Perhaps it's because pagans and New Agers have already questioned and rejected many of the canons of the traditional Judeo-Christian belief system. They can find new contexts for exotic sexual desires. For example, some pagans follow the erotic path to transcendence. We interviewed a male goddess worshipper from a California church for submissive men and dominant women. They publicly enact elaborate rituals patterned after Eastern goddess worship cults.
Nude men prostrate themselves before dominant women.
It's a sexual charge, for sure, but it is also a religious experience, not substantively different from Holy Rolling. Fakir Musafar, a major figure in the body-modification cults, told us that body modification can serve any number of spiritual functions. For some people, a piercing is a rite of passage. Fakir uses intense stimulus to take his body and mind on a transcendent spiritual journey. Probably the most compelling aspect, though, is ritual.