A 16-year-old girl has died from suspected sexual choking. How do we come to terms with this? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by velma@sh.itjust.works to c/wildfeed@sh.itjust.works

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Often mistakenly referred to as choking, sexual strangulation in the mainstream is new. It has arrived into the bedrooms of young people via online porn which has become part of life, one of the many addictive services generously provided by tech companies making billions of dollars. Some companies do a good job of cleaning up the urgent issues of child sexual abuse material and trafficking, but still, violent porn proliferates.

Research that has analysed thousands of randomly chosen videos from popular pornographic websites found that physical aggression like strangulation, slapping and hair-pulling was present in 35-45% of scenes, depending on the website.

It’s important to be wary of clutching our pearls about porn here – there is no evidence to suggest that watching ethical porn results in an upswing in violent behaviour, but research released last year by the Australian Institute of Criminology does indeed show that more frequent intentional viewing of violent pornography is associated with a “small but statistically significant” increase in violence against women by men after they watched violent porn.

Some other facts to make you weep: sexual strangulation is now thought to be the second most common cause of strokes in women under 40 in the UK. It can lead to seizures, brain damage, memory issues, depression, anxiety. Two years ago an Australian study found that more than half of 4,700 people aged between 18 and 35 had engaged in sexual strangulation. A majority of them, 61%, had seen it depicted in porn. Others had seen it in movies, talked about it with friends.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Wren@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I saw that thread, it was a nightmare. People are fucking weird about cheating here and it scares me what they think is justified if a partner cheats.

But good on you for taking an interest with the kiddo. My parents took no interest in the internet and I saw some stuff way too early with no one but peers my age to talk about it with. I think a few open conversations would have helped immensely.

To the point, I have choked partners at their request, but I put limits on how hard and how long. I check in constantly. If they want more, they can find someone else. It's a situation where everyone involved needs to be sober, aware and have strong boundaries.

[-] velma@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

And good on you for being a responsible sex partner! I forget, I think there was an acronym used often that I don't see as much anymore in the kink world - safe, sane, and something? I should do some searching to find it again. But it was really shorthand for what you said there in the last sentence, everyone sober, aware, and respecting and having strong boundaries.

Edit: Safe, Sane, and Consensual (SSC) is the phrase I was thinking of - used to be really popular in the kink communities

[-] Wren@lemmy.today 5 points 2 days ago

I hadn't heard that one, but I never got too far into the kink community. Where I used to live they were kinda elitist, which goes against the whole spirit of being sexually intrepid in the first place. That's a good thing to pass around, though.

I'm just a nerd who needs to study up on everything I do, even if it's choking someone for sexual gratification.

this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026

12 points (80.0% liked)

Wild Feed

637 readers

160 users here now

A catch-all world journalism community for news, reports, blogs, editorials, and whatever.

Be cool to each other. Instance rules apply.
All posts should link to a *current, *good quality blog, article, editorial, listicle, research paper, or something that can be considered "journalism."
Post title should be the article headline.
No misinformation or bigotry.
For paywalled media, please provide an archived link in the text body of the post.
Commenters who don't read the posted article may receive temporary bans. This is a community for informed discussion.
This instance has no rules against calls to violence, please don't report general wishes for violence. I will moderate direct implications of violence (i.e. I will shoot x person in the head) at my discretion.

Tag if needed:

[NSFW] and [Content Warning - x] — At your discretion.

[D/M/Y] — If the publication is older than a month. You can just tag the year if the article is more than a year old.

[Month and/or year] — For old but relevant articles. Use your best judgement.

[Conspiracy Tuesday] — Conspiracy theories/occult themes/cryptids/pseudoscience. On Tuesdays.

[E-mail required] — If an e-mail is needed to sign in.

[Archive link in post] — For paywalls and account sign-ins, link the main article in the URL, paste the archive link in the text body.

*Current means the article contains the most up to date publically available information on the subject, within reason. Older publications are welcome as long as they include a date tag.

*Good quality means the source has a good reputation for accurate journalism with a reasonably clean fact checking record.

Check out !Independent_Media@lemmy.today for independent news from around the world or !indy_news_canada@sh.itjust.works for Canadian independent publications.

All communities were created with the goal of increasing media literacy and media pluralism.

Sources posted here include:

https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/

https://www.apa.org/

apnews.com/

https://arstechnica.com/

https://www.theatlantic.com/

https://www.bbc.com/

https://www.earth.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/international

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/

https://lithub.com/