It's definitely skewed towards neurodivergent people, but not exclusively.
Lots of trauma on both sides of the slash (ie both in dominants and submissives). Reenacting a variant of how it felt to be bullied or yelled at/hit by your parents or even so far as reenacting sexual violence done to you within a safe space where you can end it at any time is remarkably healing, and it's easy to from there just fall in love with all of it. And on the dominant side that can be a form of taking control back in your life. A friend of mine got into being a Domme at her second husband's request, but she fell in love with it because it returned to her the feeling of control that her abusive first husband had stolen from her.
Sensory seeking behaviors are super common in the bondage scene and the sadomasochism scene.
For people with social difficulties the extent to which everything is negotiated and clearly communicated is really refreshing, and then since there's so much neurodivergence things like flat affects, saying stupid shit without thinking, etc is generally understood and not mistreated.
There's also just generally a hippie/weirdo/alternative vibe to the community. You'll meet reiki practitioners and you'll see arguments over whether fire cupping actually does anything besides bruising the hell out of a back by people who do it for fun and generally agree that bruising the hell out of a back can make it feel better outside the bruising because of endorphins and distraction. Oh also a hell of a lot of nonmonogamy.
I'm sure there's more if I think of it. Ultimately, you have to be a bit weird to take the moves from "i think this is hot in theory or in erotica" or "we do this in our bedroom" to "I'm interested in going to a discussion group/class/social event/play party about this in person where I live". The first event is terrifying to actually walk into. And then it's another big step to actually go to enough that people remember who you are or to get involved in a more community focused side of the scene like the leather community
As a woman very involved in the lifestyle scene (as opposed to the professional scene). Yeah, there's a lot of reasons people wind up into it, and what your friend describes is the cliche stereotype of the person who pays for pros, but a lot of the lifestylers are similar to a lesser degree.
And yeah it's not a given that you're even allowed to have sexual release in a kink event, and sometimes it has to be in a specific room. The sensations, the mind games, the role play, the pain, etc. is often the primary thing happening to the exclusion of other stuff. A surprising amount of bdsm events are just discussion groups and classes.
This one but in the now/future. Basically a lot of money was printed to pay for things but in order to not cause inflation we had to create debt to destroy that money in the future.
Yes, we're a profoundly broken country in how we use our wealth. But you were over here acting like no other country that isnt entirely and devastatingly impoverished is failing it's citizens this way, and I'm pointing out that no, once again we fall in line with developing nations rather than developed ones. And for those of us who wish for it to be a functional country, I think my framing is much more useful.
And i apologize for assuming you're a European who knows nothing of anywhere beyond the Eurosphere and assumes developing nations don't even have running water.
Yes, it's a for profit business that makes it's profit off of trying to have the most accurate odds they can. They charge you slightly more than they expect to lose on you (the house edge) and then they're betting on every roll of the dice. That's exactly how casinos earn money (though casinos try to compete on experience and payout, while insurance competes on price and payout).
The difference is that the casino is attempting to take advantage of your greed and wants you to stay there and bet everything you have. Meanwhile the insurer is selling relief from fear of financial ruin and is asking you to make scheduled bets that you want to lose every month. American health insurance has massive issues and should be replaced with something akin to the NHS before it was defunded, but nobody is losing their shirt buying homeowners insurance unless the area they live in is now being pummeled by the climate crisis like southern California or the gulf of Mexico.
Would government run insurance be better? Yeah probably. But in the era before modern insurance a major part of the draw of fraternal organizations was that they served that role.
Listen, I think we're as barbaric about this as any reasonable person, but we really aren't unique. Mexico, Egypt, and the Philippines aren't doing so great, but they're all modern nations with modern infrastructure in their urban areas. India has even worse health insurance than the US and while yes they're still building out their plumbing systems, Mumbai and New Delhi are modern megapolises.
Yeah the better option is for a multi state compact for a public option. I know Washington has a bit of a public option. That said, you get no subsidies if your employer offers minimum contributions to the health insurance of their choosing.
Edit to finish the thought: we need universal single payer, but barring that we need public options and real choice, including choice over where to apply our employer's contributions. It wouldn't fix everything that universal single payer would, but it would enable you to have the freedom to not need to change doctors every time you get a new job.
I too am curious. How does one convince their boobs to do science? Mine are lazy and just hang around all the time.