Which is pychologically less damaging to slave lifestylers, to simple enter into the life with an M to be sold, or for the M to actually go through the NASTY (violent) business of actual enslavement (shades of "The Most Dangerous Prey" inserted here)?

You will find very few slaves who walk into the lifestyle willing to be sold. Even when a person is willing, they still have to be trained in slave etiqutte before being sold, although they do so willingly. That is still a process that can take weeks to months. As we know from the world wide epidemic of white slavery, the majority of people are captured/kidnapped and forced into the lifestyle. This does turn into nasty business of training an unwilling person. This by far the most psychologically damaging. I think most people who buy sexual slaves like the fact that this person was stolen, tortured and trained, and now has been sold to them, into prostitution, or into pleasure houses.

[Strapwelder]

On the flip side, a woman give her neck bared for her Masters collar. The pretense being she will be his forever unless a prearranged contract has been arranged. We each have our own pretense of the meaning to own another just as the slave has a preconceived idea as to her conception to becoming another's property.

Speaking for myself my property is my most valuable possession and is cared for as such. She is still mine to do with as I please but she's turned over complete trust that she will be properly cared for through life.

My remarks are a bit off topic but when she was marked with my brand she did endure a certain physiological change.

[Ishtar]

I've worked with a lot of female doms with male slaves and female doms with female slaves (our community did not have a lot of male doms for some reason. Maybe they were scared off?) and every one of them preferred their slave come to them willingly.

To be fair, that was in a very consensual BDSM situation, not sex slavery or sex trafficking.

The allure for them was not the breaking of a slave's mind but the power-play and the level of trust required to give yourself up completely to a woman in leather and high heels. Everyone I worked with was a successful person in their own right, musicians, artists, models, CEOs, etc. They were people who loved being in control and people who demanded control. So the submission was always fascinating.

One of my favorite examples is that of a couple, codenamed Ophelia and Hamlet. Ophelia was the dom in that relationship, a 25 year old kindergarten teacher who, at work, was the sweetest woman alive. She doted on her students so much that most of them called her "Mom" and she never bothered correcting them. Her sub, Hamlet, was her husband in real life and a high-powered personal injury attorney. If he'd been the flashy type, he'd probably have one of those over-intense commercials saying he'd win them the money every time.. He was that good. And that terrifying in a courtroom.

But when they were together at meets or exhibitions, it was the complete opposite. And both of them loved it -- it gave him a chance to give up control when he was always so controlling in his day-to-day life and it gave her a chance to be as strict and intimidating as she wanted without scaring anyone. As a Mistress, she was pretty damn merciless, but of course, never drew blood. It was a treat to watch their powerplay.

[technodivinitas]

I think it's important that some clarity be had, whether you're talking about real-life experiences or fantasies.  As a lifestyle, 24/7 slave of more than a decade, I will say I loved my Master, and I loved my life, and I trusted him absolutely. There was nothing in that relationship which harmed or psychologically damaged me- except it's ending, which, while amicable, was also devastating.

Most of my fantasies of slavery though, are of the non-consentual kind. Brutal, unwilling, kidnapped or imprisoned, shackled and branded, sold on an open market to the highest bidder, or marked for public use. That sort of slavery, in the real world, has got to be monstrously damaging, psychologically, as well as physically, and I'd not want to experience it any more than I would a "plain old traditional" rape, or a date rape.