As long as it's a choice that goes beyond just what you do in bed - and I think to most people here, like Cariad and baby girl put it, it is to do with something that's deeply writ in you as a person, otherwise you don't hang on - it does become a lifestyle, an essential element of your life even if you're not in a full-time live-in 24/7 D/s relation at all, and wouldn't want to be. Me, I don'yt always use the L word but i can't see anything itchy about it, it's useful, to the point, and it avoids sounding like you were always making a statement (if you always used "being a BDSMer" or "committed slave" it would sound much more stilted and proclaiming)