Most of the time engaging in media is a delicate matter. For every article, video essay, podcast, or blog post one should ask oneself: Who is asked? How are they asked? Who decides who will be asked? Who decides how it will be edited? But the people who do are probably in the minority, which is a shame, because I think we need more of them. Instead, we’re far too quick to click on the „share“ button and possibly write an unnecessary comment… All in all, it’s not an elegant approach to mass media, but there’s always room for improvement.
Reading British (online) media is no longer a delicate matter, but rather a white-water ride. Often it’s down to the way journalism reports on issues, more often it’s down to the current socio-political discourse in the country. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when the headline jumped out at me one day: „Sexual choking is now so common that many young people don’t think it even requires consent. That’s a problem.“
Surprisingly, the article was well written: Short, simple, and most importantly, the topic of the article was not how „unnatural“ BDSM practices are, but on how consent was lacking. After that, however, I fell down a rabbit hole, because not only was consent lacking in the majority, but there were additional health issues. After the twenty-page study, I started to ponder:
An online survey in the USA revealed that „21% of women and 11% of men ages 18 to 60 had ever been choked during sex and 12% of women and 20% of men had ever choked a partner during Sex“. For me this meant that this kink is heavenly gendered, which somehow leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I have nothing against gender, it’s a product of our society, but in the end I always find it suspicious when certain things are very dependent on gender. It’s enough for me that there are still regions or kink communities where dominance is associated with men and submission is still associated with women, I don’t need gender-dependent kinks.
In my opinion, it is all the more ironic that if choking occurred during masturbation or solo kink sessions, it is also heavenly gendered, but with a (sad) twist. A different study analysed all deaths due to hanging or ligature in the name of autoeroticism from 1954 to 2004 and it turns out: the ratio of men and women was 21 to 7. I was surprised by the huge discrepancy, as „hard“ sex practices are certainly associated with dominance and masculinity, but still… Dear men, please get a play partner who will keep an eye on you while you engage in breath play.
Speaking of partners, the main inspiration for engaging in “choking” as a sex practice was pornography itself or the partner, who watched porn that featured choking. Funnily enough, the big American companies that also produce pornography, among other things, prohibit real strangulation on set for insurance reasons… Acting or simulation is used instead. That’s one of the problems because when you’re acting, nobody looks at what or how you strangulate.
What fascinated me most was my cognitive dissonance. Why? There are kinks that I have tried only to realise that they did nothing for me in the moment: One such example would be Impact Play. At the same time, these kinks remain kinks for me. They denote a specific action, in a specific context, and since I don’t live a 24/7 dynamic, they don’t appear in my everyday life. It was different with choking. There was suddenly a specific action that for many people only took place in a specific context and my experience was fundamentally different. For me, „choking“ also existed in a specific context, only until then it had never been the BDSM club or the bedroom, but the dojo. To put it polemically: I got choked several times a week since I was thirteen years old. Moreover, I also got to choke people and honestly, I was quite good at it.
But to be honest, it’s one thing to perform an act to win a fight and score points for your team and something completely different to perform the same act for sexual satisfaction. As soon as I thought longer about how different the two contexts are and what the consequences are. Both for men and women (all the studies were cisgendered) and for the viewers or the audience.
Choking as erotic play
There are certainly countless reasons why people find strangulation exciting: Violence in a consensual setting, gender dynamics, endorphins, a sense of adventure, love for a partner, etc. Apart from the gendered violence just discussed, let’s take a closer look at the individual aspects and consequences:
(Non) consensual violence: Regardless of how risky you want your BDSM to be; choking is one of the kinks that, at first glance, carries a greater health risk. At first glance, this is because a bare-handed blow to the bum could also be fatal if it detaches an aneurysm. At the same time, I would consider choking with the hands to be safer than breath play with belts, scarves, chains, collars or gags. Controlling your own hands is often easier than hands and a foreign object that the dominant person also has to control.
Furthermore, various side effects can occur, but do not necessarily have to, such as coughing, difficulty with swallowing or breathing, vision changes, eyes tearing up and passing out. In my opinion, a bigger problem is the internal damage that can occur, which of course cannot be seen. Nevertheless, another study has discovered the following: A total of 57 women had their brain functions analysed with the help of an MRI, for 23 of them, choking was part of their sex life and it showed: „[…] frequent exposure to partnered sexual strangulation is associated with different neural activation patterns during verbal and visual working memory tasks compared to controls, suggesting that being choked/strangled during sex may modify the allocation of neural resources at increasing levels of cognitive load.“
In other words, there could be a connection between choking and stages of deteriorating mental health, but not necessarily. Further studies are recommended at this point. For me, the question arises as to what extent aftercare was part of the practice in the choking couples, because from my personal experience I can say that the absence or presence of post-sex cuddling determines the status of my psyche and mood.
