How did strangulation become so widespread? Autoerotic asphyxia – when someone restricts oxygen to their own brain for the purposes of arousal – isn’t new: there have been documented cases since the early 17th century. But, historically, it has been “niche” and an overwhelmingly male pastime. And the serious risks it has always carried can be seen in the two high-profile examples of the deaths of the MP Stephen Milligan and the actor David Carradine.
Now, though, it is women being choked – Mackenzie hasn’t found a single case of a man killed by a woman in an alleged “sex game gone wrong”. And sex surveys, advice forums, social media feeds and women’s magazines showthe way the practice has become mainstream. “If blindfolds and role play have veered into vanilla territory, there are still plenty of sex moves … like choking,”
suggests Women’s Health. “Breath play, the risque new sex practice gripping millennials,” offers
Flare. On elitedaily.com, one sex educator was quoted as saying
anyone stuck in a sex rut could read up on “how to choke your partner safely”.
Gail Dines, the feminist thinker and CEO of
Culture Reframed, believes strangulation has been normalised via two main routes. “For the men, it’s pornography and for the women, it’s in women’s magazines,” she says. “And both of these media genres legitimise it as a form of ‘play’.” She describes choking as a “number one standard act” on porn sites and says women look to porn to “see what men want and they see choking”.
The link between strangulation and porn was made almost 20 years ago
