulative malicious dynamics. Everything ultimately benefits the goals in a sense. Being supportive and emotionally available and kind and wholesome or playing video games together or having a date night also creates and enhances trust–how far down is the turtle?

So, because of that, it’s really hard to draw a line between “in scene” and “out of scene,” which is why I often talk about this sort of play as dynamics. Even if you are just doing occasional scenes with someone, you essentially have a dynamic, because you’re engaged in manipulative behaviors that have an impact.

• If you are in a dynamic where the subject has been compromised, they are unable to consent as per the prior definition of consent.
  • Basically this part of the presentation will be going through ways to compromise someone, while discussing safety mechanisms and approaches that you can use along the way.
  • My general approach for this part of the presentation on conditioning is “park rules.” It’s approaching dynamics with conditioning and manipulation with the intention of leaving things how you found them, or better than you found them.
    • You *can* do things a lot more destructively. I’ll talk about that some in the third section of the presentation.
  • It kinda sucks to think about but part of managing risk in longterm scenarios is acknowledging what happens if or when it ends. Ideally both people should still be functional.
  • One concept to help make that feel less shitty is also acknowledging those are the same things that keep a dynamic sustainable and make it last.
• There’s a couple different frameworks to examine CNC dynamics on. I’ve made a rubric mostly for the sake of letting me sort out my thoughts and present things coherently, with a main category at the top, and then various attributes that might be relevant or useful to think about!
  • I find this is helpful to brainstorm new ideas! I am going to be missing tons of examples that could fit into this rubric. Part of the goal is to give you a framing to come up with your own ideas, too! As I present examples, you might think of new ones.
• Understanding the drive is insightful for better communication in kink, and having a framework can assist with brainstorming and organizing thoughts. How do these activities make you feel? Do they fulfill or threaten any needs? Read along with emotion wheels! This set of wheels shows “uncomfortable,” “comfortable emotions,” and “needs.” Think about these activities, what emotions they make you feel, and what needs that relates to: Click to see the emotion wheel set!

Safewords and communication

• Safewords are not reliable tools as your core safety mechanism within dynamics like this. Behavior patterns similar to Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn are intentionally being created. We’ll chat more on freeze and fawn, and some ideas to mitigate them in dynamics, in a bit.
• If it’s a dynamic or type of play centered around feeling uncomfortable or being manipulated or conditioned, frequently communicating your current level of discomfort or mental status is both healthy communication and basic day-to-day flirting. Same with the dom asking the sub how they are feeling, most sadists want the masochist to express it–It’s not “immersion breaking.” But, sometimes there’s a need to “highlight” something to be taken extra seriously and with extra weight, which is one way a safeword can be used.

More than Safewords: Types of communication

• Safe chats– Idea of having more than one method of communication like texting or DMing your partner with different apps. Have a text chat that’s “no protocol, dynamic is paused” and things communicated as “equals.” Also a great way for subs to flag “green” or offer reassurance and make it clear something is genuinely OK to push.
• Calling “green”– Safeword adjacent. It is extremely valuable to say when things are okay, even or especially if they are difficult.
• Protocol/Dynamic “Pause” Safewords– Similar to safechat. Safeword not to stop a scene, but to stop protocol and communicate as “equals.”
• Active check-ins– Both ways! Subs can check in with their doms. This doesn’t need to be a big thing, just creating a relationship culture of communicating openly.
• Scheduled check-ins– Some dynamics or scenes may have additional, designated pre-scheduled times to discuss how things are going.
• Debriefing– Discussion after scenes about how things felt. May not always take place immediately after. Notes, journaling, open discussion, things you may want to experience again and things you don’t, no matter if you were top or bottom (in CNC, this might not be the same as things you “liked” or “disliked.”) Great way to foster a culture of communication in your relationships–make a habit of debriefing when it goes well, and it’ll be more comfortable and feel safer to do when things go wrong.
• Threats– Yes, really. Particularly in on-going coercive CNC dynamics, a dominant throwing an idea out there to their sub, and investigating and giving them a chance to signal green, can be a genuinely powerful tool.
  • Yes, this is a type of dubious consent, but many desire that. It is part of a greater framework of communication I’ll discuss more below.
• Negotiation– This is big, so let’s break it down!

