In my opinion, there are four basic categories of Mind Control erotic stories. This assumes that we are discussing actual stories of course – as we all know, there are plenty of horribly written little screeds that barely bother to name the poor characters, let alone discuss anything beyond breast and cock size. If, however, the author is attempting to actually tell a story and present some details about personalities and interactions, there are four basic categories. I thought it might be useful to present my thoughts, both for readers and for authors.

I call the four categories Soft (or Consensual) Mind Control, Ethical Mind Control, Accidental Mind Control, and Monster Mind Control. I'll go over each of the four categories, describe my opinions of the weaknesses and strengths of the archetype, and give an example or two if possible. Before I do that though, I need to make a brief statement on the morality of Mind Control.

Mind Control, assuming it were actually possible, is on the level with murder and rape as one of the worst things that one human being can do to another. This should go without saying, but seeing as I'm writing a mildly successful story about Mind Control for a site devoted to sexual gratification, I figured I ought to make that explicitly clear. There's obviously something about the fantasy that satisfies a kink, and there's nothing wrong with fantasy, as long as you keep a clear line between fantasy and reality. If we look at the concept of Mind Control without the erotic fantasy, it's clearly the destruction and erasure of a human being, or at least a portion of them. It's a violation of their personhood on the deepest and most intimate level, and completely heinous. Which, of course, makes it a rather challenging topic for erotica, in that by definition, at least one person in the story is doing something unspeakably evil. All of the four categories are an attempt to deal with this basic issue in different ways.

The first category, Soft Mind Control, mostly takes the approach of only engaging in mutually agreed upon Mind Control. A lot of these stories rely on hypnosis instead of more fantastical methods. Typically, this is more about the subject having some level of sexual repression that they want the controller to help them shed. They have an 'inner self' that they can't or won't liberate on their own. As long as everything is consensual and informed, there's a strong case to be made that there isn't actually anything evil being done in this category. The stories tend to follow the BDSM credo of "safe, sane, and consensual", and be more about submission and acceptance than Mind Control. In fact, when I first thought up these categories, I only had three categories, because for me personally the Mind Control fetish is about much stronger and nonconsensual control. My personal preferences aside, this is a real category, and it dodges the question of evil by taking as much of the evil out of the situation as possible.

A good example of this category is The Addicted Natural by blacknight99. The protagonist does make a few nonconsensual changes, but they're pretty minor in the big scheme of things. The subjects basically all push him to hypnotize and control them, and he has to be dragged into it. He pretty clears does what they want in the end, despite his official title of Master. Another example I really like is Just Say No by DystopianArtificer, which lays out a rule in the story that no one can be hypnotized to do something they don't truly want to do.

Taking another step up the ladder, we have the often unsuccessful category of Ethical Mind Control. Here we have a protagonist who really and truly can control the minds of others, without any need for consent. The protagonist, however, has a conscience, and really and truly tries to not abuse their power. Of course, any use of this kind of power that doesn't fall into the soft/consensual category is abuse, so how is this actually a category on its own? The answer is that it's damn hard to pull off, and most attempts fail in my judgment.

There are a couple different ways I've seen this attempted, and I'm sure there are more out there that I haven't seen. One way is that the protagonist can use their power only against 'villains' of various sorts, reforming them by mental/magical force. If you support capital punishment, this may work for you, but since I'm against capital punishment, a punishment where you basically kill someone and then install a new personality in their body requires some very specific circumstances for it to work for me. A second attempt at the ethical approach is to have the protagonist accidentally use their power at first before they can control it, then realize what they've done and do their best to refrain in the future. Most takes on this that I've seen, the protagonist doesn't actually try very hard to fix their initial mistake. I'm sure you've read a few of these – Boy turns girl into devoted Slut accidentally, feels terrible, apologizes, Slut reassures him that she's happier than she's ever been and she loves him, they settle down happily together, yada yada. The problem with this trope is that it's the altered personality that's reassuring the controller, and that's not a very trustworthy perspective on the poor victim's actual wants and desires.

The list of examples of this category that don't work and leave me frustrated with their hypocrisy are too many to count, and it would be kind of rude to attack other authors, so I'll just include one of the rare examples of this that I think actually works: AngelWatch by Handsinthedark. It's more of a redemption story than an erotic fantasy, but it's a good story and I recommend it.

Next we have the two categories I personally find the most honest and satisfying, starting with Accidental Mind Control. In this category, the protagonist isn't a mind controller, at least not at the beginning. Instead, by an accident of fate or luck, the protagonist stumbles across a subject who's already been worked over by a mind controller. The subject desperately needs a master to control them, and the protagonist is forced to fill that role in order to take care of them. You get all of the fun, kink-satisfying elements of control and helpless, needy, wanton sexuality, but a protagonist who isn't responsible for the victim's state. In fact, the protagonist often goes on to take down the evil mind controller and achieve a measure of revenge on behalf of the controlled subject, while still getting to keep the subject. It's the ultimate 'have your cake and eat it too' approach to Mind Control. A couple of great examples are The True Master by weerdo, and Jonathan Creed by Noble_Truth (Noble, if you're reading this – please, please write another chapter of The King's Creed). Oh, and My New Girlfriend by Svalbarding, that's a great one too.

Finally, there's Monster Mind Control. This category just says "fuck it, it's a dark fantasy, deal with it". The mind controller is an evil bastard/bitch and their subjects are tortured victims. Sometimes the protagonist is aware that they're a villain or at least a bit of a sociopath. Sometimes they just don't think very hard about what they're doing, but the author gives you enough perspective to see what's happening. In my opinion, most attempts at Ethical Mind Control would fall into this category once you stop and really think about what the characters are doing, but I reserve the actual category for works where the author clearly indicates that their controlling character is a monster.

Given my own writing, you can tell I like this category. Aside from me, one of my favorite examples of this genre is Control, Enkindle by nikyc. If you enjoy my Shadow Doctor story, I expect you'll love Control, Enkindle. Another really good story in this category is The Tolerant by Svalbarding. It's not on Literotica because it features some underage characters, but if google it I'm sure you can find it.

So, those are the four basic categories in my opinion. I guess my main hope in writing this is that authors out there who are attempting to write Ethical Mind Control stories would slow down, step back, and take a closer look at their characters. Then either make real changes to the story, or admit to yourself that the story has a darker edge than you thought and let the darkness come through in your writing – it'll make it stronger and more honest, though perhaps less popular.

If you'd like to propose examples of Ethical Mind Control stories that you think work in the comments or by email, I'd be happy to see if I can poke holes in them when I have time.