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Sexual strangulation has become popular – but that doesn’t mean it’s wanted

The act of strangulation has become increasingly normalised and sexualised. The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, a worldwide bestseller, was widely criticised by feminist campaigners, academics and domestic abuse charities for eroticising strangulation and making it socially acceptable. The recent Netflix-produced films Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Obsession also contain strangulation during sex scenes, which are presented as part of a love story... The creep of strangulation into legitimate and normalised behaviour makes it more difficult for women to escape (and avoid) violent relationships. This normalisation leads many women to feel like they cannot speak up about nonconsensual choking.

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Featured

  We Can’t Consent To This

This is a response to the increasing use of “rough sex” defences to the killing or violent injury of women and girls. There are at least 60 UK women killed and many more injured. We are extremely concerned by normalised violence against women in sex.

 Erotic Asphyxiation: The Widespread and Potentially Fatal Fetish That Nobody Will Talk About

We talked to some people who get off on choking about the pleasure, shame, and dangers involved. Erotic asphyxiation, or EA, is a sexual act that involves suffocation. You probably know that already. How to get to that point is up to the individual. Rope, hands, bags, cling-film, water—the method can be chosen to suit the desired effect. For some, this is just the thrill of being dominated with a hand on the throat, for others the sensation of oxygen being cut off from the brain heightens the intensity of an orgasm. For others, the aim is to pass out completely. The negative side effects can range from cardiac arrest to permanent brain damage. The likelihood of this happening increases when EA is done alone—”autoerotic asphyxiation.”

 Is Choking During Sex Ever Really Safe?

Consent, a safety gesture, and knowing why choking turns you are all essential. “Choking is extremely dangerous, and if you don’t do it correctly, you can give someone permanent brain damage or even kill them,” says sexologist Marla Renee Stewart, sexpert for Lovers sexual wellness brand and retailer.

 Let's Chat About Choking

Sexual strangulation is on the rise, but it can quickly get dangerous. Here's how to stay as safe as possible if you want to try it out.

 The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

 ‘There is no safe way to do it’: the rapid rise and horrifying risks of choking during sex

Now thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40, it can also lead to difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage. How has this extreme practice been normalised?

Previously Featured

'Choking porn' is set to be banned in England & Wales. Here's why it's such a landmark moment for women's safety

Women's safety campaigners have welcomed the move, including Andrea Simon, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), who described it as a “Vital step towards recognising the role violent pornography plays in shaping attitudes to women and regulating an industry which promotes and profits from violence against women.”

'He strangled me without asking' - experts say choking during sex now normal for many

A recent government review found porn involving non-fatal strangulation (NFS) was "rife" and that its prevalence online was contributing to choking filtering into some people's sex lives - particularly among young people. The BBC has spoken to women who've experienced choking during sex - both willingly and not - and to experts who say, while it may be more common, it is illegal and highly dangerous.

Apparently, Lots of Women Like Getting Pretend-Choked in Bed. Are You One of Them?

Let's say I have a friend named Anne. And that this fierce, independent, intelligent woman likes her boyfriend to grab her throat when they get it on. In other words, she submits during sex, Fifty Shades of Grey-style. Apparently, Anne's not alone. When I broached the topic of this post with another friend, she revealed that she also knows women who enjoy what we'll dub "light asphyxiation" when they do the deed. Do a Google search—not at work!—and you'll find dozens of women posting questions to online forums, wondering whether a little neck action is normal.

Choking and Couture? Vogue Fetishizes Gender Violence

By associating abuse with eroticism, Vogue propagates the disturbing idea that women enjoy being subjugated. Strangling is a frequent habit of batterers, and this shouldn’t be used as a tawdry gimmick for selling magazines. Violence is never fashionable.

Deadly 'Choking Game' Comes With Big Risks

New Hampshire's chief medical examiner, who has studied the trend, explains: "As the brain is deprived of oxygen, there's this sensation of lightheadedness, which is interpreted as a high. And then once the pressure is released and blood flow is restored in a fashion, they see stars and the feeling is described as a rush," he said.

Good Sex with Emily Jamea: The Rise of Erotic Asphyxiation

Lately, it seems like everyone’s more comfortable talking about their sexual preferences. And with this openness — does their freak match your freak? — sexual expression has evolved, with preferences like rough sex and erotic asphyxiation getting more attention and being talked about in mainstream media and personal relationships. These practices, while not new, have piqued people’s curiosity, often fueled by what they see and hear in pop culture.

