Online pornography showing strangulation or suffocation is to be made illegal, as part of government plans to tackle violence against women and girls.
It follows a review which found depictions of choking were “rife” on mainstream porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people.
Both the possession and publication of such material will be a criminal offence, under amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill currently going through Parliament.
Choking causes permanent brain damage. MRI scans prove the brain has to rewire itself due to massive cell death. Also, the majority of it is man choking women so it has serious implications of fucked up power dynamics. To top it off the vast majority of choking is non-consensual.
Even if it is consensual the long term effects are likely dementia along with other serious and progressive neurological conditions.
Are you going to volunteer taking care of hundreds of thousands of choking related dementia patients. Whose is going to pay for this considering this level of care can run hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Do you have a source for that? I don’t believe you.
https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2024/09/sexual-strangulation-has-become-popular--but-that-doesnt-mean-its-wanted/#%3A~%3Atext=Although+sexual+choking+appears+to%2Cduring+sex+without+their+consent.
There is a huge societal factor here with the popularity and depictions of strangulation. “I am vanilla baby, I will choke you, but I ain’t no killer”.
Coercion and wanting to please your partner is often confused with consent especially when it is a dangerous activity like strangulation.
Depriving the mind of oxygen can produce euphoric feelings in people. This is extremely concerning considering that this also causes brain cell death. Reinforcing orgasm with such a destructive practice is very problematic.
Porn is acting. Play. Or maybe you think everyone that gets shot in a movie is actually killed during recording?
There’s no point arguing that “choking is bad”. I’m pretty sure any sane person would agree.
Porn may be considered fantasy, but it is very real to the people involved. I would not minimize this myself.
People have definitely died from choking even when it is consensual. Although most deaths are from auto-asphyxiation.
When I lived in Idaho one of my girl’s classmates died from choking himself with a belt while masturbating. It was primarily a Mormon community.
After that they had “experts” come in and tell the children that porn makes people serial killers. It was pretty ridiculous.
My primary concerns in all this is safety. It is not safe to choke your partner even if it is agreed upon. It causes permanent damage, although how much damage I suppose is debatable.
I know the brain fog from getting choked out is real and can affect someone for weeks afterwards. The fact that so many young people engage in this behavior is worrisome.
Even when perfectly healthy consenting partners engage in this it is dangerous and that is rarely the situation.
What is much more common is men choking out women because they have seen it in porn. Does this make all porn bad? I don’t think so personally.
tbh I don’t care if people engage in dangerous actions as long as it’s done with informed consent.
There are major issues with people being pressured into putting up with stuff they wouldn’t otberwise but that’s a far bigger issue you don’t solve by banning media.
Hey, if you are cool with damaging your own brain sure, I draw the line when you choose to do it to someone else.
If it was SO consensual why are guys not getting choked equally? The answer is it isn’t. It is about dominance and power not a consensual act.
Furthermore, the majority of choking acts are not consensual and they also cause brain damage.
I really fail to see where you are coming from.
Edit: I reread your statement. You think banning choking depictions in porn is wrong. I see it as perpetuating abuse.
Okay this comment makes me think you don’t understand consent.
My partner has fetishes I’m not into, but I engage in them because I want to give him the pleasure he gets from them. Is that not consentual because I’m not into the fetish?
Consent doesn’t mean only doing things you’re into, it means you’re agreeing to it free from any pressure or influence on your decision and you know everything you need to know to make your decision.
I won’t be choked and I wouldn’t choke someone because it is dangerous and I’m uncomfortable with it regardless of if the other person wants it. But as long as people consent and know the risks I don’t care what others do.
Dominance and power can absolutely be consentually engaged in. The bdsm community takes consent incredibly seriously.
There are larger cultural elements behind what people are into that are worth examining. Cultural influence doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t consentual though.
You seem to think because “consent” it is okay. That is your failing and that is okay. You are very wrong about this particular topic and we will have to disagree here.
This isn’t about a kink, this is about misogyny, brain damage, and perpetuating abuse. I swear kink culture is a cancer if it produces the kind of callousness and willful ignorance you display.
Your meme ignores reality, but go ahead and pat yourself on the back.
Consent required all parties to know the consequences to be fully informed. When you coerce you partner into choking without the knowledge it is causing lasting permanent brain damage you are not getting consent.
