Sunday Times on social media normalising choking

[ErrolTheDragon]

Not news to many of us, but good to see ST investigating and publicising this. Some of the content on eg Pinterest has been removed since they flagged it up, which is good. But platforms need to be proactive, not just reactive when they're named and shamed.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/social-media-make-girls-think-choking-during-sex-is-normal-0jlrgf2b0?shareToken=a7ea01e56d23ed2baf77a5868f964db0

Thanks for sharing this. Terrifying.

Really concerning. I cant imagine what young women are experiencing, and being told that it's normal.

It is not very long ago that deaths like this from choking were kept quiet as the publicity resulted in deaths when others gave it a go.

Now the message is spread by internet, but without safeguards. It is indeed terrifying that this is being normalised.

Is this a really recent development in what is "acceptable", "normal" in sex? I only ask that, because this was unheard of when I was a young, unmarried man in the seventies and eighties.

Good lord, that’s disturbing.

I am heartily glad I’m not a young woman trying to navigate my way through this. Our society has become absolutely porn sick.

Very, very tired of extremely dangerous and hateful acts being passed off as a normal part of sex. Thank you Fiona and the supporters of We Can’t Consent To This for highlighting the gendered and abusive nature of this sort of normalisation.

Now, on this kind of thread I’d generally expect there to be a bit of an influx of posters about now saying that they absolutely adore being choked, and that feminists are bitter pearl clutching old harridans that nobody wants to fuck anyway. I’ll have a cuppa while I’m waiting...

A colleague in her early twenties told me it's almost standard with Tinder dates now. They go for her neck without even checking she is okay with it.

It's difficult to say andy, do you mean that men you know didnt talk about it?

"According to a survey by the research company Savanta ComRes last year, 38% of women under the age of 40 have experienced unwanted slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual intercourse."

Thanks for the share token!

Thanks OP and thank you Fiona for your campaign.

Now, on this kind of thread I’d generally expect there to be a bit of an influx of posters about now saying that they absolutely adore being choked, and that feminists are bitter pearl clutching old harridans that nobody wants to fuck anyway. I’ll have a cuppa while I’m waiting...

Many of the comments on the article are depressing. I gave up reading.
Roughly summed up as "A woman wrote 50 shades, women read it, women love it" and similar.

Setting my timer on the enthusiastic posters arriving.

Yes, there are a few regular apologists/perpetrators.

I also find this terrifying. And until a couple of years ago I was on and off dating sites for around 5 years. We have indeed become 'porn sick' and it is across the age groups now too (as people become single later in life and access porn / social media / online dating)

I'm 48 and a friend of mine was dating a military guy last year. All same age. She told me a story of how he liked choking (she made the gesture with her hands in case I didn't get what she meant) She went on to say well you know these squaddie types. Heh heh apparently she woke up in bed and apologised for falling asleep on him. He replied that she hadn't fell asleep, she had passed out as he had been choking her. She again tried to excuse it was a bit of fun these squaddies are into.
I felt sick. I told her to be careful. To have more bloody respect for herself. I asked if it was even something she wanted to do. She shrugged. FFS.

My daughter is 8. I have already started telling her that it's fine to say no to anything that makes her uncomfortable etc.

And I will never again enter the cesspit that is online dating. It's mostly vile. And I've no desire to trawl through 95% of mysoginistic coercive arseholes in order to try and find a decent soul.

Long term health risks. Assuming you make it to old he that is.

www.dementia.org/oxygen-deprivation-dementia

*old age

Langsdestiny

Never heard it discussed at all. I may well have led a sheltered life - thank goodness.

Glad to see this article and for We Can't Consent to This getting a mention.

That stat about 38% of women under 40 saying they have experienced violence during consensual sex is horrifying

It really worries me for the younger generation when it comes to sexual practices like this. I am no prude at all but I was shocked to see that my niece was posting memes in Facebook about anal sex as if it was a very normal thing to do during sex. She was about 17/18 at the time and her friends seemed to agree with it.
Once my DS2 is getting in to relationships we shall be explaining to him that the BDSM type things are not "normal" in relationships. They are something that can develop over time and be consensual on both sides, with safe words/indicators discussed first.

Thank you for sharing this!

Some of the stuff on instagram we researched for this piece could meet the "extreme porn" threshold.

The APPALLING 38% figure comes from this survey www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50546184 (you can listen also to this radio piece we did www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07wbvzg

In that survey a further proportion reported choking, slapping which was not unwanted. There is obvious pressure for women to submit to this - to want this, and also to be good at it.

Also depressed by the comments. For so long sex was primarily about men’s pleasure; far too recently it became about mutual pleasure. When did it become about getting off on causing harm or being harmed?

It's good to see this getting a serious discussion in the press. I agree with the poster who said lack of care in sharing information on the internet is a factor. It used to be that print publications had to meet certain standards, like if you talk about a dangerous practice you need to highlight that it is in fact dangerous. And being aware of social contagion as someone aid above.
This all now seems to have gone out the window even in many mainstream print publications.
I do think though that when people talk about women reading things like 50 Shades, it's relevant in that just like porn needs to stop featuring this stuff, women's sexy novels do as well. It normalises it, uses it as a turn on for the reader. And women can be convinced just like men that it would be fun and a bit of a taboo thrill when it's presented like that.

It’s so frightening that whatever is portrayed in porn is making women think they need to do this. There was a thread on here a couple of weeks ago where one woman was saying how she was giving her partner a BJ and as usually her eyes were watering... I was like”why are your eyes watering?” Apparently that’s what happens as they are doing deepthroat now. How can men be ok with seeing their girlfriends gag pleasuring them? It sickens and horrifies me. I’m genuinely scared of what porn is doing to men’s minds and thus to society.

I mean... it's interesting though, speaking of BJs. Oral sex is something that people used to say should not be normalised because then people who found it unpleasant would feel pressured to do it anyway. Which I think is probably true.
So how do we have on the one hand freedom for people in their private sex life, but not have fads and normative practices make people feel pressure to do things they don't want to, or to groom in particular ways, etc? The main thing as far as I can see would just to really roll back the acceptability of public discussion of private sex practices in magazines, books, on tv, etc. Because as long as you have regular stuff like Cosmo articles about giving the perfect BJ or how to have anal sex or whatever, it begins to become part of what people expect.

Thank you to the ST for covering this, I think it’s a horrifying trend

Yeah that’s another thing. Anal sex. That’s became normalised and I think it’s pretty abnormal tbh. My ex wanted to do that after seeing it porn and I refused. How many other women feel like they have to it to please their partner?

@Langsdestiny

apparently she woke up in bed and apologised for falling asleep on him. He replied that she hadn't fell asleep, she had passed out as he had been choking her. She again tried to excuse it was a bit of fun these squaddies are into.

This is terrifying. One day she might realise the magnitude of this and it will shock her.