I was strangled during sex without consent. Here's why breathplay has no place in pornography

Don’t get me wrong, I know breathplay can be done [relatively] safely. I’ve experimented with it plenty of times throughout my years in the BDSM community, both as a giver and a receiver. I learned how best to choke without harming the trachea or risking fainting and perfected consent practices to ensure partners felt safe at all times. All the healthy approaches anyone playing with any form of sex should utilise. But – and this is a big but – the way strangulation has invaded sex culture as a standard practice is abhorrent, particularly for young people just figuring out what sex is and how to play safely.

Risk of serious injury as strangling during sex becomes normalised among young Australians

Sexual violence experts concerned about health risks and lack of consent after survey shows almost 60% of respondents under 35 had been choked at least once.

Sexual choking is now so common that many young people don’t think it even requires consent. That’s a problem

In a sexual landscape shaped by pornography, far too many incorrectly believe that choking is routine and risk-free. In human sexuality, kinkiness is the use of non-conventional sexual practices, concepts or fantasies. Choking in sex is a kink. Yet it has somehow made its way under the mainstream umbrella of things that many young people assume are OK to do without consent – often the first time you’re sexually involved with them.

Sexual choking/strangulation and its association with condom and contraceptive use...

Consensual sexual choking has become prevalent among young United States (US) adults. In sex between women and men, women are overwhelmingly the ones choked, perhaps reproducing traditional heteronormative power dynamics. No research has examined the relationship between being choked during consensual sex and the use of external condoms and other contraceptives.

Social media make girls think choking during sex is ‘normal’

Teenagers are being exposed to graphic images on social media that promote life-threatening sexual acts, such as strangulation and erotic asphyxiation, prompting concerns that this is “normal” for a generation.

The fatal, hateful rise of choking during sex

Too many women’s lives are ending after what those accused of their deaths say were ‘sex games gone wrong’. But how did strangling ever become normalised? Strangulation – fatal and non-fatal – “squeezing”, “neck compression” or, as some call, it “breath-play” – is highly gendered. On average, one woman in the UK is strangled to death by her partner every two weeks, according to Women’s Aid. It is a frequent feature of non-fatal domestic assault, as well as rape and robbery where women are the victims. It is striking how seldom it is seen in crimes against men.

The Rise of Sexual Choking Among Young Adults

Sexual choking involves any kind of “erotic asphyxiation.” It’s a form of strangulation during sex where external pressure to the neck reduces blood and/or air flow. [1] In a study conducted in 2020 that sampled undergraduate students, one in three women reported that they had been choked during their most recent partnered sexual encounter.

The Teen Trend of Sexual Choking

As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst who has worked for decades with teens and college-age students, I’m disturbed but not surprised by the trend of choking during sex. Choking is obviously very dangerous, and unfortunately, social media has made this once uncommon practice more mainstream. Education is the key with both our youth and parents. Yes, sexual strangulation needs to be part of ongoing conversations about safe sex practices. There clearly needs to be more accountability about this behavior.

This popular sex trend is far more dangerous than you think

Sexual choking is astonishingly common among young people.

Women Are Finding Themselves Being Strangled During Sex — The Consequences Can Be Deadly

The existence of the rough sex defence is proof in and of itself that we value women’s lives less than men’s. A UK campaign titled, ‘We Can’t Consent To This‘ is passionately fighting for more women to recognise the dangers of sexual choking, sharing the stories of 60 women who have lost their lives while partaking in a sex act which was deemed consensual in the eyes of the law.

‘I think it’s natural’: why has sexual choking become so prevalent among young people?

Erotic asphyxiation has become mainstream among under-35s. How did we get here? Erotic asphyxiation is nothing new. Mention the term to anyone over the age of 30 and they’re likely to bring up Michael Hutchence’s 1997 death (which was ultimately determined to be a suicide) or Tim Winton’s 2008 novel Breath, which depicts a teenage boy getting drawn into sexual asphyxiation with an older friend’s wife. Various types of “breath play”, as it’s often referred to in BDSM communities, have been practised since at least the 1700s – it even appears in the Marquis de Sade’s 1791 novel Justine.

Resources

Women's Health NSW

People generally engage in sexual choking to increase endorphins (the body’s feel-good chemicals) and to intensify orgasm. Sexual choking might also be part of edge play (a buzz you get from doing risky things and surviving them), bondage and discipline (BDSM and power play), rough sex, or sometimes just because people are curious.