I don't know if you saw the rest of my conversation thread(s) with strictly but we ended up talking some about the genetic basis for paraphilias, in general.

I need to spelunk in this thread a bit more, I missed those conversations.

I didn't make my point very clear earlier, this is my fault. What I was trying to say is that there is learning in the paraphilias. Whether that's trauma--which I'll cover in a bit--or not, there's learning. Latex, for instance, is a relatively recent invention. I guarantee you that there's no gene specifically for latex fetishism. Evolutionary biology does not work that quickly, and a sexual interest in latex is going to detract from reproductive success.

what you are describing quite frankly sounds analogous to sexual orientation

Pretty much. If someone is straight and kinky, I consider both those things to be part of their overall sexual makeup, and I don't see a reason why one should be considered more or less important than the other.

Someone replaying sexual abuse events that happened to them sure seems like they should get help, and to be honest, of the people I've met in real life with fetishes, most fall into this category.

To spot this kind, I look for how specific their roleplay is. E.g. the active role person has to be wearing a brown belt, dirty blue jeans, must say specific phrases like "Your mother never loved you." Etc.

I suspect this kind of roleplay is used to try and resolve a guilt issue. Why it's not successful, I think, is that people are actively trying to find or reclaim agency (which they may not actually have had) and guilt is then created in service to that desire for agency. It's hard to feel guilty over things you have no control over. But that desire for control can create guilt as an illusion of agency. Guilt is a sure-fire way to abort any psychological coping. My two cents.

I suspect trauma-based roleplay may be pallative. It may be theraputic, but it is not therapy. Therapy's goal would be to resolve the issue.

I kind of wonder how much of your guys' apparent disagreement is actually due to a mixing-up of what you're talking about.

Trauma vs nontrauma etiologies. Yes, those are meaningful ways to look at it.

I recommend looking at this review. It deals specifically with BDSM and not necessarily all paraphiles per se. Although BDSM does cast a pretty wide net. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1665619?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=JPG15645&utm_term=post

Here's some highlights:

"Both male and female BDSM practitioners were more likely to have experienced CSA than the general population (7.9% males in the current sample compared to 1-3% in the population; 22.7% to 6-8% for females, respectively)."

"However, it is important to note that most (90.4%) BDSM practitioners in this study reported no abuse at all, providing little support for the theory that most BDSM practitioners have previously experienced abuse."

"Contrary to the prediction that most persons with BDSM interests should have experienced some form of trauma, BDSM practitioners had comparable PTSD and trauma-related phenomena scores and incidence rates of trauma similar to population averages (8%), "

"Similarly, a population study found no link between psychopathology, abuse, and BDSM..."

So it seems that at least, BDSM paraphilic interests are mostly not caused by trauma. I think a lot of paraphiles want the question answered as to why they are that way. Pop psychology offers a quick answer: trauma. So even if that narrative is hypothetically false, I do think some people use that. This article explores the idea a bit more: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2012.700028

I also wonder if the trauma-identified group, if not traumatized, would have found their same or similar paraphilic interest on their own. Or in other words, was the paraphilia latent and elucidated by the trauma, or did the trauma cause the paraphilia?