On this listserve, it seems to me it's only Charles now who isn't sold on BDSM. :-> But you know some people feel cooler when there are acting as if they were in a minority even where they are the majority.
Now, for Charles, here's a primer on pain and pleasure: scientists say pain and pleasure work with the same brain chemical and activate the same part of the brain.
<http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2001/Dec14_2001/research_briefs.html>
Pain and Pleasure Activate Same Brain Structures
^^^ CB; Thanks, Yoshie. Yes, there is actually already sort of folk knowledge of this paradox; "tears of joy"; tickling can demonstrate this. Dialectics: things turn into their opposites.
(I don't know if I'd want to tell rapists and domestic batterers about this science. Yikes !)