Non fatal strangulation and choking during sex

[ArabellaScott]

Grim read.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62zwy0nex0o

Name changed for this.
Choking has always been around but it was definitely considered a kink and not a mainstream practice like today.

I was choked about 25 years ago. I was young and flattered that such a handsome guy had taken interest in me even if it was only for a ONS.
During sex, he started to strangle me and it was terrifying. In the moment I thought he might go on to rape or kill me. Fortunately it was all over quickly and I was able to leave.
A few years later I discovered he had been involved in the murders of several young girls and they involved strangulation. I'd run a mile now from anyone who was into that. I can't see how any man could ever see it as something sexy/romantic and it simply seems rapey to me.

If you mean neck compression, you are simply wrong. Pressure on the neck arteries can unpredictably cause arterial dissection and stroke, and whether it is enough to impede breathing is irrelevant.

Which means that the men who do it have fantasies about killing women. I find that terrifying.

I'm so very sorry. That must have been utterly terrifying. I don't even have words for this. I hope you have been able to heal, and have the support you need.

I’m so sorry, I cannot imagine the terror you must have felt, I hope that you have been able to recover from that.

This is terrifying and I'm so glad you're still here to tell this story.

You also raised a serious point which is that paraphilic fetishes, especially the more violent ones, tend to increase with time like a drug addiction, with the fetishist needing more and more extreme acts to get their nut.

Dale Cregan, Raoul Moat, Chris Watts, Shane Jenkin all enjoyed 'sexually strangling' their partners in the years leading up to when they killed them (or in Jenkins' case, horrifically mutilated Tina Nash and gouged out her eyes).

The addictive and ascending nature of sexual paraphilias has been shown in countless studies since the 70s. We can also see it in the pattern of stealing womens underwear - indecent exposure - stalking - rape - murder. Wayne Cozens, Peter Sutcliffe, Fred West and countless others followed this pattern.

This is not to say that all sexual stranglers become murderers. But most sexual murders have the perpetrator showing patterns of violent sex beforehand.

Er, how?

YOU DON’T KNOW IF IT HAS HARMED YOU.

Sorry to shout, but so many PP are saying they do it safely and it’s never harmed them. In reality, they have no way of knowing that.

Being choked or suffocated can cause imperceptible amounts of harm each time. The body is wonderfully resilient, and you may not notice until you’re older and the body starts calling in its debts. As you age, you start finding out what your body has been coping with and can’t any longer. Same with sports injuries etc.

Dementia is something you really, really don’t want awaiting you.

Enjoying something doesn’t make it safe. If you’re enjoying something harmful you’re disregarding your natural survival instinct. It’s there to keep you alive — please don’t ignore it!

Yep. A tiny bit of brain death every time it happens. A bit like rugby players who have cumulative damage from every time there's head contact, and then early onset dementia that happens slowly and then all at once.

Worth being aware that 2/3 people with dementia are female and no-one knows why.

I've got a teen son, we've had the strangulation talk, and I was very clear that it was something he should never do, and why. Even if she asks for it, say no.

Risking dementia for a spicy orgasm.

Risking dementia so your partner can have a spicy orgasm.

Hilarious.

I never said I was “yay pornography” - I specifically said I was anti pornhub and had my own opinions on pornography as a whole, that I did not share. What I said was that I know women actively working in the industry and that they are changing the narrative and taking control, and that they certainly aren’t bruised and battered.

I also did not say o was “yay polygamy” - It is simply one relationship model and it does not always “benefit the man to the detriment of women” in fact this is again quite horrifically infantilising. As a system this may be the design, like pornography, however you cannot simply erase the voices of women who do find power in these situations.

It’s exactly like your arguments on anal sex Ignore the countless women discussing how it enhances their personal sex life and decide for yourself it is an anti-feminist act. Almost like women must fit your specific mold.

Any woman who enjoys anal sex or challenges blanket perceptions of womanhood must be an infantilised victim or a man.

Again, it is important to remember that there is a whole world of porn made specifically for women. Porn has its flaws: the industry has many flaws, especially given where it started, but it exists for a reason and not solely in a vacuum of male centred pleasure. Many women are making porn that women enjoy. There are men out there with onlyfans and a vast majority of female subscribers. You do all women a great disservice by dismissing all women into one single category or declaring anyone who enjoys anal sex, multiple partners, casual sex, or porn an anti-feminist or man.

thefemedic.com/sexual-health/what-do-anal-orgasms-feel-like-we-asked-three-women/

Maybe you’d like to respond to the correct poster, I haven’t commented directly or indirectly about any of the things you have mentioned in this response.

I will say one thing, the narrative that you are trying to push about women having agency within the sex industry, whatever form that may take, is laughable, and exactly the sort of thing that men say because they are the beneficiaries of said trade. Most women involved are there through forced circumstances, such as drug addiction, DV and of course trafficking. There is no ‘Pretty Woman’ scenario in the sex industry, for the vast majority of women it is degrading, violent and brutal. It isn’t a career option and it doesn’t in any way empower women. It reinforces VAWG and regressive stereotypes.

I will agree with you on one point, that it’s empowering. For men.

I’ve recently come out of a relationship with a man (we are both late 30s) who was very into the choking (him choking me) he didn’t ask permission the first few times and to my disgust (now) I didn’t raise it with him.

As our sex life developed, I once asked him to do it to me (I was drunk and in the moment). He did… but funnily enough he didn’t seem to get off on it quite so much when it was at “my request” and he never did it again. He was also very much into deepthroating and things along that nature and forever pushing my sexual boundaries.

