Greetings,

have you read/heard/done much on the notion of tantra. Not the witless new age excuse for odd forms of intercourse, but the very old asian mystical system. In one form it is at least in part based on this idea of 'conscious sinning' that you seem to be driving at.

Practitioners would essentially be asked by their guru to perform successively more intense violations of social taboos, the idea being that it 'shattered' the mental conditioning of the adherent in order to permit freedom. And it is easy to see how this sort of thing could easily slip into sadism.

Tough medicine indeed!

love and life
paul