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

[WomanDaresTo]

Please read this extraordinary piece by Anna Moore in the Guardian www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/25/fatal-hateful-rise-of-choking-during-sex on women killed in claimed sex games "gone wrong" and the normalisation of choking of women in sex.

When a direct threat to life is slowly normalised, “it means that a woman whose partner chokes her might not report it – and if she does, it might go nowhere,” says Edwards. “It means that if a woman dies this way, judges and juries feel ‘this is how people have sex now’ and questions aren’t always asked.”

This is a fantastic article. Well done to all the Mumsnetters that work on wecantconsenttothis.uk/ and thanks to Anna Moore and CoCo Khan for writing it.

At last, it's clearly not a game, women don't enjoy it or ask for it. This happened to me when I was about 17 . Not a new phenomenon as that was in the 70s. very scary and I was lucky to get away, but at least I recognised it for what it was , naive though I must have been at the time. What is horrible is that somehow BDSM has been normalised to young women now think they have to agree to this, anal sex and other porn fuelled activities. Remember guys, you are choosing to take someone else life by indulging your fetishes

Yes thank you Mumsnetters responsible, the website has clearly had an impact.

Really important piece.

Well done to all the Mumsnetters that work on wecantconsenttothis.uk

This. Thank you.

Excellent piece albeit disturbing and distressing to read! Kudos to the MNetters and others that contributed to this.

Just spotted this - so glad it's being written about, it's so important

Yes yes a huge, huge thank you from me to all of you who've contributed - I think this all started when one of you said that "all boys want to throttle" on dates. And we saw that these women and girls' deaths were not just isolated incidents.

We Can't Consent to This will be doing some campaign pieces over the next few months - starting with writing to MPs. Will share v soon.

(And sorry should have named checked Coco Khan in the opener, brilliant work by both)

So glad this is being covered publicly. And yes, a big thank you to those who have pulled together the evidence and asked the questions about this appalling porn fuelled attack on women.

It's true that, as long as unconscious bias exists, juries and judges will be all too accepting that it's normal practice for women to be hurt, mutilated and killed during sex. And sex is no longer something that women can experience pleasure through.

I will do what I can to support this campaign, just let us know what you need.

Yes thank you to everyone who contributed to this. It’s really really important. I am horrified it even needs to be something we have to fight against.

Thank you to the Mumsnetters behind we can’t consent to this. It’s so important.

This is terrifying. I'm so glad the pattern is being revealed. Thanks to everyone who has contributed and continues to do so.

This is so disturbing. Good article.

thank you for all your work on this. That is a fantastic, hard hitting article. Looking forward to what We Can't Consent To This do in the future.

Well done We Can't Consent to This and Anna and CoCo for the article. This issue needs to go mainstream.

So sad... "One young man who spoke to the Guardian for this piece said he chokes his girlfriend, and has done for several years, “because she likes it”. Days later, he got in touch again. “I thought about our conversation and asked her about it. She said she doesn’t actually like it; she thought I liked it. But the thing is, I don’t: I thought it’s what she wanted.”"

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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).

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

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.