The age (question): Many official kink events and clubs have an age limit and for good reason. Nevertheless, I am sure that due to relevant pornography websites, TikTok or such mass phenomena as the Choking Game, minors are already practicing BDSM, in the worst case without even knowing it. A solid educational programme would help here. Especially if they are not led by the school’s teaching staff, but by professionals who are not affiliated with the school. There are plenty of organisations… otherwise I shamelessly recommend this educational website, it literally saved my arse a few times by now.
…the location: One of the reasons why sexual strangulation is probably more dangerous than that in sport is that it takes place in private (closed) spaces. On the one hand, a closed room offers privacy, but on the other hand, this privacy can also become a problem, especially when individual actions are no longer consensual. In addition, most of the time, the dynamic also involves only two people instead of two, plus judges, teammates, coaches and audience. A medical team is also rarely present in your own home or even in the dungeon…
Different strokes for different folks: Your limits, your negotiations, your consensuality, apart from that there aren’t really any limits to Breath Play? Therefore whatever floats your boat.
The Goal: The goal is erotic pleasure. For the one who chokes or for the one who gets choked or both. If it is neither of you, you are doing something wrong, at least in my eyes. Maybe you’re more the kink type who does everything just for the endorphins, but even then it’s a positive end result.
Choking as (a part of) sport
The same plot in a completely different context, let’s have a closer look:
Tender gender: While more and more women and marginalised genders are discovering self-defence or competitive sports for themselves, I am very sure that combat sports in particular will continue to be dominated by cis men. In addition, tournaments are always differentiated by weight and gender or sex. If you ignore these general conditions, anyone can choke in judo (and similar sports). Unfortunately, I don’t know whether choking techniques are more common in the men’s or women’s category.
Finally 13! Funnily enough, the training guidelines mean that all people over the age of 13 have to learn certain chokes. This is partly due to the competition regulations and partly due to the examination content for the various belt levels that are tested. To all concerned parents who are already thinking about how to explain BDSM to their child, various martial arts can prepare them for this. You learn respect, self-confidence and the basic things to remember during choking. In contrast to the private bedroom, there are actually rules here.
Rules rule the sport: Depending on the martial art, there are differences in what and which chokes are permitted. Judo as a purely competitive sport is relatively harmless, but the general rule is: keep your fingers and arm bends away from the Adam’s apple and don’t apply pressure to the front of the neck. A big no-no, don’t do it under any circumstances!
In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or MMA, for example, it’s a completely different story; techniques are taught here that would get you eliminated from the tournament in judo.
Regardless of which sport you choose, it still means: train, train, train, because unlike sex, your opponent doesn’t just defend themselves a little or for fun, they don’t want to be choked. However, a lack of cooperation also means that the risk of injury increases for both parties. Consequently, at least in theory, every move should be in place before you throw yourself into the fray. However, I can reassure you that the likelihood of stranglers being used in a fight is very unlikely. This has a lot to do with the fact that stand-up fighting is always favoured over ground fighting in competitions. Not only does it look more spectacular, it is also easier for the judges to judge.
Suck it up buttercup: Well, consent is an interesting concept if it comes to fighting sports. By stepping onto the tatami (fighting mat) you are simply agreeing to get beaten up within a set of rules. If you don’t want to get beaten up… you shouldn’t do fighting sports. It is that simple.
The place to be: Well, you can argue that a dojo is a private and also a closed room with many people in it. A gymnasium or a stadium is certanly not. In addition, if you fight normaly you trainer, team mates, and several referees including casual audience is watching you. If you fuck up the rules, some will notice and the consequences are not pretty!
It is all about the… Winning! If you start a fight, the aim is to win it. A fair fight is a good thing, but unfortunately the fighting rules are not strict enough to prevent you from using them to your own advantage on one occasion or another. Either way, to win a fight you have to fight and sometimes „choking“ is part of that.
All in all, this collection of thoughts can be summarised with context is key. The same action does not always have the same goal or the same meaning. That being said, I recommend everyone to do a few years of martial arts. It increases your self-confidence and you learn a lot about yourself and your body.
PS: The day will come when the links in my text will no longer work, so here are the studies listed again:
Contos, Chanel: Sexual choking is now so common that many young people don’t think it even requires consent. That’s a problem, in: The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/08/sexual-choking-is-now-so-common-that-many-young-people-dont-think-it-even-requires-consent-thats-a-problem (24.06.24).
Herbenick, Debby; Guerra‑Reyes, Lucia; Patterson, Callie et al. “It Was Scary, But Then It Was Kind of Exciting”: Young Women’s Experiences with Choking During Sex. Arch. Sex. Behav. 2022; 51:1103–1123. doi: 10.1007/s10508-021-02049-x.
Huibregtse, Megan E.; Alexander, Isabella L.; Klemsz, Lillian M. et al. Frequent and Recent Non-fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Association With fMRI Activation During Working Memory Tasks. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 2022;16. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.881678.
Sauvageau, Anny; Racette, Stéphanie. Autoerotic deaths in the literature from 1954 to 2004: a review. J Forensic Sci. 2006;51(1):140-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2005.00032.x.
Team Scarletteen: https://www.scarleteen.com (24.06.24).