Kuhli says, “Hey baby can I give you brain death because it is my kink”
There is no after care for brain damage. This is where the kink community needs to come together to put their foot down.
Are all the women who want to be choked during sex misogynistic?
Nope, not at all but misogyny is a driving factor in men choking women just like a lot of partner related abuse.
I agree on that point. My point is that this is what should be discussed, and not banning acting.
Oh okay, I get that. I would agree with you, but the problem here is the coercive nature of paid acting. We have to have safeguards in place to protect actors.
Choking, as I mentioned, causes permanent brain cell death every single time it is done. Not to mention issues like PTSD as well. In this scenario the government has the overwhelming burden to protect actors from being paid to harm themselves.
I think there is another argument about protecting the welfare of the public as well. This is where you could argue it becomes about a questionable moral decision. I tend to agree with people who have concerns about the state exceeding it’s authority and the possible slippery slop of censorship.
This is why it is important to weigh these things carefully. You may disagree, but I fall back to the the concept of specific and narrowly defined speech that poses the direct risk of harm. I think filming actual or even simulated choking can meet this definition.
The burden of proof must be on the government and it must prove its case empirically . With the large amount of non-consensual choking, along with the reality that a lot of men abuse women it can be seen as an extremely negative societal trend. Statistics point to the reality that only a small fraction of these instances could be considered truly consensual.
Monkey see and monkey do is a very real phenomenon. Our brains literally work by mirroring actions. I know this harkens back to a lot of truly negative censorship though. We can see all kinds of censorship that could be justified with this logic.
I suppose depicting sexual violence in normal sexual encounters is where I draw the line. When it is no longer fantasy and people see what they think is normal behavior without any pushback.
This is why so many young men that watch pornography with male dominated choking go on to repeat these actions as if they are normal, safe, or acceptable.
You talk like actors are actually choked. I’m pretty sure there are already regulations against that.
You talk about protecting actors; sure. That’s not what’s discussed though.
You think people that are actually willing to choke someone, sometimes even against their will, need a porn flick to think about it? Or that they would not do it without someone having filmed it somewhere? Some people are lower than beasts, and they’ll do what they want. Trying to chase after every possible outside justification will not change them, and will not protect anyone. If a couple is getting it on and the man won’t listen to a “no, don’t do that”, there’s no amount of censorship, regulation, and ban, that will make them abide. The only thing it will do is increase censorship, regulation, and bans.
The sane approach for that is, surprise surprise, education, and maybe properly labeling stuff. It’s not putting in place another framework to ban things on a whim, which will subsequently be abused for much more than the arguably “fair” initial point.
This discussion is repeated ad nauseam everytime there’s plan for banning something. The argument that choking is bad is true, there’s no point repeating it. The argument that “monkey do what monkey see”? Sure, go for that. Let’s ban every media then, because boy oh boy I have a bad news about the movie industry of the past 50 years.
Actors do actually get choked so that takes care of the first part of your premise. Here is a story of it happening. There is no safe way to restrict breathing period.
https://laist.com/news/holly-deen-accusations
To the last part. It should be illegal to actually harm people on camera which is what is happening. If you think this is a over reaction you are wrong. We should not be allowing this to happen.
There is direct correlation between people watching people get choked out in porn and doing it in real life. This is not violent video games.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/02/i-think-its-natural-why-has-sexual-choking-become-so-prevalent-among-young-people
Please save your moral panic nonsense for cases were it is applicable. It is not here. This is simply a public health issue and the UK is doing the right thing.
Boo, “pro censorship” arguments presented as concern for others.
Ehh. I don’t think its fair to assume that. It could just be “pro censorship arguments out of concern for others”
Sexual violence portrayed as a kink. There are many sides to every discussion.
Pilots train for hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers, repeatedly losing consciousness to train.
I question the claim that the brain needs to rewire itself because of massive cell death.
Football players take regular hits to the head repeatedly as well.
This isn’t really a claim in the way you are stating it.
Are you surprised the brain is so good at rewiring itself due to cell death? Perhaps it is so good it that it doesn’t really matter?
Unfortunately we have a lot of TBI people that seem to suggest otherwise.
You know that’s an entirely different physical process, right? CTE happens because the brain is being smashed into the inside of the brain case.
Uh yeah, but brain cell death is brain cell death whether it is caused by a concussion or lack of oxygen.