So glad he’s an ex now, for a myriad of reasons. As a PP has said, I believe he’s one of those types who sees women as objects to validate him and deep down secretly hates them.

I remember my mum once reading something like this and being absolutely appalled by it, because in her generation it wasn't the 'done thing'. Women are becoming more empowered to voice their wants and discuss these with their partners, and through that, exploration happens. I am not suggesting that this is the case in every situation - I have no doubt there are shitheads out there who do it and get off on the fact they are hurting someone else, but in my specific situation, that is not the case.

//

And this sexual empowerment is costing women their lives. When you are dead you cannot say you asked him to stop strangling you.

Your posts sound incredibly sneering towards older women. So many of whom fought and grafted to make changes in law and society so being a woman could be slightly better. They just aren't hot like they used to be so their opinions apparently are less valid.

Casual sex was the liberation offered women with the pill - be like a man, have sex whenever and with whoever you fancy. Like all those liberating tropes it has advantages for men - they get sex on demand as it were, without having to have a relationship which might involve committment - whilst making women objects to be had. That's why it is anti-women, it's feeding a male fantasy of women who willingly have sex and then leave - it occurs in the Odyssey with Odyseus having brief sexual relationships with several women (whilst his wife is fighting off suitors at home) - it's part of men's sense of being entitled to sex.

This was my late mother's view. She was a diehard Catholic so objected to pre-marital sex per se, but came to view casual sex as harmful for women on a more individual and societal level. She thought it was something that placed risk (physical safety, STDs, pregnancy) overwhelmingly on women and encouraged their objectification by men.

I didn't agree with her at all as a youngster but increasingly beginning to come round to her view as I age and see/hear more of the degrading and dangerous practices being normalised for women.

Interesting post. The women of Afghanistan might like to know that they are empowered by polygamy.
It’s exactly like your arguments on anal sex Ignore the countless women discussing how it enhances their personal sex life - anal sex is a power trip for men, who would probably not submit to it themselves, and also a thrill since the anus is much tighter than the vagina. There are no equivalents of the prostate in women, so how they are pleasured by anal sex I am not sure. I do know they endanger their body since the female anus is not so rubust as the male and can easily be damaged by having things stuck in it - which it is not made to receive. The body will have its comeback later as it does with repeated strangulation.
Prostitutes taking control, and that they certainly aren’t bruised and battered. Prostitued women are being used as body parts for men's gratification, and prostitution itself is a world-wide industry that feeds into the porn industry as well as trafficking and dehumanising women. Where prostitution has been made legal e.g. New Zealand and Germany, far more women go into prostitution (because it's just a job, isn't it?) and there are pro-rata more murders and injuries to prostituted women. The 'happy hooker' is a myth to cover that men feel entitled to buy sex and women are mean who refuse them. The Nordic model, that criminalises pimps and punters, is the best outcome for regulating (and finally ending) prostitution. Just as with surrogacy, a woman's body is not a workplace and selling the holes in your body to give a man an orgasm is not a job like any other.

And then when he gets home, he kills the suitors and hangs the maids who have had sex with the suitors.

Utter hypocrisy.

@Butchyrestingface You have said well what I should have included, of danger and the consequences being on the woman. I too came to the conclusion that casual sex was damaging to women as I grew (much) older.

Again, you are talking about specifically one very different branch of a tree to what I’m describing. No, of course forced polygamy is not empowering at all. However, a woman who chooses to be polyamorous and have multiple male partners may feel empowered by this decision. You don’t get to decide she isn’t. It doesn’t make forced polygamy right, but this is just the same as saying any woman sold into a monogamous marriage by her father is not empowered. Another woman choosing, as is her goddamn right, to marry a man may very well say it’s an empowering experience for her. By your logic I would argue that all marriage is inherently anti feminist and therefore any woman choosing this is wrong, not a feminist, indoctrinated, and a victim of the system. She could never feel empowered by this decision to marry because by design marriage is patriarchy.

The sex industry is full of abuse. Correct. Does that mean every woman working in the porn industry is being beaten and abused? No. I’m not saying it is a desirable career choice. I am saying that there are women in the industry who are doing so from self empowerment. Who are not abused, drug addicts, or whatever else. It doesn’t make it “the norm” but it means it exists.

There are straight male porn stars making porn for women without the “use” of any women at all. So no, it absolutely isn’t all men using women for self gratification. There is much more choice available than I think you realise.

You can’t take one end of the scale and apply it across the board.

Very true. And we are meant to see this as righteous action. I have always pitied the maids, who may have had little choice in the matter, too. I did listen to a re-write of Penelope's story where one of the suitors shows real love to her and the return of Odysseus is not a happy reunion but a catastrophe.
The Ancient Greeks had no concept that a man needed to be faithful to his wife. However, they are the originators of monogamy for all men in a society - based on the legitimacy of citizens, who had to be born of a legal marriage to the daughter of a citizen, and a legal marriage was a monogamous one (though men could keep mistresses, have boyfriends, use prostitutes etc) - making elite men be confined to one wife as well as ordinary men was apparently breakthrough moment in history (e.g. Ancient Egypt allowed elite men more than one wife) - article in The Critic (sorry can't find link).

There are of course, exceptions to every rule, but in reality the sex industry as a whole, including porn and prostitution, is a dangerous, and sometimes deadly situation for women, and your insistence that women can be empowered by it is simply a myth, it is run by men for men. How else do these exploitative men get women to comply if it isn’t by telling them that they are empowered by it?