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Past made perfect
“So lets assume I wanted to make a man dress and act like a woman. How could I do it?”
“Against his will?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you were being crude, you could kidnap him, drug him, and use threats of rape or other bodily harm.”
“I would rather something more subtle.”
“LIke what?”
“Hypnotics.”
“Not terribly effective, or so I’ve heard.”
“It depends on how they’re used. For example, did you know it was possible to plant a memory? To make a man remember spending his childhood dressing up?”
“Like I did? Sounds far-fetched.”
“Its true. You recall dressing up, of wanting to be pretty, dreaming of being a girl. All this could be implanted hypnotically. “
“Wouldnt the person be able to tell these were false memories?”
“By what way? They would seem as ‘real’ as any other.”
“What about the memories they replaced?”
“Do you remember everything? Days blend into one another, if some were missing, would you really be able to tell?”
“So the person wouldn’t be able to tell they didnt spend time as a girl like I did? But even so, how would that matter in the present?”
“Well, what made you decide to transition?”
“I finally stopped being afraid. And I dealt with my childhood traumas.”
“Or what you think were your childhood traumas. But the point is, you act in the present in part because of the memories of the past.”
“So your hypothetical victim would choose to become a woman, based on a lie?”
“A lie they would never be able even tell wasnt the truth. At least possibly.”
I got up, smoothed my skirt, and said, “It sounds like fiction to me.”
But I went home, and couldnt get the conversation out of my head.
“I know what happened to me. I know who I am. I’m a woman, and always was, even when I tried to pretend I was a man. I know the truth.”
“Dont I?”
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Comments
Past made Perfect
You have asked a most disturbing question
May Your Light Forever Shine
Eep!
That's a very unsetlling idea.
unsettling? yes, Lexa
a very unsettling idea. But was the story good?
Fear...
...it brings up the feelings that I know I have so many times almost every day. Did I just imagine this all? Am I only dreaming or worse? But no...for you and me and others here? We are who we are; some might say by the grace of god, but either way, we are exactly who we perceive ourselves to be. No conspiratorial intevention by some cruel person meant to hurt or deceive us; the deception was believing the lie that we weren't who we knew we were. More than thought provoking, this story can be gut-wrenchingly emotional, since it happens to you and me way, way too often. We know the truth, and as they say, the truth will set us free, Dorothy, dear. You are a woman!
Love, Andrea Lena
thank you, 'Drea
It was to try and capture that sense of doubt in a different way that I wrote this piece. I'm glad it worked for you. Thanks for commenting. By the way, did you ever read "Six forty-five"?
Subliminal Messages
I guess using T.V., a mass subliminal message could be used to induce such changes on a mass basis.
Good idea for a dystopia story.
RAMI
RAMI
they tried subliminal messages in movies
trying to get people to buy popcorn and pop at the intermission. They did, but no more than at movies without the subliminal messages, and so decided the whole thing didnt work.
Thanks for commenting, hon.
Good Twist
You put a good twist at the end, especially for a short short. I like it. Thanks.
This is a short comment for a short short. :)
And I clicked the "Good story!" button as yet another way to say thanks. I believe the button should say "Thank you!" but I was vetoed. *sigh*
- Terry
thanks, Terrynaut
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for commenting.
Actually I don't have much
Actually I don't have much memories in general(and of dressing up) if any before I was twelve. I didn't have 'evidence' of wanting to be a girl like others, so in the end I decided my transition not on my past, but how I felt in the present.
grtz & hugs,
Sarah xxx
ps: Hypnosis only works when one is willing, also they can't force you to do/think/believe something that goes against your will.
Oh and I have a gay friend who wanted to be a girl when he was little, but that doesn't mean he wants to be one now :--)
(I'm just trying to make the scary part go away :p)
it is a bit scary, isnt it, Sarah
Thanks so much for commenting, and just remember its just a story, its just a story ....
Motivation?
When that plot's used in fiction, there needs to be a motivation somewhere for the story to function at all. (Sexual fantasies aside.)
True, sometimes it's just "I want to try this out on a perfect stranger" or "I'm evil and you trust me". (Or "I hate men," I suppose, but when it comes to choosing a particular man, either there's more to it than that or it leads back to one of the two above. Ditto "I'm insane and you're available", I think.) I think it's safe to say that in the real world the odds that it would happen to you would be at least on the order of getting struck by lightning: not impossible (if one believes what one hears about brainwashing techniques), but surely there are more realistic things to worry about.
