Hi, ready!

Well, first, we don't know whether it's more popular on-line or off, do we? The Kinsey Institute reports research suggesting that 5-10% of R/W couples engage in BDSM-related activities at least occasionally and 15% or so have experienced bondage.

Second, my beloved sub refers to the concept of "online disinhibition," sometimes called "benign disinhibition effects." At base, people feel freer to take risks online than off. You may well have long lusted after a female coworker, casting covert glances at her billowy blouse, but you wouldn't in a million years act on the impulse. There's simply too much risk: on rejection, ridicule, exposure, irreversible changes in relationships with others, and so on. Here, those constraints (for better and worse) don't apply.

And, third, because we're fun people and they aren't.

Solis

p.s. for the passing benefit of the aforementioned sub, I'll note that at least one survey of BDSM participants lists "IT geeks" as the single most prevalent occupational category. (Okay, technically, it was "high tech" but it's the same bunch.)