*We have intentionally used the word ‘strangulation’ rather than the commonly used but inaccurate term ‘choking’. Choking occurs internally when there is an airway obstruction, whereas strangulation refers to the restriction of air from external pressure to the neck.
A staple ‘sex’ act in pornography, non-fatal strangulation has now become a common act outside of porn, with a growing number of women reporting being strangled by male partners during sex. Sexual strangulation has become so normalised it is referenced (and promoted) in advertising, TV, social media, fashion magazines, popular songs, baked goods and clothing – even on baby onesies.
While we continue to expose the harms of normalising strangulation as 'sexy', some defend the practice. We’ve responded to some of the more common claims below.
Myth: "It's fine as long as it is done safely"
There is no safe way to strangle someone. 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.
Not only can strangulation can be fatal, victims are at risk of brain damage or death even weeks or months later. Individuals who have been strangled can suffer strokes, depression, memory loss, seizures, motor and speech disorders and paralysis. These serious long-term outcomes can occur even when strangulation is brief and without great force.
People (many of them women) have died as a result of being strangled during sex. We therefore reject the claim that strangulation can ever be safe.
Research on young adult men who strangle their female partners indicated they had little awareness of the risks, that almost none of those surveyed had sought any education on mitigating them, and that their knowledge of strangulation and how to do it was typically informed by pornography (see Herbenick et al., 2022).
Myth: “We just need to teach people about consent”
Life-threatening practices like strangulation are not transformed into safe or healthy acts simply because participants consent to them. A person can agree to something and still be harmed by it. From a legal perspective, if strangulation results in bodily harm or serious injuries, consent cannot be a defence.
While a growing number of women report being strangled by a male partner during sex without warning or consent, lack of consent is far from the only harm of strangulation. It is a potentially lethal form of violence, overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women.
As Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist argued in an article published by the ABC, the effectiveness of consent education will be limited unless we address pornography and media that glorifies and encourages abuse.
We question the validity of consent to male sexual violence when such acts are so normalised (and even 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?
When acts of violence and degradation are portrayed as desirable, it makes it harder for women to identify them as abuse. In the SBS documentary See What You Made Me Do, exploring domestic abuse in Australia, two survivors illustrated how the legitimacy of strangulation as a sexual practice contributed to their abuse. One said her partner would strangle her and hold her down under the guise of ‘kink’, while another did not recognise strangulation by her partner as abuse because he did it during sex, and she did not know "if it counted". In an op ed, one woman acknowledged the complexities of 'consenting' to sexual strangulation in a context of intimate partner abuse:
The first time I was strangled, I called it consensual...But the truth is, I was trapped in a cycle of domestic violence.
I’d confused trauma with kink.
Myth: “You’re shaming people for their sexual preferences”
Some people argue that objecting to this particular form of violence against women shames those who enjoy participating in it, making statements like “don’t yuck someone else’s yum” or “don’t ‘kink-shame’”.
We do not accept that women should remain silent in response to male violence against women simply because some individuals claim to enjoy it. The framing of male violence against women as sexy and desirable harms all women and undermines survivor voices. Whatever the motivations of those who defend men's violence against women as harmless, sexy fun, the inevitable outcome is to silence women who object and embolden abusive men.
Where previously it was understood that men's violence against women was unwanted and harmful, now perpetrators can avoid accountability by claiming the women they sexually aggressed against “wanted it” – and tragically, as we’ve seen again and again, they will be believed.
Myth: “What consenting adults do is up to them”
As we’ve established, sexual strangulation is not limited to “consenting adults”. A 2019 study from Indiana School of Public Health found that nearly a quarter of women in the US have felt scared during sex, with a number of these having been strangled without warning by their male partners. These women - along with many others - did not consent.
It’s also not limited to adults. Teen girls are increasingly reporting being strangled by male partners who have seen the practice in pornography. Defending strangulation as a legitimate sexual practice disempowers these girls.
We need to situate the practice of non-fatal strangulation within its wider cultural context - a global epidemic of male violence against women. We will continue to challenge the normalisation and glorification of male violence against women as sexy, because women’s lives depend on it.
See also:
“I’ll choke you”: How porn culture promotes violence against women and children
“Porn has a lot to answer for”: How sexual choking became mainstream
(Video) How Porn Grooms Women for Abuse: A culturally approved script for violence against women
It Left No Marks - Women's Health NSW
In the Know - NZ resource
Submission to Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Inquiry
'Choking women is sexy': Honey Birdette ads eroticise violence against women
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