I don't come from an abusive background either, but the link between abuse and BDSM tendencies absolutely exists. It would be irresponsible at best to say all of those in the Lifestyle are there because of past wrongs, or that all abuse leads to the Lifestyle; but to dismiss it as a spurious correlation I think is overlooking a significant portion of the motivation behind and thinking within the minds of the participants of BDSM.

Abuse of any kind plays with our notions of safety, trust, and intimacy. All of those things are key components of our sexual personalities. BDSM, with its very overt physical manifestations of situations that mimic unsafe and violent acts, lends itself even more to becoming a link between an unhealthy past and the acts of the present. The article is a perfect example of one facet of that.