It seems like many of those posting are masochists seeking 'safe' sadists to role play with. That makes sense, the masochists don't want to be 'real' victims.
I imagine there are also kindly people who want to just pretend to be sadistic, just to take on a role they never play in real life. That's why the pop culture Dom is almost always a woman, and her M is a man.
However, it seems to me very naive to believe that none of the people posting on the site are true sadists, and by definition sadists don't care about their victims. Some might be successfully trained to stay within rules because they don't want to lose partners/get a bad rap/go to jail. But isn't it inherent to sadism to want to make their victims suffer. Like, that's the whole point.
I think it's just as well that people on the forum are reminded of the reality, though I'm sure it diminishes the fun of the fantasies. Kind of like playing with fire, or when a boy goes off to war and discovers it's not like the video games he played.
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