Anyone can go to a bar, pick someone up and have one night of sex with them, but not everyone can maintain a marriage or relationship for five, ten, twenty or forty or more years.

The difference is commitment. In the psychological sense, love is made up of three components: Romance, passion and commitment. When a relationship has all three components, we call it unconditional love. You can have all the passion in the world, but without commitment, you're not likely to enter into a loving, caring relationship. Likewise, you can be very commited, but without romance, you're likely to feel like something is "missing" from your relationship and are typically left wanting.

This is quite off-topic for this thread, but it does help to explain the systems within which relationships are formed.

The more correct thing to do, and I'm not saying reverie35 is wrong, is to look for someone in the beginning of the relationship that suits your desires and needs. To "fall in love" with someone because they are pretty or they have money or because they are passionate is a flawed system. However, to believe you can enter into a relationship with someone that doesn't quite suit you and then expect them to change for you is far more flawed.

I understand that relationships and people evolve over time and with this evolution comes the idea to try new things or to do things differently than you have been used to. There's nothing wrong with that, but one cannot expect one's partner to feel similarly. When you begin your relationship with someone that understands what you are looking for and what your expectations are, then you vastly improve the chances of success in the relationahip and the chances of being satisfied later down the road.

Many people do not understand that they want a BDSM relationship until after they have had several of their relationships fail. It isn't until the "discover" BDSM and their dominant or submissive side that they really begin to have relationships in which they feel truly fulfilled. I know plenty of 40 year olds who are just now learning BDSM and the complexities of the relationships they want. I've had people tell me that, if they'd known at 20 that they'd wanted to be submissive, they wouldn't be divorced at 40 and looking for the right person again.

It's about understanding yourself and your needs as well as those of your partner.

Not that this line of reasoning has anything to do with the original question of social acceptance for BDSM practitioners.