Negotiation and CNC

• In all of kink, negotiation is essentially just talking and mutually deciding what is going to happen in the scene or what rules will be implemented.
• The prior strategies like debriefing and safe chats are also part of negotiation, especially in coercion dynamics like D/s and blackmail.
• Threats can be a negotiation tool depending on the dynamics. In addition to the aforementioned use of giving a chance to signal green, giving a threat and judging reaction can be helpful. Some may intentionally want to play with this sort of dubious consent; I’ll discuss this more in a bit in a later section.
• Depending on the tone or type of dynamic, negotiation may be the dom gathering preferences or limits to take under advisement, with other communication used if there’s a serious problem, rather than mutually deciding what is going to happen.
  • For many, “immersion” is broken if their dom “wouldn’t actually publicly post my lewd pictures or wouldn’t really break that hard limit I said I don’t want touched.” Solutions:
    • The dom lies saying they would even if they wouldn’t.
    • The dom genuinely would, and many want to be in a dynamic where they would.
    • It’s all okay to want but communicating here matters. Which leads to…

Role-Playing?

• Regardless of how you feel on the topic of roleplaying, all actions are real in their effects. Kink can have psychological effects. Role-playing or not, “real” or not. Acknowledging this is critical for risk aware kink.

Something will go wrong

• If you want to do a scene that involves humiliation, degradation, power dynamics or the like, you should play understanding not everything may go exactly as you want it to.
  • In a scene where a top says 30 mean things and does dozens of different actions, probably not everything is going to land perfectly and be hot.
  • Even more so within a long-term dynamic with thousands of mean things and actions, it’s likely boundaries are going to be passed occasionally.
  • It’s hard to call these moments “mistakes” or “failures,” because they aren’t. It’s an inevitable part of the things we do. The longer we do them, the more likely until it goes wrong.
  • Going into play understanding things won’t always be perfect is important because it means expecting to communicate. But that communication can still feel hard, and it can get complicated.
• I’m not really talking about a “consent violation.” As this presentation has explored, consent is genuinely compromised in every CNC scenario. Thus, consent is not necessarily the best framework for harm reduction when navigating these sorts of issues, nor is it something that can be solely relied on for harm prevention.
  • Consent as a framework feels safe. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to challenge consent as the be-all and end-all because the idea of “as long as we have consent, everything is and will be fine!” is very comforting.
  • But we need other frameworks to navigate kink with if we recognize that CNC and a lot of other kink can invalidate that concept of ongoing, enthusiastic, sober, risk aware, affirmative, freely given consent.

Something serious will go wrong, too

Almost no matter what, eventually, it really won’t go well. Something will go very wrong. This probably won’t be because any person involved intentionally did something wrong. There more than likely won’t be malicious intent. It won’t even be something that more communication could have solved.

• As this presentation explores, a lot of people want serious, lasting effects out of CNC that may be defined as harm by themselves or by others. That’s not what I am talking about here. I’m talking about unwanted harm.
• As in the prior section, consent will likely not be the best framework for harm reduction.
• There probably won’t be blame to assign. There will be harm to be reduced together by processing what happened.
• When serious harm occurs, both fawn and freeze can be very common. Freeze is feeling unable to act or talk about it, and fawn is wanting to please so not talking about it. There’s no sure-fire away to avoid these and you need to learn what works for you, but I’d like to share one idea for each that can be useful to establish in both dynamics and in scenes:
  • Freeze: It can help to have previously discussed or negotiated courses of actions to take so that freeze can be more easily broken out of. Having it already established “if X happens, I will do Y” can provide a set of concrete actions to follow. That could be something creative like a non-verbal hand signal, an emoji you may send in a DM or text that is understood to be asking to chat, a defined set of self-care steps prior to initiating conversation, or as simple as setting it as a “rule” that you are “supposed” to talk when there is an issue.
  • Fawn: Fawn is a very hard thing to break out of for those who experience it, as the desire to not upset someone can feel very powerful. This following suggestion is not suitable for everyone, and is unsuitable for many scenes and dynamics. But, if you are doing certain types of CNC dynamics or scenes or are just a sort of sub or a dominant that this will resonate with, consider establishing a “rule” or expectation that if something goes wrong, it is “your fault.” This can be one way to break through fawn; because, then, you have a reason to “apologize” by bringing the concern or issue forward to talk about it, and apologizing is a usual behavior for most people who experience fawn. (Obviously, if you are prone to fawn and choose to use this method, it needs to be discussed and accepting the apology and talking about it also needs to be an expectation!)

