To think women who enjoy choking during sex should know the risks?

@NotBadConsidering i called it that because strangulation is an inaccurate description for what I have taken part in. Wouldn’t want to be accused of “lying” now would I? 🙄

The POINT of feminism in this day and age is having the power to make our own minds up on how we live, what we like, and what we get to do.

No, I don't agree that's the point of feminism. That's a sort of inane, choosy choice "everything I do as a woman is feminist" version. Everyone has the right to take whatever risks they want. That doesn't mean no one can look at the wider problems in society. Feminism is about advocating for women and girls as a sex.

Shaming women particularly for sexual desire is wrong, I agree. But criticism of particular practices as harmful and dangerous on a wider level, and advocating for people of both sexes to fully understand the risks they are taking (which clearly many people don't) and calling out the normalisation, peer pressure and often coercion is part of feminism.

@Boomboom22 how can I be lying about my own choices? There’s a difference between the two statements of “stopping blood flow to your brain can lead to injury or death” which I don’t and haven’t disputed and “as an adult, people can decide whether they deem something safe enough for them to do” and if they feel happy to partake in an activity with a safe word, that’s up to them.

How do you feel about me going horse riding? Or skiing? Or open water swimming? What about me crossing the road? Driving 100 miles? Being a passenger in someone else’s car where I’m not the one in control? Going climbing and relying on a belay? Where does it end?

You do what you like, and I will do what I like. Stop with your “lying” nonsense, you sound like a 5 year old.

Also @YuleDragon it's awful you think you are a feminist yet say things like that. Not much care for teenagers then!

Noone should be doing it. That's like saying if you don't like self harm and me cutting my wrists fine but don't tell anyone they can't do it. Noone should be cutting themselves and noone should engage in this type of sex. Its not really up for debate due to the medical evidence and now the law.

that’s a problem for the courts to deal with, not me. If they’re failing to give people a reasonable sentence for their crimes (which, let’s face it, happens alllll the time for basically every crime going) then that’s for authorities to sort

By the time the courts are dealing with it, a woman is already dead. So that's an incredibly glib statement for you to make.

Also, it's not to do with sentencing, it's to do with what crime is charged in the first place.

If it's socially and culturally accepted that women can enthusiastically consent to being strangled, then what's to stop a predator strangling a woman to death on purpose and then claiming it was consensual as a defence to murder? The charge is reduced to manslaughter, the sentence is lighter, he's out in a year and is able to do it again to another woman.

If you care to look, there are many cases where this has already happened.

If it ended up with someone dead I would find them guilty as to me the person isn’t reading how their partner was reacting to it

Guilty of what though? Manslaughter or murder?

There’s nothing more indicative of the normalisation of the practice than renaming deliberate strangulation of a woman with constriction of the neck in various forms that has the possible outcome of death, renamed with the twee term “breath play”.

Man: “I’m into breath play.” Posters here see potential partner.

Man: “I like strangling women.” Anyone with any sense sees 🚩 🚩

This isn't just about you and your fabulous sex life. It's whether harmful sex practices are being normalised. They are. It's also whether strangulation is dangerous. It is. Hope that helps.

Can't stand MN sometimes. I've been here since fuckin 2009 and its always the same.

The moment you disagree with someones moral high horse you're either a 'cool wife' a 'pick me' or a bloke. Fuck off with that crap.

The POINT of feminism in this day and age is having the power to make our own minds up on how we live, what we like, and what we get to do.

IF you don't like breath play, or bdsm, don't do it, but also don't tell other people they can't do it either, that's policing someone elses body and removing their freedom to be themselves.

Absolutely fed up to the back teeth of other people telling me how i should live my life based on their preferences and tastes. You do you, and leave me to do me.

You are lying again. All the evidence says what you allow him to do is not safe. In fact what you described is nearer the jugular and cartoid arteries. You are putting your life at risk. There is NO safe way or safe word you can use to make this safe.
So do it if you really want but ffs just accept facts that you are not safe doing it and there is no way you can ever be. You are already at high risk of stroke in the future even if you never do it again.

Meant to quote OP.

I've had an insightful pm from someone saying some of the pro-strangulation posters in this thread could be men who are getting off on the conversation. She may well be right! I feel like the point has been made now - @stinkingbishop made it better than I ever could have. So I'll bow out now. I hope everyone stays safe out there, best wishes to all xx

Yes, the point has been made and it's quite possible that is the case. Thank you for starting the thread.

This.

@ImTheGoat why would I go doing research to satisfy you? It is ok with a safe word for anyone who decides it’s ok (for them) with a safe word. Given non of my activities stretch far enough to be considered dangerous, it’s not something I need to think too deeply about. Not do I feel compelled to tell anyone else how they should conduct their own bedroom activities.

