I would like to thank Iapetos for starting this thread and The I for his very insightful response.

Despite my being pretty much raised abroad, I have only ever participated in bdsm as it is practiced here in the united states in person, (my owner and husband however has done so in other countires, japan in paticular).

Yet after a year of being on line i have seen the views of many different people from many different cultural backgrounds discuss bdsm and:

I have found despite the many defferences in how we all view things like "levels of disipline ie strictness" or "positions and ettiqutes" etc etc, we are all more the same rather than different when it comes to certian basic concepts involved with the "mutually consensual" practice of bdsm.

By mutally and consensual i mean bdsm that involves the consent of all parties involved prior to any activities taking place.

Less a difference of cultural so much as a difference in style based on the practical aplications for types of activities engadged in. For instance "Shibari" Japanese rope bondage, has a certian style for the use of the rope with differences in the positions and way the rope is used between modern and traditional methods, where as european styles of rope use are different in many ways they both take into consideration the saftey of the submissive and the overall enjoyment of all parties involved.

The hierarchy of dominion, that being between dominants and submissives does seem like the concepts of pain and pleasure to be universal in conseptual understanding if not in practical aplications catagorically accross the globe.

As different as our culrural backgrounds may be we often come to consensus in many ways.

I am curious as to exactly what is so different about the "Greeks" in paticular??