Some awesome posts.
I remember, years and years ago, maybe over two decades now, when I first started discovering both my sexuality and my interests in the hypnotic fetish I would open up a webpage look at the picture or the story for a minute then quickly close it and look around to make sure nobody caught me. As time went on the minutes grew longer and longer till eventually my mindset went “fuck it” and I would happily bookmark the porn websites I wanted to go to. This greater acceptance of my fetishes (not my sexuality, that I was fine with even during high school, I was a bit lucky in that) got to the point where I even mentioned it to some of my college friends. (Funny enough one of my friends, straight, was a fan of hypnotic mind control himself, even to the point of us sharing certain websites we knew about. Though I liked guys and him women some of our conversations were fun.)
By the present my interest in hypnosis is just a thing I like now with no issue personally at all.
As the years went on and my interests developed I came to certain conclusions. One of which, and related to this topic, is that I like ‘lighter’ hypnosis. What I mean by that is to me a mind controller making a guy’s life better by controlling it is hot. Its got nothing to do with morality, at least I don’t think so, and more how fun it is to take say a homophobic straight guy who is nasty to men and women, who isn’t happy in life, who mistreats whatever and turn him into an upstanding, fun loving, generally good bro who is also deeply submissive, playful, horny, and obedient. Hypnotizing say his wife too to make said homelife all the better (while say making her not think him having sex with men is cheating, and him never thinking on having sex with a woman not his wife) is also fun for me.
I mention the above because some of the posts would in this thread have looked at points about ‘lightness’ in hypno and gone on and said “but doesn’t that mean they are ignoring the whole control aspect” and I say no. I say that, at least for me, its due to the control aspect that making the lives of one being controlled all the better is also all the sweeter.
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I wouldn’t say it’s obvious that talking about racism isn’t considered virtue signalling, or that going on marches to show solidarity isn’t considered virtue signalling. That’s actually how I always hear the term used in my own life, which is one reason I’m leery of it. I have a hunch that the UK and the USA bring really different baggage to this phrase. (Or, at the very least, my experience with this expression in the USA brings a lot of baggage to it, in a way that I find hard to shake.)
P.S. I’d say that when readers leave guilty or harsh comments on a story they came to, perhaps it’s the equivalent of yelling “no homo!” Like… a way for them to mentally preserve their idea of the sort of person they are. (“No homo, I’m not gay!”) Except, here it’s more like yelling “no hypno!” as they blast into their hand.
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I think @Heru_Kane hit on a key point here in terms of commenting on stories: at some point in many people’s lives, they feel guilty about their fetishes. I think we have to be very careful in how we respond to such comments to make sure that we don’t increase their guilt or, ironically, make them feel guilty about feeling guilty. That last tends to simply compound the guilt rather than making people feel less guilty, I’ve found.
As for the side topic of how to define virtue signalling, to me the phrase implies that whatever you’re doing is primarily for your own benefit—to make you feel good about yourself, rather than actually benefitting the minority you’re nominally helping/defending/whatever. It may well still have the beneficial effect, but it’s mostly about making yourself look better than those around you, or at least prove that you’re part of “the good people”. That’s my understanding of what virtue signalling is.
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I agree with everything RobinHood70 said. Being anti-racist should be seen as a given and people, whites especially, need to feel comfortable that they are innocent until proven guilty.
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What a fascinating conversation! 
If it is OK, I would like to add my own two cents.
I think that it is important to remember, as someone said earlier, that not all immorality is created equal. 
Yes, I love hypnosis, which in the fantasy realm, tends to involve manipulating people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do, and that of course is wrong. But I can also be against stories that include things like violent rape or overt racism, because those things are more wrong to me. It’s part of why I am so into stories that couldn’t ever “really” happen, because the more a story reminds me of the real world, the more I start thinking about its wider implications, and that generally leads me to stop feeling sexy and start feeling academic. I tell you, nothing kills an erection faster than wondering “Does the presentation of the black male in this story reflect the racial tropes of nineteenth-century propaganda?”
