Sometimes they do seem to stem from a humiliating event involving the sexual parts, such as a spanking on the butt. So backgrounds where kids are more subjected to physical or harsh verbal punishment could have more S/M people with those types of things embedded as their fetish symbols. Whether this would be truly statistically connected with particular religious denominations isn't something I've ever seen any data on, and I don't have a strong impression about it. The people who resort to that kind of punishment around here are mostly lumpenproles with crossbred, fierce dogs, tattoos, and no particular religious leanings. What I can tell you is that in largely secularized countries like the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands, there is no perceptible drop in support for fetish-related sexuality - leather bars, sexual adverts for dads who discipline, and so on. To understand why pain associated with sexual pleasure need not be pathological, read the online Google Books copy of Geoff Mains' 'Urban Aboriginals: a celebration of leathersexuality.' Chapter 2, 'Flowers of Pain' includes a discussion of the physiology of pain gating in the nervous system. Just google the string: "Geoff Mains" gating |