BDSM'ers In SL

I've been pondering this a bit. In RL, I think about 5% of the population do something BDSM'ish. Don't have a source to quote, but that's my understanding. But I also understand that more than 5% of the population have some interest, in some way, but never fulfill it. Or do, but not consciously.

Enter SL. I'm wondering what percentage of SL'ers play. Either they joined to play, or very quickly discovered it (it's everywhere you go - I ran into a pony play island just trying to find a place to rent using search). I'm betting it's way higher than 5%. There's certainly the aspect of anonymity here which makes people converse about it with the same casualness that one might discuss going to see a movie in RL. At least in North America.

I so was just wondering what other people's thoughts on this are. If there are any...

Love.

It seems to me that at least a fair amount of the "BDSM" in Second Life isn't really genuine BDSM at all, but is based on regular roleplayers getting frustrated. Essentially, they work out that on Second Life you can't be the Chosen One or the Queen or the Mighty Warrior or anything like that (at least, not unless you are sure to only do so in a way that entertains others), and so they are attracted to the BDSM community because it seems that being a dominant will allow them to attract submissives who will finally treat them like the Chosen One etc. etc. Of course the resulting relationships almost never work out. I've even seen someone who absolutely hated BDSM end up trying to become a Mistress for this reason.

Another group seems to be those who get bored of regular prim sexballs and graduate to BDSM toys. The range of overly "extreme" BDSM equipment seems to fit with that idea, too.

Sure

BDSM occurs far more frequently in SL than in Real life.

A lot of people are free to explore things that they otherwise wouldnt.


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Interesting twist -

A lot of people who do BDSM in SL CLAIM to also be into BDSM in real life. Far more proportionally than is really conceivable.

That happens in RL too. But if you hang around the dungeons, it's clear that there are way more submissives than doms, so something else must be going on here too.

Love.

One of the attractions of SL is that you can explore aspects of yourself, and your fantasies, that you could never touch in RL.

So why should it be surprising that a higher percentage of residents explore BDSM than in the real world? It makes sense.

This forum isn't for general discussion; there are many Resident Sites where this discussion is appropriate — Resident Answers is for Resident-to-Resident help. I'll close this thread...