Should We Be Concerned About the Increase in Choking During Sex

In 2020, the National Probability Survey of Americans aged 18 to 60 found that 21 percent of women reported choking during sex. Twenty percent of men reported that they had strangled their partner during sex. However, the difference between the age groups was striking. The survey showed that adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are much more likely to suffocate than older people. This apparent generational shift in sexual relationships has been confirmed several times, and another US study found that 58 percent of female college students choked during sex, with a quarter choking by age 17.

There are signs this side of the Atlantic that suffocation could become even more common. In 2020, BBC Disclosure and BBC Radio 5 Live commissioned a survey of 2,049 UK men aged 18 to 39 to estimate the prevalence of so-called 'rough sex'. Seventy-one percent of the men who took part said they spanked, choked, gagged, or spit on their partner during consensual sex. So it looks like young people like it rougher than their parents. And what's the problem? Well, first of all, choking is more risky than spitting - choking can and does kill. And secondly, it seems that if choking has become mainstream for young people, then what has not become the norm so far is the search for enthusiastic, permanent consent.

Porn is not intended to be an educational resource. This is entertainment. So a scene that includes choking won't show consent negotiations or security protocols that you would see if this was practiced in real life.

It goes without saying that sexual acts without consent of any kind are violations. Describing asphyxiation as “fake murder” does little to help understand how breathplay and erotic asphyxiation excite some people both on a physiological level—as a means of intensifying orgasm—and on a psychological level, as a way to play with the dynamics of power, trust, and control.

It's easy to point the finger at porn when it comes to the rise of asphyxiation - over 10,000 videos are tagged with the word on Pornhub alone. "Blaming pornography is hard because it's not as simple as cause and effect." Young people are being fed information and, more importantly, disinformation that they are being suffocated from all angles: porn, digital media and, of course, social media. "We're in a sexual misinformation crisis, and when it comes to perversion and BDSM, we know that TikTok is rife with misinformation."

As in porn, many of the TikTok posts present choking as “an act that you can simply enter into sex without warning or prior communication,” even calling it the “norm.”

“Now we are seeing a moral panic about sex education.” "Young people are not exposed to inappropriate material - most of them don't learn enough about sex, consent and safety." “Porn is not meant to be an educational resource. This is entertainment. So a scene that includes choking won't show consent negotiations or security protocols that you would see if this was practiced in real life."

Sex educator and writer Gigi Angle also emphasizes the need for porn literacy. “Porn is not sex education,” she says. “But without proper sex education in schools, it has sadly become the default. You can seriously risk hurting someone if you use porn as a choking tutorial. You're not "promoting BDSM" by giving young people good information - you're preventing harm."

This, after all, is what the discourse around suffocation boils down to. Do people really want to protect young people from harm by giving them the tools to talk about sex and come to terms with nuances, or do they want to grab pearls and pretend the internet doesn't exist? Right-wing rhetoric can piss off voters, but it won't help real teens coming of age in a world where it's okay to watch extreme porn before you kiss for the first time.