The fatal, hateful rise of choking during sex - Guardian piece

Thank you for all who contributed to this, and the wonderful authors

The normalisation of porn is increasingly endangering women, and I am terrified for the future for young women.

And every time I hear the phrase ‘kink shaming’ I will challenge it. There is no shame in thinking violence has no place in sex.

Except.... I'm someone who does like it.

This is not a coerced setting (the opposite, actually! Almost something I didn't want to post because I don't think I'm articulate or eloquent enough to explain things, and would get eviscerated by Mumsnet fwr). But I do like it. So there must be women that do, and you can't say categorically that none do.

Feel free to troll check - have been around since the beginning of time. Frequent supporter of many Mumsnet feminist causes. I just enjoy being choked a bit during sex 🤷🏻‍♀️

This practice is disgusting. Society is screwed. Why misogyny is so prevalent in the police?

So the idea is that we are consenting to being killed, which is horrendous.

Exactly. We don’t allow people to consent to certain things, thing which involve violence and is potentially life ending is quite reasonably not normally something we legally allow people to consent to. I just have never understood why adding sex to it somehow makes it totally legit. How the bloody hell have we got here?!

Thing is, even if some women do like it,

These women are dead.

So the idea is that we are consenting to being killed, which is horrendous.

But I suppose.

Was thinking this morning that the 'asking for it' thing means that women and girls dressed /acting in a certain way want to be raped, they are asking to be raped. Women and girls do not want to be raped, or killed.

Everyone knows this, but the drive to blame women and girls for the actions of men is vv strong.

This was one of the most upsetting articles I've ever read in the Guardian.

With this "women like it" claim, how come there are all these women who've suddenly discovered that they like being strangled by a man when it wasn't a thing even a few years ago. I don't believe a single woman "likes" it. This is women being trained to be porn bots, to keep sadistic dangerous men happy.

The men who do this are the absolute scum of the earth. There, I just judged and kink-shamed them. It's what I like.

Such an important article and well done for getting it placed in a news source that is doing so much to advocate for porn and reduce women's safety.

And as for that twitter thread

It's always very difficult to get people to see the problem with something like this if there are others who do actually agree to do it willingly. It's a mistake IMO to fail to acknowledge that there are real physiological reasons it can be a turn on, it lacks credibility to many, and then it also is a distraction in some instances.

The real issue is that even though there are real physiological reasons that some people like it, there are also very serious reasons it shouldn't be allowed. Even beyond some people feeling pressured.

But people are so unaccustomed to thinking that way, you really have to be very clear and explicit. They have been used to thinking that whatever happens with sex in private is no ones business as long as there is consent, and they often can't change that perspective easily.

What Benjispruce and Floralbunting said.

I think women do say this in a non-coerced setting.

Fair enough - I made my remark in the context of a PP's remark that

the facebook comments on this article have men complaining about kink shaming and claiming women like it

I mistakenly (?) interpreted that as an assessment that the comments are not full of women claiming this. And, yes - I wonder how much people understand about the risks of recurrent TIA and 'silent stroke' which is why I wondered if this risks will only be aired if health insurers refuse to reimburse related expenses.

The most frequent signs of manual strangulation are usually reported only in autopsies. Unfortunately, clinical findings are evident in approximately 50% of surviving patients [14]. Yen et al., described the CT and MRI findings in patients who survived manual strangulation with ischemia or hemorrhage [5].
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4211813/

There is some decent research in the arena of strangulation and domestic abuse but it will always be limited be a reluctance to consult healthcare.

non-fatal intimate partner strangulation was associated with multiple negative physical and psychological outcomes for women, though only 5–69% of strangled women sought health care, in studies reporting this finding.

Injuries of Women Surviving Intimate Partner Strangulation and Subsequent Emergency Health Care Seeking: An Integrative Evidence Review. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29292069

I will state upfront that I have no idea of the difference in physical or psychological consequences for people who are strangled consensually or non-consensually. From a swift search through the literature, there does seem to be greater research into women and intimate partner violence. To be fair, I'm unclear on whether there is research on the outcomes of consensual intimate partner violence that includes strangulation.

Having read the article in the OP, I've learned that I don't even make the ranks of vanilla, my preferences are so bland. Should the "Funtime" tweet in the twitter thread above, ought I to reconcile myself to 'bland shaming'?

Let's be clear; if your sexual enjoyment is enhanced by choking the woman you are having sex with, you are getting excited by the possibility she could die.

I am quite happy to shame your sorry arse for being someone who ejaculates to the thought of a woman dying.

I am scared for my teen daughters. Porn is so widespread and so accessible.

Me too

Thank you Anna Moore and all contributors . Horrifying.

I am scared for my teen daughters. Porn is so widespread and so accessible.

Had to stop reading the comments after this choice piece

'Have you even ever had sex? Choking is seriously one of the tamest of things LOTS (trust me) of women enjoy during funtime.'

Seriously scary to think of the less tame 'funtime' things this delightful poster would try to shame people into

That thread is awful.

No sorry, if there are women that ‘like it’, they have an issue they need therapy for. Choking is an act of violence and it doesn’t suddenly become ok just because you’re having sex at the same time.

I can’t think of anything worse. Is this a thing? Horrific. But have to say I hate the way anal sex has become so mainstream too. It’s referenced so casually now.

Jesus, some of the posters on that thread

Absolutely apoplectic at the suggestion that women needing to breathe is more important than their fucking orgasm

It makes me despair

This happened to me with an ex.

It was fairly early in the relationship, alcohol fuelled, but I still vividly remember laying there with his hand round my neck thinking if it ever happened again I would have to finish the relationship. I was besotted at the time, I should have had the self respect to end it there and then. I've never mentioned it to anyone as I'm ashamed that I remained in the relationship.

It didn't happen again and we broke up a several months later for various reasons (one of them being me calling him out on his drinking).

twitter.com/GuardianJessica/status/1154385321133510662

I accidently retweeted this without reading it properly

Who is Jessica Reed? Is she trying to pick holes in the articles in her own newspaper, or is GuardianUS something different

Are the claims that women liked it backed up with, "And she said this in conversation in a non-coerced setting"?

I think women do say this in a non-coerced setting. The difficulty is that peopel often aren't totally honest about sex, and it doesn't really matter if they like it in any case, it's still dangerous.

I thought that it was a really good article. It brought out a lot of the different elements and how they are related: porn, people who have learned to think it's a normal, ok, activity, people who use that as an excuse to cover crime.

I think someone who has grown up with this kind of expectation or even enjoyed it, could read an article like this and really see the problem without feeling the need to be defensive about it, and that's a difficult line to walk.

I've found the change a strange one in a way. I remembering as a quite young person always reading about choking as something that could not be done safely, that even people into BSDM didn't practice it because of that, it could go very wrong without anyone intending it or any clear signs. Somehow all this seemed to go by the wayside, except when it becomes an excuse to hide a crime. But it's not even that most people realise it is dangerous and decide to take the risk, they think it's harmless.

claiming women like it and what goes on in the bedroom shouldn't be policed

Are the claims that women liked it backed up with, "And she said this in conversation in a non-coerced setting"?

I sometimes wonder about the risk of TIA and even stroke during breath play. I wonder if the risks around this will only become mainstream when an insurer refuses to pay out for associated problems if somebody hasn't declared this activity?

Predictably, the facebook comments on this article have men complaining about kink shaming and claiming women like it and what goes on in the bedroom shouldn't be policed