> If you look at the few individuals who have been caught abducting
> people and torturing them were they people who otherwise engaged
> primarily in vanilla sex or were they BDSM practitioners? Is the
> sample of such people large enough and well documented enough to draw
> any conclusion from?
Not that I know of, but I believe the "barrel killer" of Kansas City fits that description. That's anecdotal and not conclusive, but it does suggest the possibility.
> The idea that BDSM is somehow a sexual straight-jacket when compared
> to other sex practices strikes me as very odd as does the idea that
> the consent involved is anything like the coerced consent of wage
> laborers.
I do think consent is a thornier issue than I've seen pro-bdsm people acknowledge in this discussion. I don't think that means bdsm is wrong per se, just that saying "it's consensual" isn't necessarily the end of the story.
All the best,
John A