Dame Rachel de Souza is the Children’s Commissioner of England. She is also one of many voices warning that pornography, which is prevalent among children, is spurring a grotesque and potentially deadly trend: choking during sex.
“I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her boyfriend, aged 12, who strangled her,” de Souza said. “He had seen it in pornography and thought it normal.” He wasn’t wrong. A new report indicates that “nearly half of all girls aged 16 to 21 say they’ve had a partner expect sex to involve physical aggression such as slapping and choking.”
As porn becomes the primary source of sex education for nearly all young people, sexual assault is going from a fringe behavior to something normalized and expected. In 2019, a report in The Atlanticthat warned of a sharp rise in the practice of choking during sexual acts (with almost a quarter of adult American women reporting that they felt fear during intimacy as a result). Think about that: almost a quarter of American women felt fear during intimacy due to porn-inspired choking.
In a 2021 survey conducted at a large public university in the US, one in three undergraduate female respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 said they were choked the last time they had sex. The study was led by Debby Herbenick, a professor and the director of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion. Also in the survey, 58% of female college students said they had been choked by a partner before — with nearly 65% of that group saying they experienced it during their first-ever sexual or kissing encounter.
According to Herbenick, the practice has become so common that many Gen Z-ers don’t even discuss it.
It appears to be no better in the United Kingdom. In fact, comedian Grace Campbell—famous for her “sex-positive” shtick—is warning about it in her newest stand-up tour. “Men think I like being choked,” she told The Times. “There have been many times during sex that someone’s choked me without asking and I’m like, ‘No, I’m scared, I don’t like that’. The reality is [my friends and I] have all been in situations where we’re worried they won’t stop.”
