Strangulation during sex damages young women’s brain health and breeds deep gender inequality. But the real test will be its enforcement
T
his week marks a turning point in the UK’s approach to violent porn. The government has announced it will make publishing or possessing pornographic depictions of strangulation or suffocation – often known as “choking” – illegal. This bold move could transform the porn that appears on porn sites and social media platforms.
Strangulation in porn was once niche. Indeed, studies investigating the content of porn 20 years ago found hardly any instances of it. Yet an independent review of pornography released this year found that it was rife on the most popular porn sites. This summer the children’s commissioner released a report revealing that 58% of young people had seen strangulation in pornography, even though only 6% had searched for it. As renowned porn producer Erika Lust puts it, strangulation has become the “alpha and omega” of “any porn scene”.
This matters because the more porn we watch, the more strangulation we see – and the more likely we are to strangle someone during sexual activity. This is not speculative – studies of male students show precisely this link. Porn is today’s sex education: in a recent survey by LadBible, 70% of young men said that porn was their first exposure to sex.
