There is no safe way to strangle someone. Not only can sexual strangulation be fatal, victims are at risk of brain damage or death even weeks or months later. Individuals who have been strangled – even briefly and without great force – can suffer strokes, depression, memory loss, seizures, motor and speech disorders and paralysis.
A literature review by Dr Vicki Lowik, Associate Professor Heather Lovatt and Dr Nicola Cheyne noted, “A person who is being strangled can lose consciousness after four to 10 seconds of arterial pressure and have anoxic seizures after six to eight seconds; lose bladder control after 15 seconds and bowel control after 30 seconds; and sustain brain stem damage after 20 seconds and brain death after one to six minutes of pressure.”
Dangerous and life-threatening practices like strangulation are not rendered safe and healthy simply because participants consent to them – and from a legal perspective, if strangulation results in bodily harm, consent cannot be a defence.
We also question the validity of consent to (mostly male) sexual violence against women when such acts are so normalised (and glorified) in popular culture that women and girls feel they are expected of them. When women and girls are constantly getting the message that they should enjoy sexual aggression, and that if they don’t, they are ‘vanilla’ or sexually boring, this serves to groom them into tolerating acts of sexual violence. Can meaningful consent exist if ‘no’ doesn’t appear to be a viable option?
Finally, when acts of violence against women are portrayed as sexy and desirable, it makes it harder for women to identify abuse when it is being done to them.
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