@stinkingbishop so we’ve now stepped from sex to kids games. Turns out there’s risks everywhere…. Who knew! 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

@thedankness nobody has called you that, stop with the hyperbole. The issue was that you nor anybody else on this thread (or off it for that matter) get to tell other people what they like or don't like. I'm not sure how much more @SkySecret and others can make this clear to you!

Apparently I am an ignorant, prissy, uppity, self-righteous clown for being concerned about everything you mentioned @stinkingbishop ! 😂

Re sports, it is dangerous. Obviously. Same mechanism. Unfortunately the most recent systematic review of health outcomes from chokeholds in Mixed Martial Arts was 2014, and done by someone who is linked to the US MMA association and very vocal on social media, so not exactly unbiased. I'm hoping to look at it next year. Partly driven by my own experience, as I'm currently treating a gentleman who had a catastrophic stroke following carotid dissection from a chokehold in MMA. He has lost all language and now has seizures.

It's worth comparing other fields too. The use of carotid restraint by the police, as highlighted by the George Floyd case, is now banned in many countries. It's interesting, isn't it, that we ban it being used on suspected criminals, but women and girls in the bedroom...

And then there's children, who are also affected by this normalisation creep. You may be aware of various TikTok crazes like the breath game (you have to hold your breath until you pass out), the choking challenge (you film yourself with a ligature), and the tap-out challenge (again, filmed, someone strangles you and you have to tap out in time). There have been deaths and harmful outcomes linked to all these, and we're hoping the new Online Safety Bill will give regulators the teeth to have content taken down.

Someone up thread said that, having reviewed porn in their line of work a while ago, they weren't aware of strangulation being a thing. Unfortunately, that has changed. It used to be a rather niche, searchable category, but is now ubiquitous, so much so porn director Erika Lust said "choking is just a standard way to have sex now". And this is evidently having an effect. In a recent study with US students, while most girls got their information on choking from friends, sexual partners, and social media, boys were more likely to cite porn.

Finally, someone asked about stats on gender. In terms of strangulation during domestic/sexual violence, it is overwhelmingly gendered. In 96% of UK domestic strangulation homicides the suspect was male. For non-fatal strangulation, for June-Dec 2022 ONS data shows 2568 cases of women being strangled by male partner, vs 198 where the victim was male (this is only what was reported to 27/41 police forces, so actual figures will be higher). Then during ostensibly 'consensual sex', 64% young women in the US say they have been choked vs 29% men. UK figures are similar. There were a couple of recent BBC surveys, which looked at strangulation during sex: 53% of women under 39 said it had been unwanted, 42% had felt pressured, and 20% said they were upset or frightened afterwards. 1/3 of the men said they wouldn't ask their partner before. Hence the quotation marks around 'consensual sex'.

@Ramalangadingdong yeah, you have to tense your muscles to move your limbs. You’re really stretching here, and honestly it doesn’t matter what your impression of it was, you weren’t there.

I was trying to explain that rather than him squeezing his elbow closed on my neck (which is what you do when using this to choke someone out) he was simply holding his arm there (which requires use of muscle else his arm would be dropped by his side wouldn’t it?) which for me was still enough to take an effect it seems.

He wasn’t a security guard. He was close protection (bodyguard). He was known for preferring to talk down situations to diffuse them, he wasn’t interested in fighting he just wanted to earn his money and go home. Sadly, some members of the public are scum and will attack regardless. In which case defence is required.

@ImTheGoat the point is it’s not your decision to make for other people. Whether that’s people playing sports or people’s personal lives. It’s up to each individual to choose what they want to do, and how far they want to go with that. I’ve stated where that line is for me (again, not your business) and I’m satisfied with my own safety.

I don’t go around doing sex presentations, I don’t make or post my own porn, I don’t talk to others about my sex life (outside of my VERY close friends who are all my peers) so what I do does not impact anyone else. Fact.

The issues about whether it is or isn’t a defence in court, like the points @HunterBidensBurnerPhone makes are a completely separate issue. There’s been a couple of opposing viewpoints on this and it’s not a discussion in interested in joining, it’s not me who has been discussing that. However, that’s a problem for the courts to deal with, not me. If they’re failing to give people a reasonable sentence for their crimes (which, let’s face it, happens alllll the time for basically every crime going) then that’s for authorities to sort.

@SkySecret what disturbed me in your earlier post was how you described your partner. You wrote that his muscles were tensed, which was why things got out of hand and that he was used to using that hold aggressively in his work as a security guard (or some such, I haven't read the post again) - I don't know why you wrote that because for me it conjured an image of a woman with a very strong man on the point of crossing a line from fantasy into the reality of violence. You may not have intended this, but that is what came across.

The thing about sports injuries, is that it takes time and the will to identify them and links made. Like fairly recently in football, the risks of heading the ball to players' long term health etc.

Just because something isn't banned in sport doesn't mean it is non-hazardous to do in the short or long term, for the participants.