I know this thread has been around for some time...but I just got around to reading it. No abuse in my case, either as a victim or as an abuser. I actually had a sickeningly normal upbringing. Likewise, my sub did as well.

I think it's hard to make a correlation because a lot of people suffered abuse as children. You can't really point to the small percentage who wind up with an interest in bdsm and say "AH HA! That's what caused it!" I'll bet if there were ever a study done on it, the percentage of abuse victims who wind up in the "lifestyle" is smaller than the percentage within the vanilla community.

It would be an interesting study.