I've had time to think over both the original idea, and the way I presented it, which I can see was misleading in places. This started with my awareness that I can often spot submissives when they're not "flagging" in any obvious way, or taking that kind of role in a social setting; something goes "ping" and later I find out I was right.

My sonar (as in sub detector) is purely intuitive, I don't know what I'm reacting to. But based on that and my experience of common traits in submissives, I imagined a Dom using a list like that to identify likely targets. I'm not sure it would work in real life - as badkitty says, these traits are found pretty widely: but maybe if you saw them all in one person it would mean something.

When I said this was only about slaves, I was mixing up the story and my real life experience, because out of my own subs only Taffi was a 24/7 slave. And I didn't mean to imply that this profile would fit everyone, not even all slaves. I believe there are a statistically significant number that it fits: I'm equally sure there are some who are quite different. (Given my views on D/s in general, I'd expect that it would also fit a lot of Dom(me)s, but that's pure theory, as I have no personal evidence to back it up.)

And most important, as I tried to explain before, I didn't mean this to be construed as "subs are sick puppies." Only one item on that list relates to past influences, the rest is about people's profiles now. And if those past influences are negative, then as my example of writers and artists was meant to convey, we're talking about people who have found a way to turn that into something positive and valuable. They're not victims or damaged goods.