I also disagree, though, with the notion that it’s “just a story.” I hate the word “just” as a qualifier for anything (“just a joke,” “just stop doing that,” “just get over it”). No, we shouldn’t feel guilty for pleasuring ourselves, but we also shouldn’t be afraid of the thoughts and emotions that a story provokes. Nietzsche said that “The degree and kind of a man’s sexuality reaches up into the very pinnacle of his spirit,” and what gets a person going is often a fascinating look into their deeper self. I know that I, for example, am skinny, so muscle growth hits it for me; I’ve also had to try to maintain strict control of my emotions through logic/reason, so the loss of logic/reason–that is, being hypnotized and made stupid–is incredibly hot.
Finally, I’d like to specifically address @mgreene70 and your story about your Black nephew’s teachers. As you say, they were wrong to refuse to discipline him for fear of being seen as racist–but if I may, I think that’s a reflection of a wider problem of a lack of multi-cultural training in nearly every field. To use my own example, I went to a predominantly white university and was taught theatrical criticism/analysis by a predominantly white staff; it wasn’t until grad school that I had a Black professor teach a seminar on Black theatre. So when I go to see a play written by a Black person, I can’t apply a white Euro-American framework to that type of play! It’s not designed for it, and trying to shove a play about the Black experience into a critical framework created and taught by white people simply doesn’t work. I think that, for me, is the great danger of virtue signaling–the fear that acknowledging people as different will create trouble. But people ARE different, and their cultures are different. The trick is to say “This cultural expression is different, but that doesn’t make it inferior to a white one.” “Different” isn’t the same thing as “unworthy.” Does that make sense?
Anyhow, thanks for all of the great thinking material! To those protesting–stay safe, my loves.
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Just like we had “the first time” challenge, we now should have “The Adventures of Fluffy the Kitten” challenge. Must be titled as such and included a mind control theme.
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Are you serious?
The next challenge is about to be started soon and I still haven’t decided on the theme yet…
You joke, but I’ve already brainstormed some ideas for this last week…
You guys made me laugh out loud when I saw this. Made my day. Fluffy the Kitten is happy too. Seriously though - Martin - please do NOT make this the next theme for the competition.
I didn’t enter the first one so I’m hoping for something really interesting in the second round so that I feel inspired. Much as I love Fluffy, he doesn’t turn me on…
These conversations are always interesting to me… particularly as a black man who enjoys exploring things from the submissive side while playing with certain-- shall we say racial–taboos. For example, my most commented on story I’ve posted here ‘Becoming a Good Boy’ had a lot of people, most of them white, speculating on whether or not I had the right to write such stories, or whether it was ‘wise’ for me to do so. Wondering openly about my mental health and such things. And while I agree that racism is something that when it has permeated every level of society as thoroughly as it has done in America, it is an unavoidable topic in most arenas and while I also believe that perhaps it’s something authors here should consider (RE: representation, so many stories here are lily white, or written so that white is clearly the default of the story’s author), I also think we need to remember that at the end of the day this is a place where a bunch of people get together who share one thing in common–the boners (or lady boners) we get while reading stories about mind-rape, and will likely not be where society’s ills are solved, or are even expertly discussed with the appropriate depth and nuance.
Tl;dr this is something I think about enough in my actual life and I am certainly not looking to do while masturbating.
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For a while I’ve fantasized about an naive but slightly racist white guy offering to play with an African American man (or couple). The white guy would be the sub, the African Americans as the dom. Over the course of play, the tops teach the white guy African-American English and effect some kind of transformation in him, so that at the end of the play, the white guy is unable to return to speaking white English.
While I like the idea, I’m not sure this is the kind of story I could write - but happily cede it to someone who wants to work with it (M. Greene, perhaps?).
I’d be up for that - it’s an interesting idea. I really enjoy race-change stories, but your story seems to be more about linguistic change only - am I right? Or would the white guy be different in any other way? My story ‘The Enemy Within’ had a white guy turning black, but his way of speaking didn’t really change; just his appearance and mode of dress.