Hey, I'm a new member and want to say hello to you all.
I'm also a History teacher in my daily life and think I can add something to help you with this topic. A human being (homo sapiens sapiens) from 10k years ago and one from now are made on the same constitutions, including capability of imagination.
Of course, if we take fetishes like nylons or vinyl, it would be impossible to exist before these materials were invented. But feet fetish, whipping and slave-treating are far more debatable as relations of power always permeated all societies. It is easy to understand then that something that was not ''fitted'' for daylight would always be kept as a secret. It makes historians work on BDSM topic very much harder. We cant forget also that there is a pyramid of interests in human primal life, as surviving and eating being the basis of it. For other priorities as BDSM to flourish, it would be in societies where most of basic needs were, at least, assured until certain points, like ancient Rome, for example.
On other side, after Illuminism, many ideas started to emerge and circulate throughtout Europe and western culture. What I can say after years of studying is that there is an enormous chance of BDSM practices happening in all the previous centuries, but is after the sexual revolution in XX Century that it became more and more diverse.
Another point: If we knew what we liked since we were kids and for no reason (I'm using now my own personal example, I always knew I loved ballbusting, even before the internet, when I thought I was the only person on Earth to enjoy it) the most probably hypothesis is that people before us did the same. Here are some of my guesses on people I believe enjoyed BDSM: Roman politics and powerful people, italian renaissance, european nobility on medieval and modern times, Victorian era rich people and industrialists and, of course, rock n'roll people after the 70s. Most of them are people of power, I know, but I believe they influenced the other layers. Sorry for the long thesis.
