Non fatal strangulation and choking during sex

[ArabellaScott]

Grim read.

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr7238ppej3o

I'm in the kink scene, and although it's a kink I think most of my friends are very clued up on it. We've done workshops to educate on different types of breath play, with the aim of showing safer ways (if people want to do it) or persuade them why they might not want to do it, that they're literally taking someone else's life into their hands. The friends I know who do it, it's consensual and safer and with anatomical knowledge. I have done it, it's now a hard boundary for me - I'm not willing to take the risk, having looked at the potential repercussions. What is worrying is people who don't know at all what they are doing, or that it's become vanilla. Consent also needs to be a much bigger thing in wider society, I'm very conscious of consent even where things such as hugs are involved

Just as a data point, men, or especially boys, do go in for auto-erotic asphyxiation. We generally only know about when it causes accidental death.

These couples that engage in this are disturbed its illegal for one and the actors in the porn industry have medics on site in case something goes wrong if this was happening with my daughters or granddaughters the man doing it would be meeting my friend Bertie bat and home would be a prison cell

Send him a text message saying you don’t want him to do it ever again and screenshot it and save it somewhere or send it to a trusted friend. Post a photo of it here if you want. Then if god forbid something awful happens the f*** will go to prison.

Choking v hugs 😖that’s a very wide spectrum

Workshops involving breath play?
hello everyone today we’re going to show you how to do something exciting that tries to avoid irreversible brain damage. Sometimes if you’re a tad too enthusiastic it may lead to permanent stiffness, of the whole body. So we need to practice being rough but gentle even when you are at the peak of letting go, remembering your anatomical knowledge we have learnt from porn videos/Google searches.

Do you know anyone who has a brain injury? It’s for life. Will most of your friends care for the few of your friends that don’t know how to kink well?

It’s not about consent. It’s about being ignorant.

Well, if people's kink is eunuchs, best ensure they know how to sterilise a scalpel. And there is room for respectful discussion of cannibalism, perhaps with gluten free recipes and plenty of information on how to avoid food poisoning.

I'm being glib, but it's a good point.

The argument is often that people are going to do these things anyway so should be taught to do it safely.

I'm not sure how well that works in the long term. It legitimises and suggests that risky/dangerous behaviour is just something that can be and needs to be managed as best we can, rather than censured and people told that very clearly: this is illegal, dangerous, and stupid. However it may help lessens some of the risks for some people.

It's a long running argument that will continue to run, I suppose.

Maybe best would be to tackle the root causes - which I would see as self confidence and assertion in girls and women and misogyny in boys and men.

Next, world peace.

Think you've misunderstood - the aim of the workshops is to explain to people why not to do it, BUT if they're going to do it give them some education about it. I personally do not do it, and the workshop didn't show how to do strangulation/choking as the teacher doesn't condone it at all, nor anything involving the arteries around the neck. The alternative is people have no idea what they're doing, so I don't understand why you don't want people to be educated on why they shouldn't do a certain act? One woman I know, who is not kinky, said her partner uses chains around her neck - without people talking about it, this is the kind of dangerous behaviour that occurs.

There are no safe ways to choke or asphyxiate someone, who runs these workshops? Pretty sure it’s not St John’s Ambulance is it?

Your reply makes no sense,

‘the aim of the workshops is to explain to people why not to do it, BUT if they're going to do it give them some education about it.’

What?! I don’t understand how this works, ‘hey guys, we really don’t think you should be doing this very dangerous thing that could seriously injure or even kill you, but just in case you do, we’re going to show you how to do it safely, well obviously not safely, because it’s completely unsafe but let’s crack on anyway’

And then you say they didn’t show how to do it as the ‘teacher’ doesn’t condone it?! Who is this teacher, do they just teach ‘kink’ whatever the heck that involves?! 😂 Where do you attend these classes? We need answers!

@LadyBracknellsHandbagg I definitely can't say the event as everyone seems hostile. The team we saw do conferences around Europe, there are nurses involved. I'm confused by the hostility against people wanting to educate people, where around half the attendees say at the end that they no longer want to do that kind of sex play

It's long since I read the Odyssey and I am not a Classical scholar, but yes Athene is for him. I agree we can't extrapolate from Athens to other parts of Greece, or times outside Athen's rise. Thank you for your exposition, which opened my eyes a lot.

I’m not hostile I’m just mystified that ‘workshops’ exist to ‘educate’ people to not do things with their sexual partners that could seriously injure or kill them. If no one is in danger why are there nurses involved? You make it sound all perfectly normal and mainstream when it absolutely isn’t. It sounds like some sort of secret sex cult.

I’m not naive enough to think that because I choose not to participate in it that these things don’t exist, but I find it really depressing that in 2025 women are still being indoctrinated into participating in things that are to their detriment. Women in general are not violent, we do not enjoy inflicting pain or suffering on others, men do, it’s for them, it isn’t for women.

If people involved in "kink classes" were in the slightest bit interested in safety rather than orgasms, the first thing they would do is bin and ban the dangerous euphemism "breath play".

Use plain language when you're talking about acts that can lead to disability, death and prison sentences.

Good point

To be fair, this approach is also used with intravenous drug users. I think the workshops make perfect sense, whilst still believing the practice is aberrant and should be illegal.

Tell him not to do it again. Love isn’t giving someone the permission to possibly brain damage you so that they can climax.

Being addicted to drugs is a completely different thing to wanting to indulge in risky, dangerous, sexual activity. Contrary to what some men want us to believe, sex addiction isn’t real, choking or asphyxiating women isn’t an addiction, it’s abuse.

I agree with all of your points about sexual behaviour and strangulation. I’m simply pointing out that workshops telling people that certain activities are very dangerous and shouldn’t be engaged in, but “if you are going to do it anyway, these things reduce the risks a little” is an established approach e.g. in intravenous drug use. That can also be fatal and is often done by one part of a couple to the other.

sounds like the Fire Brigade offering courses to people who like to play with fire…oddly enough I don’t think they do that.
Thats what the euphemism ‘breath play’ has been reminding me of. Playing with fire.

I agree. Sounds like the harm reduction approach used in drug services.
Saying 'just don't do drugs' doesn't work. Similarly 'just don't choke' probably won't either with some people as evidenced by multiple posters in this thread. I guess it's better to discuss safer ways with the main theme being' this is really dangerous and illegal, it would be better not to'
And as for breath play. That makes me think of Yoga and free diving. I wish they'd just call it what it is and not make sound like a fun game.

What happens when you meet a partner that doesn't want to carry out 'breath play' on you? Are the orgasms with her/him dull? Do you ditch them to find another 'breath play' partner or do you settle for dull orgasms? Or, possibly, you find another, safer way of having mind blowing orgasms with this new partner, which begs the question why you ever did 'breath play' in the first place.

@HomeBodyClub if you don’t tell him to stop for you, do it for him. If he kills you or disables you then he could hate himself so much he could be so distraught it ends badly
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckkek7ln4nqo.amp

I edited my last post because I don’t want it to sound too harsh but I want people to be aware of the consequences. It is so dangerous. It should not be normalised. I hope these talks show the reality of the lives lost and ruined by this.

I know the family of someone years ago who died like this (no one mentioned on here). It made the papers and he was ridiculed. His family were distraught and the way he died and the jokes made it much worse.