Debriefing can get messy

• Debriefing was mentioned before, as a tool that’s extremely important even when things are going well. Debriefing is important because it practices the formula for harm reduction once something goes wrong. It will feel easier if you’ve already been debriefing when it’s going well.
• Like with usual debriefing, it may not be immediately after serious unwanted harm that you talk about it.
  • It may also take time to identify that something serious actually happened at all. But when serious unwanted harm occurs, it should at least be communicated as soon as it is identified, even if it cannot yet be fully discussed. If it cannot yet be communicated the dynamic should be paused until it can be, or it may cause further harm to all involved.
• I personally feel it is utterly essential and mandatory for me that those I play with, be they subs or doms, agree that when something goes wrong it will be discussed. That to explore darker dynamics and experiences, you need to be prepared to support one another if it goes wrong.
  • Everyone is allowed to feel unable to talk about it, too. But, for me and the way I tend to do dynamics, this sort of debriefing is an expectation, not a failure.
• This is a heavy section–debriefing when there’s a serious issue can sometimes mean an end, but more often than not, that discussion will have a good resolution that strengthens and betters a dynamic. Together, you have just gone through something challenging, introspected and communicated about it, and learned something new–and that’s a really good thing worth celebrating!

Debriefing and intentionally messy, dubious consent

Depending on who you are and the sort of dynamics you build, this sort of debriefing after serious harm may kind of be the default, desired, expected cycle of your dynamic! (This is similar to what some people mean when they say they want to do a scene where they will “go until they call red.” It’s going until it goes wrong, then talking about it.)

• “Messy Dynamics and Play”: Doing things that have a very high chance of “going wrong” in an undesired way, be that in a scene or in the nature of an ongoing dynamic.
  • It’s acknowledged from the start of any play or dynamic that moments of lines being crossed could happen (and if you didn’t already acknowledge it now you do because you’ve made it this far into the presentation and I’m telling you!). Some people, recognizing that things will occasionally go wrong in any scene or dynamic, may choose to lean-in and explore dynamics or play that is quite likely to go wrong.
  • Using the coercion/violation framework:
    • Violation: Examples of dynamics like this would be ones with a lot of ongoing manipulation or that emulate abuse–less structured, chaotic dynamics where rules and expectations are intentionally not very clear.
    • Coercion: The structure of a coercive dynamic like heavy D/s or blackmail kink is more stable, because expectations are often very clear (or else!). But you could intentionally create a scenario designed to fail, like setting the sub up to fail orders given.
    • Scenes might be anything that is breaking a limit in a strong way.
• “Dubcon”: Wanting to play with “dubious consent,” and understanding that it will involve debriefing and processing wanted or unwanted harm done.
  • Essentially, understanding consent well enough to fetishize “invalid consent,” such as basing a scene or rule or dynamic off of a negotiation that was influenced, imbalanced, or one-sided in some way.
  • Depending on how a dynamic or scene started or continues, there can be “fun” questions pondered if any consent expressed in the dynamic or scene is possible to be valid–if power exchange or negotiation began intentionally imbalanced and with “invalid consent,” can it ever “become valid consent” again? There’s no good answer to that, which is why it’s hot to people into dubious consent.
  • Using the coercion/violation framework, dubious consent could be via acts of violation or coercion:
    • Violation: Physical things like initiating and touching when starting a negotiation, or having physical control already present. Or more psychological things like negotiating with unclear headspaces or under the effects of sleep deprivation, or drawing-on ongoing manipulation, gaslighting and confusion.
    • Coercion: Threats invalidating the legitimacy of negotiation, or creating fears of saying no, such as in a dynamic like blackmail kink.
    • Or, something as direct as a dom ordering a sub to say they consent. Doing so immediately violates negotiation and creates a coercive situation.
• Maintain a strong expectation that there will be debriefing done, and you will both emotionally and physically support one another after the mistakes you have, essentially, intentionally made. It can be hot to make messy mistakes together, but being aware that’s what you’re doing and being willing to support each other when you do is important.