Discussion on R4 Woman's Hour on choking during sex

Did you read the article SummersSoon posted? It clearly sets out the dangers of anal sex for women.

@DrBlackbird "Just what the hell are we doing to our teens and young adults, and I include boys and girls here, leading them to believe it’s ‘normal’ or healthy to choke or be choked etc. when it is just not."

We have allowed the pornographers to write the narrative for modern sex life. Pornographers are not nice people who indulge in mutual respect/consent/sharing a good time. They have to outdo one another in producing nasty stuff, with elements of dominance and submissiveness to compensate for the control over women that men have lost in day to day life. Humiliate. Degrade. Demean. Restores a sense of masculinity to a certain type of man and teenage boys.

"anal sex is pointless (as well as dangerous) for women. There are no pleasure sensors in the anus"

This is you being judgemental, this is you being wrong. Millions of women reach orgasm using nothing but their butt.

Did you read the article in the Guardian that SummersSoon posted? Here is her link, have a look. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/11/rise-in-popularity-of-anal-sex-has-led-to-health-problems-for-women
Anal sex is seriously dangerous for women. I am being objective, not judgmental. And you are making assumptions about my cultural background and sex life that are unwarranted - because you do not know me. Please don't do that.

Jesus christ 🤦‍♀️ what is happening? My DD is 12 and I'm horrified at what will be "expected" from her.

I can honestly say at 35 I've never met a man who thought choking is mainstream - ones who have wanted to try it, yes, but accepted it wasn't "the norm"

Porn has a lot to answer for

You literally are judging, with your tone and words, not to mention the untruths and exaggerations. As other women here have told you, plenty of people can reach an orgasm without going anywhere near the clitoris, and millions of women happily and regularly reach orgasm from anal stimulation, either penetrative or otherwise.

You can't, or possibly don't because of your cultural prejudices, but you should recognise those for what they are, opinions, not facts.

Unless your turn on is submission and being totally dominated then anal sex is pointless (as well as dangerous) for women. There are no pleasure sensors in the anus and all this about the clitoris being reachable from the anus is not biologically true. But if you like it and are happy with the health coutcomes, do have anal sex - I am not stopping you, or judging.

Ok I might be talking complete crap however this is how I see it.

I've always thought that women into BDSM have started out having 'vanilla' sex - having fun exploring their bodies & sexuality with a partner.

At some point, they realise they want more then they move onto BDSM, again taking it slowly & finding out what they enjoy.

But my whole point is, they have been able to discover what they like, not got into bed with a man & find themselves being throttled & spat on straight off.

Nowadays, it seems men skip the whole foreplay, finding out what a woman likes, and go straight to BDSM moves without knowing what they're doing & not caring if the woman likes it.

Funnily enough, many years ago I knew a young man who died because of his growing interest in using asphyxiation during sex. He was only 27, and left behind a deeply heartbroken family and friends (like me) for whom his exciting new edginess all looked especially pointless and sad in retrospect.

So yes, some men too. And it's dangerous for them as well.

You said it was pointless for women, that’s what I have an issue with.

@Grammarnut I was saying straight men that are into choking 100% exist, not that 100% of men want to be choked! 😂

If I had that kind of data at my fingertips I'd definitely not be doing art for pervy people with too much money on their hands, and I certainly wouldn't be keeping that info to myself!! 😂

Not anywhere near 100%.

Fwiw, I don't disagree that there's conditioning going on as a result of more extreme porn - However there are 100% straight men out there who are into being choked also.
Submissive straight men exist, I see it every day multiple times a day on the art site I do commissions on for example!
Generally they're just too shy/insecure to actually ask for it in practise :S

To those saying "but some women enjoy it" - so what? Society has conditioned men and women into a culture of finding women's submission and humiliation sexy. If this was just about sex positivity then straight men would be asking to be strangled but they're not. It never had to be this way and the more we normalise it the worse it gets.

What I meant.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/11/rise-in-popularity-of-anal-sex-has-led-to-health-problems-for-women

No, it's not up to me to tell people what to do, but anal sex can cause problems for women, tears in the anus, for example, and if frequent can cause the sphincter muscle to become less effective. There was nothing judgemental about what I said, it was a factual statement, much the same as that smoking damages your health.

Not all men. My late DH was willing to try lots of things, but not strangulation.

I listened to this too with horror but I've known for ages it's 'the thing' these days (although they didn't also mention slapping, being spat on, hair pulling, etc.).

I noticed that the woman who was talking kept saying 'people' strangling others but surely she meant almost exclusively men doing it!!? I've not heard of women doing this to men! (But maybe they are.)

After the discussion, some listeners responses were read out and I was really surprised to hear some men saying women were asking to be strangled.

It's very sad for our young girls that this is how their sex life will play out - being brutalised and disrespected within a relationship and probably not having the confidence or agency to say no.

And also sad for boys that peer pressure and pressure from social media and the internet means many will never experience sex in an emotional and loving way.

Just appalling and the government needs to start bringing in laws to protect our innocent children.

Jesus Christ, I can't believe this thread started talking about the risks of choking during sex and has devolved into people offering up details of their sex lives that have nothing to do with choking.

I’m fine now but had such a bad relationship with sex for a long time in my early twenties and I believe it was from learning about sex like this, at the time to me it was normal and we were in a loving relationship, it’s only as I’m older in well aware it was not normal to be doing that at 17/18.

i grew up got into a stable relationship and learnt boundaries. I posted later down the thread, it gives you an idea of what, but 17/18 year olds shouldn’t be exposed to it in my opinion, it’s harmful, and it winds me up people thinking this is a new thing when it’s not, and the same conversations are just repeated again. People who can influence change don’t want to or it would have been done by now and SM is fuelling an already old and existing issue.

My ex was lovely honestly and I genuinely think he would be mortified if I was back in touch and said how it effected me. it’s not good for girls as we tend to be at the receiving end of it and boys are learning from really bad stuff, I don’t blame him in the slightest literally both kids trying to explore sex I guess who only had porn for reference.

Thats really quite judgemental and untrue, not up to you to tell people what sex they can enjoy or not.

And a lot more focus on my pleasure.

Something I learnt (via GNC Benji who has been working her way through many huge texts) that is really radical is that some radical feminist tomes discussed non penetrative sex as being really important as for some women penetration is not as pleasurable as penetration.

I must say that it is a message I absorbed somehow somewhere in the 90s and my partners had too. May have been a hangover from the aids crisis, who knows. But it did mean in my relationships that there was no pressure to have penetration. Feels like a world away from what young women are experiencing now

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow yes, the clitoris is mostly internal and is shaped a bit like a wish bone. What most people thing of as the clitoris, is actually just the tip of the iceberg. In total the whole clitoris structure is about 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 inches long and about 2 1/2 inches wide