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.”

But regardless, I get that a discussion of where to draw a line isn't at all what you are aiming for this thread to be, so I will duck out.

So what? It's worth it never happening again if it saves women's lives.

You think that response is disproportionate. I'd like to know why you value your orgasm and the excitement of your partner so much more than the lives of women.

You didn't have to plaster your sex life all over this thread, but like I said it's performative. You obviously need people to know you do this. Why? Nobody is coming into your bedroom, least of all the police, unless you end up dead because of this of course.

Of course it should be illegal for men to do this. At least women who men do this to would have some recourse then. It would be up to women then whether they wanted to report it or not.

I don't think it's odd that people don't realise how dangerous it is. They see it all the time in videos, and mostly they aren't actually intending to kill anyone, unless they actually are. They think they can control what happens. Usually no one dies.

What they don't realise is that it can go wrong so very easily, without anything being done differently.

You want to talk about your sex life on a thread about women who were strangled to death by sadistic men. Once again, what is wrong with you?

But the article is very much about both these things, isn't it?

I mean, that's part of the problem, that people who actually are murderers can plausibly claim that it was conventual, because that has become so common. That's what the article talks about.

So what's going on with the stuff people choose to do is very much to the point.

It should be illegal to murder people through strangulation, of course.

The fact that it is now seen as an unfortnuate side effect of being a heterosexual woman is shit.

What people do at home is irrelevant, if everyone is happy, no one is dead or calling the police, are they.

I don't understand what point this post is trying to make except, this is a reasonable defence for men who murder women ( and older girls) by strangulation, which handily is a preferred method for men to kill women in general.

No one has said that choking should be illegal between consenting couples in private?

I am pretty sure it is illegal in the UK, and in Canada, I'm not sure about the US. Personally, I think it should be, though I recognise that it is impinging on people's sex lives and even affects pretty notional scenarios. But I think it's significant enough to be proportional.

It should be illegal for men to strangle/choke women, full stop, whatever the results are. Women deserve protection.

"So what's going on with the stuff people choose to do is very much to the point."

We're getting the usual tedious "women like it" guff to hide the fact that there are men who like this very much. No insight, no analysis, just "I like it". We're not actually finding out what is going on because the posters are obviously in deep denial about what these men are doing to them.

'I don't think it's odd that people don't realise how dangerous it is. They see it all the time in videos, and mostly they aren't actually intending to kill anyone'

Come off it.

When you're suffocating, you struggle. When you're dying, you react.

Idea that women are what, not giving any sign they are at deaths door is bizarre.

Imagine someone is strangling you to death. You can't breathe.

Idea that men can't tell they are killing suggests women go passively, quietly. No struggle. No trying to get hands off. No going blue / limp but still not dead.

This defence only works if you believe women are passive even when being killed by strangulation. Feels unlikely.

Anyone ready to share the law that says any of these acts are illegal between consenting couples in private where no harm is done?

These men are murdering women and saying they wanted it. Let's get that addressed first.

It is unlikely because it doesn't happen. Unless they are drugged or unconscious in some way women fight for their lives when men are killing them.

"Oops I accidentally killed her" is a lie.

"Consenting adults" is the defense these men use. It needs to be chucked out the window.

"Oops I accidentally killed her" is a lie.

Yes 100%

'"Consenting adults" is the defense these men use. It needs to be chucked out the window.'

100% agree.

The idea of ' banning ' the act between consenting adults who are super happy is a derail that has been introduced.

When a person finds that 'they like' dangerous practices which normalise something harmful to women, if they are a feminist, they put their 'liking' to one side, and take a good, honest look at what they are consenting to.

I've done this before in regards to a different behaviour - my sex life isn't immune to feminst analysis - and made a choice to put a (porn-scripted) 'liking' aside. People can choose not to engage in things they 'like' because they recognise the harms to themselves and to others.

Choking does not need to be more normalised than it already is. And if you choose to defend your pleasure - I do it and I like it! - over engaging with the reality that you take part in and normalise a behaviour that has literally killed other women ? Well, I don't find that a particularly feminist way of being.

Yep, wearing my Judgey McJudgey pants today, and I give zero fucks.

Quite. This is no different to the women who peddle happy hooker crap and say what an entirely positive, life enhancing choice it has been for them personally as a 'liberated woman', as though this is a devastating answer to calling for the end of paid rape.

'I really like being abused!' is a stupid fucking counter to the evergreen and increasingly normalized issue of abuse.

And yes, hugely bad taste when we are talking about women dying. I cannot honestly think of anything else which leads to injury and death being excused because some deluded sap has been conditioned to 'enjoy' it.

Stop fooling yourselves, and stop trying to shop window your disturbing and dangerous foolishness when women are being killed.

"The idea of ' banning ' the act between consenting adults who are super happy is a derail that has been introduced."

One minute you're helping to chuck "consenting adults" out the window, next minute you're reviving it so it can sanction some patriarchally approved sex (men hurting women, women "consenting"). I'm confused.

It's not a derail. I think men strangling women, whatever the scenario, should be illegal and should come with hefty punishments. It's a good way for society to show that it's not acceptable and also acts as a deterrent effect.

"Consenting adults", is being used to excuse extreme male violence towards women as long as the woman in question doesnt' complain and even then, as long as the man says "she consented", apparently no-one was hurt and he didn't commit a crime. He did. Every single fucking time, whether she "consented" or not.

DrEm had a good, recent thread on consent:

A new trend in the rough sex defence to murder positions men as slaves to consent - they had to because she was asking for it. If men cared that much about women's consent 11 - 13 women wouldn't be raped per hour in England & Wales.
...
Yet, as the rough sex defence to murder shows, the notion that a woman enthusiasticly wanted something has been weaponised against women. We need to stop this idea that women really just want to be abused, and will ask for it.

twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1149580183336153088

'my sex life isn't immune to feminist analysis' - thank you Janes for articulating that so well. The article is horrifying and very important

Ok, you all realise that what people do in their bedroom at home is not generally the kind of thing where someone is struggling to breath and fighting for their lives, right?

The article in the OP was in part about people being deliberately killed using an increasingly popular sex fad as an excuse.

It was also about the increasingly popular sex fad, how it came to be, what people who do it think of it. And also why it is a problem in itself, and how it links to the assault and murder question..

There is ample evidence that people do this with the agreement of their partners, and that some of them find it a turn on. It was in the article. I have read it in other articles. I have talked to people who said the same thing. People have said so in this discussion, and are then told they need to shut up because it's not an appropriate addition to the discussion.

And then you keep on saying that no one actually thinks that, on the basis of.... you don't like it? Because it seems pretty clear that they do, and that it was a significant part of the article, and worth discussing.

I really don't see what you are trying to accomplish by claiming no one actually wants to do this. It totally contradicts the article for one thing, which everyone seemed to think was fairly good.

Or to put it another way, if you keep making the claim that no one actually ever likes or does this consensually, of course people will think you are misunderstanding the situation and tell you otherwise.

It's unnecessary to make the claim in order to say people shouldn't do it.

It doesn't matter if people like it.

Not everything we like, and want to do, is actually good for us and the society we live in. I'd quite like to eat an entire packet of Tim Tams every night, but it's bad for me and bad for the health system.

Engaging in choking, and talking about choking as a harm-free practice helps to normalise it and causes harm - the harm being people's growing acceptance that yeah, women dead because 'sex games involving choking which sometimes just goes wrong' is a thing.

I saw Germaine Greer talk last year, and she was very clear about the fact that consent is a very limited concept.

Sure, people engage in choking 'consensually', but so fucking what, excuse my language ? Consent makes it a little less wrong, it doesn't make it right.