Non fatal strangulation and choking during sex

[ArabellaScott]

Grim read.

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

I posted a second comment rescinding this first one because of a conflicting, later report. Having sex is different from emptying the dishwasher though, it at least I always found it so.

Whether this particular woman had a "shopping list" of acts that included being strangled and her safesignal ignored doesn't actually affect the validity of my point. Men aren't slaves to women's expressed desires, they can say "no" and should say "no" when a woman is asking for something that isn't safe.

Yes. I was supporting the idea that the Odyssey was composed by a woman, who made Athene pro-women and wrote in strong women. Greek legend makes Athene anti-women in most stories e.g. Medusa and the trial of Orestes.

it is sometimes difficult to read the behaviour of a victim of DV because so often they are acting out of fear. Can you imagine what might have happened if your mother didn't respond to your father's "loving behaviour" after a violent episode?

The effect of violence on my mental health was horrific. The gaslighting was also appalling. I ended up believing that I was partly to blame for what was going on and the perpetrator's constant switching of behaviour is so confusing and messes with your sense of reality. I remember feeling sorry for my exh because he would sometimes end up crying or bringing up the physical abuse he had suffered as a child. I am an empath, which might be why I ended up with him in the first place because he had sussed me out from the start and won me over despite my reservations. At first you want their promises to be true, that you will be the couple that overcome this, but in time you realise that they're not going to change, or that even if they do that a line has been crossed and you can't or don't want to go back. People used to talk about battered wife syndrome. They don't seem to anymore. Or perhaps it has another name. PTSD, perhaps.

I find that in reality people can be unsympathetic to victims of DV because they can't cope with it. It is easier to believe that a woman gets hooked on the drama than it is to face the absolute horror of a woman being trapped in a relationship with a nutter, to discover that your worst nightmare which you imagined you would only ever encounter outside in the dark, is actually living under the same roof as you, lying next to you in bed and that you know deep down that you are living on borrowed time, that any little "mistake" you make in their eyes could bring about the end of your life. When I read about people killed by their partners I know that could have been me. It could be any one of you as well.

I am one of the lucky ones. I got out. I feel that I am thriving but when we talk about the subject I realise that somewhere inside I have a deep fear of men (apologies to those men who are not like this, but I can't help it). In fact I am afraid of some women too. People have to prove to me that they are not predators. Any whiff of it and I'm out. It is easier not to get involved than it is to escape once you are hooked in.

Haven’t you raised the issue with him? Why do you let him do this?

@ZebedeeDougalFlorence I was in that house too, living it too, so yes, I know what he was like. By 15 I was selectively mute, self harming and seriously underweight. It was ignored. I know he was a nutter. I know that they just walk around among us and aren't unusual or rare.

I was living it too and I had no choice.

No, this isn’t the case. It’s been going on for 15 years. She knows it will happen when they have sex. Apparently, she hasn’t told him not to do it and continues to have sex with him. That’s on her.

I had never heard of this until I read about young men doing it who saw it in porn. Some said they thought that's "what women want". Porn is distorting reality.

Crazysnakes that must have been unimaginably hard.

And for all women harmed by abusive men. They wreak such havoc, and wreck lives.

You can’t consent to abuse.
This poster is most likely being coercively controlled.
She clearly has no idea that saying “no” is an option. It possibly isn’t an option.

Can we have a bit more compassion please? Some women’s “put up and shut up” is actually a matter of survival.

And to that PP, I implore you, please contact your local IDVA. It sounds like you might need support in working through the realities of your situation with a safe and knowledgeable person. If you do not feel safe saying “no” to him, please contact a professional.

@NeedanewnameyOh my godmother. I would never have sex again with someone who did this to me. It's disgusting.

Well that demonstrates perfectly the mentality of the people who engage in this. Well done.

This, is definitely a dominance/power trip thing. I can't think of anything worse!

@FigTreeInEuropeI am glad to hear that some are outraged by this too. Thank you for posting.

I think it would be a mistake though to see either Homer's (using 'Homer' for ease) or Aeschylus' Athene as representative of people's attitudes towards the gods in real life on the ground because:

1. Literature is not the same as the everyday practice of ordinary folk, obvs. (Also worth bearing in mind that the Homeric epics were probably not composed using writing but were oral which throws up huge issues - we cannot use the concept of 'single' 'authorship' because it doesn't exist; maybe some parts of what originally became the Odyssey were sung by female poets who taught other girls as Sappho did? Certainly the Greek of the Nausikaa episode is quite different in key passages from the Aeolic dialect of the later books with the deaths of the suitors, although ofc the final 2 books of the Odyssey are hugely disputed).
2. We know that the Homeric Olympians as presented do not match with the archaeological reality, which show (thru shrines etc) that deities were far more regionalised and quotidian, and plenty of shrines suggest local goddesses which specifically had care over women's lives and women's issues (health, childbirth etc etc). Indeed some of the most important deities suggested by archaeology (Hekate and her variants; Dionysus and his variants) barely feature in Homer at all. Obviously there's been a lot written about why this is and I like Burkert's take on the whole thing albeit I am very old and academic thinking on this has doubtless developed
3. There's also obviously crucial differences between the way the gods are presented in the Iliad (more disinterested, Zeus with his scales, etc etc) and the Odyssey (arguably more concerned with moral justice rather than arbitrary Fate). Some academics have argued this points to a development in theological thinking, others that it points to different poets - I say that we simply do not know enough about the circumstances, time and intended audience of composition of both poems to be able to say.
4. I would be very reluctant to take Aeschylus' presentation of the gods as indicative of general social attitudes. Yes I know tragedy's role in the civic life of Athens etc etc. BUT Aeschylus was KNOWN to be controversial and challenging and we have other authors such as Aristophanes and Plato who specifically make reference to this.
5. We only have such a TINY extant proportion of Athenian tragedy that we really can't look at the extant corpus to draw conclusions of ANYTHING. I mean, look how different the theological outlook is in Aeschylus v Euripides!
6. Geographical and regional differences are key. We tend to regard democratic Athens as representative of Greek attitudes in C5 BC in general but honestly Athens was the exception not the rule. The democracy they had was so....weird and exceptional. We know from the archaeological record that the Greeks of the Aegean and Asia Minor saw certain deities VERY differently (eg contrast Artemis of Ephesus with her many boobs to the Athenian Artemis)....and ofc we barely know what the Spartans thought at all.

TLDR: The extant literature should not imho be used to draw conclusions about ancient Greek attitudes re women and patriarchy at all. And archaeological finding suggest very rich regional cults of local goddesses which were specially present to help women.

Oh sorry I would also add that in my opinion the Athene of the Odyssey is not especially pro-woman...she's the one who's constantly dripping poison into Odysseus' ear about what Penelope might be up to with the suitors, and she several times brings up the Agamemnon-Klytemnestra blood bath (bath, lol) as a cautionary parallel. Like, in the council of Olympus that's practiclly the first thing she brings up.

There's loads of strong and intriguing an mysterious women in the Od - Helen, Penelope, Kalypso, Kirke, Arete, Nausikaa - but I don't think we can look at the poem as a whole and conclude that Athene is anything other than pro-Odysseus, because as she tells him several times, she loves his wily mind and sees herself in him.

You're nuts! You're cutting off bloody to the brain, causing stasis in the carotid artery and the risk of clots, and you think that's safe??? Until it's not.

I can't find the specific report but there's damage which occurs from 'choking' (in reality strangulation) in the longer term, not just when it happens, including delayed brain damage, clots, miscarriage among others.

Non fatal strangulation is a common risk factor in the subsequent murder of women by their partner.

And the euphemism 'breath play'. Really? In reality, it's non lethal strangulation. If you don't die immediately.

Legally you can't consent to strangulation, if you went to the police it's a crime even if you like it

Not a single person has come forward to answer my question about whether they have choked a male partner and if he enjoyed it, and if they enjoyed doing it.

I wonder what the silence reveals to us.

What did 1/3 of the respondents say?

@ZebedeeDougalFlorenceI did try choking my ex-partner, he liked doing it to me and i asked if I could try it on him.

He didn’t like it.

I hope you don’t mind a few questions? - no obligation to answer of course!
Did that put him off wanting to do it to you? Did you ever find out why he liked doing it to you? Did you in any way enjoy doing it to him (sexually, not in a ‘that’ll teach you’ sort of way)?

@ZebedeeDougalFlorenceHappy to answer.

No it didn’t put him off wanting to do it to me.

He said he liked doing it to me because he liked feeling in control but also that he’d heard that being lightheaded intensified the female orgasm (didnt for me), there were occasions where I nearly blacked out and he would apologise but it would happen again. He was very much into deep throating too which has a similar result of being unable to breathe, much scarier for me as I found that when he was close to climax it seemed more difficult to get him to stop.

I believe it really stemmed from the fact he watched a lot of porn which over time become more and more hardcore and also he has issues with his ego and a deep rooted issue around disliking women yet craving their validation.

I didn’t enjoy doing it to him no, mainly because I don’t enjoy inflicting pain, but also it had no sexual gratification for either of us, my hands were too small around his neck to do anything really.

@ErrolTheDragon sorry! Realised I tagged the wrong person!