That brings us to more personal motivations: revenge by an enemy (either a real one or someone who imagines some major slight), someone trying to cover up something dire that really did happen, financial gain, business promotion, empire building, sexual attraction, perception (rightly or wrongly) of the victim as a threat to one's personal or national security.
I'm probably missing some; I don't read much forced femme. But what it comes down to is their perception that the "injected" memory will change the victim's perspective to the point of providing the perp with a personal advantage over him(her). Maybe that's the way to bet, but it's no certainty, I'd think, that the mind would draw the "right" conclusion about it or act on it. (After all, many kids who crossdress aren't TS, or even all that confused about it.)
The perps probably would have to take it from the other end: give the brain the TG self-perception and supply -- or have it supply on its own -- the false memory in support.
The way I see it, that's a lot more than hypnosis -- which, as someone pointed out above, doesn't happen without the subject's acquiescence -- could accomplish. (Urban legends and old jokes notwithstanding, the subject of a parlor hypnotist who makes him imitate a chicken onstage doesn't wake up as one.)
It may send us over to brain chemistry/function rather than psychology, depending on the validity of the assertions that we can see or measure the differences, and then on our ability to alter them.
But if we weren't on almost absurdly shaky ground before this (dealing with it as reality as opposed to a story plot), I can't help thinking that we are now. Certainly Occam's Razor has been left far behind.
It's overwhelmingly likely, IMO, that the memory is real. If that CD memory is faulty -- false memories, after all, are possible without any outside threat -- it's far more likely that the brain is providing it on its own as an attempted explanation for the way you feel now, than it is that it was induced from outside.
Or that's the way it looks from here. Hope that helps.
Eric
the story really isnt about hypnosis, Eric
to the best of my knowledge, hypnosis cant do what this little piece suggests. Its about doubt - sometimes, I wonder how much of what I remember is "real" and how much I made up to cover up my pain, and if I could bury a memory, can I ever trust them? And if I cant really trust them, can I trust what I feel now? Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Really scary
Memory is much more mutable than we are comfortable believing. It has been shown through a lot of research by criminalists that eye witness statements are worse than having nothing at all. Our minds only really remember 'snapshots' of time that we use imagination to piece together. It's part of the reason that movies are not a series of independant images for us.
It's also the reason that hypnotic frames in movies don't work. Our mind disregards them because they do not fit the narrative that we are creating.
Consider this antoher way: The memories that we keep are only those that fit the narrative.
If we want to believe that we had a perfect home life, then we remember the good times and disregard the bad ones. If we want to believe that we had a horible childhood we over emphasize the poor examples our parents set.
The really scary part is that we do is subconsciously.
Consider an example: I recently got a part in a trio for a choral concert. I am good enough for it, I got the part, but my own doubt in my ability almost convinced myself that I had misheard, and that someone else got the part instead. My subconscious mind was manufacturing a memory that I had to consciously try to disregard.
My subconscious mind was more comfortable with me being wrong than an empirical proof that I was right.
Bottom line: memory is mutable.
And here is the other side of the coin: When memory is mutable for us, it is mutable for other people.
This means that the more that we present as who we really are, the more that people around us accept that as the way things always were. It is possible that we did not actually desire a different presentation as we now believe, but if we are truly more comfortable in our new presentation, then who are we to argue.
This does bring us to a final point, however: The reason that psycological professionals have their standards is more because they do understand than that they don't understand. They know the nature of memory and manufactured memories. They know that we might be lying to ourselves and not even know it. We might have somehow convinced ourselves that what we want now is something we 'always' wanted. Their job is to determine who we really are inside, not rubber stamp our desires.
There is a reason for the time frames that they pick and it all has to do with memory.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
yes, memory is not reliable
Its a big issue for me, because thanks to my abuse, whole swaths of my memory simply vanished until many years later. Its one reason why I struggle with doubts sometimes.
Thanks for commenting.
Thank you Dorothy,
I cannot in any way see this as a disturbing question---you are undoubtedly
Dorothy as I am Alison.I knew this from four years of age and despite having
to live my life as the person I never was I am now ,at 79 the person that I
have always been,I am Alison,so what is disturbing about that? It would only
be disturbing to those who don't or won't understand,right Dorothy!
ALISON
Thank you, Alison
You've always been an amazing support for me. Thanks so much for commenting.
With new drugs and techniques
it will only get worse I'm afraid.
We could be the last generation that has never been programmed.
Scary thought, isn't it?
who says we weren't programed, OddPOV?
would we know it if we were?
cue evil music ....
Thanks for the comment.