MBlume comments on Is masochism necessary? - Less Wrong
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If it's possible for non-sadomasochists to fail to appreciate the fun sadomasochists have, surely it's also possible for sadomasochists to fail to appreciate the fun some other people have; unless you've somehow ruled out the possibility that you might be doing that, I don't see how you can be justified in assuming that others are missing out.
For instance, consider the following hypothesis (which, for the record, I think is extremely unlikely to be right): that what distinguishes sadomasochists isn't the ability to have a kind of fun that non-sadomasochists don't get, but the inability to get so much fun from "ordinary" sex without sadomasochistic accoutrements. If anything like that were true, then there'd be plenty of non-sadomasochists having just as much fun as the sadomasochists; do you know that no such thing is true?
I seem to recall Robin asking whether learning about wine increased your ability to take pleasure in good wine, or just spoiled your enjoyment of cheap wine.