John Stuart Mill's philosophical essay, A Pig, A Fool, and Socrates, accidentally gets at the core of my sexuality:

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes.

A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.

I'm not saying Mill is wrong; I'm just saying he didn't account for me being into that shit.

As a reader and author of hypno smut, I am most interested in stories where a person is changed into something they would consider lesser, and finds themselves (in part due to a lowered capacity of understanding or self-reflection) happier in their new way of life. Intelligence loss, priority shifting, personality change, and physical transformation are all extremely fun elements to play with. But paradoxically, I don't like degradation; I like my characters to be nice and happy, at least by the end, and while shame or humiliation might be a stepping stone towards that goal it doesn't appeal to me and will never be the focus.