On a break in Budapest, 31-year-old Mackenzie Michalski met an attractive stranger, had a few drinks, went dancing and felt safe enough to go back, hand in hand, to his apartment. The stranger, Lorcan Tadgh Murphy – a self-described writer/property developer/marketing entrepreneur reared by an affluent, supportive family in Killiney, Co Dublin – rewarded the young American nurse’s trust by tying her up with a belt, beating her, biting and murdering her in a prolonged act of strangulation. He then filmed her body before dumping it 150km away. His defence, literally, was that she asked for it. She asked for “rough sex”, he claimed; it was she, he said, who had asked him to place his hands around her neck. It was nonsense, and he was jailed last week for 14 years. Mackenzie was a slight young woman with chronic neck pain. She was also a specialist neurological nurse who knew full well the dangers of strangulation. But “rough sex” gone wrong – the defence offered by Murphy’s Hungarian lawyers – was not a novel one. The term has been in use for decades to describe extreme acts of sexual violence. It’s nearly 40 years since the notorious New York trial of Robert Chambers for the murder of Jennifer Levin marked the popularisation of the so-called “rough sex” defence. Decades later Russell Brand was packing in the crowds and their cash for his stand-up routines that included miming the distress of a woman choking on his penis. “Choking” had become a central feature of everyday pornography, the kind most men now in their 30s were able to access at a click from their most formative years.That morphed into strangulation (which not only blocks the airway but the flow of blood to and from the brain), a potentially lethal action relabelled as “rough sex”, “choking” or “breath play” by the industry to obfuscate the reality of strangulation porn. The renaming enabled it to slip swiftly from the margins to the mainstream, from a dangerous, seedy fetish to an idealised depiction as something playful, inherently consensual and harmless. Mainstream magazines and websites offer tricks and tips about “safe words”.Now strangulation has become so normalised – from the #chokeher hashtag and #chokemedaddy memes on mainstream social media platforms, to chart-topping popular songs featuring lyrics that celebrate or joke about “choking” – as to be almost standard practice among young people, says Ruth Breslin, director of the independent Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute. Studies bear it out. Strangulation as a “sexual practice” driven by pornography has increased five-fold in 10 years, according to work by Prof Debby Herbenick in the US. Between one third and half of women respondents have been strangled during sex, according to reports from the UK and US. More than one third of men under 40 surveyed in the UK said that they had “choked” (strangled) someone during sex. A 2022 UK review of literature linked non-fatal strangulation to arterial dissection, stroke and a range of neurological consequences. The notion that young women ask for and enjoy it can be quashed by a report cited by the New York Times. Choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts that had scared young women into wondering if they would survive. Many said there were moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising their ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it in the first place.[ Violence against women is increasing globally – and police forces are not immuneOpens in new window ]In 2023, Eoin Considine, a 24-year-old Limerick law graduate with an address at Old Barna Road, Newcastle West, was jailed for four years for the rape of a young woman after he began choking her during what had been consensual sex. The court heard how she was unable to breathe and was shaking her head to tell him to stop, but he refused.In another triumph of relabelling, the industry’s grooming of boys and young men to perpetrate sexual violence (and of girls to submit) glides over true consent by calling it the “consenting kink”, ignoring the fact that the very organ needed to withdraw consent to the activity is physically compromised by the activity itself. But how many young people know there is no safe way to strangle someone? Yet the “rough sex” defence – that the victim “consented” therefore death was accidental – has featured in 60 criminal cases in the UK where women were fatally strangled by men during sex, according to an advocacy group there. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the prevalence of pornography has something to do with it. A 2024 report by the Economic and Social Research Institute found that two-thirds of 20-year-old men use pornography and that those from more advantaged backgrounds are more likely to be users.Murphy was clearly a dangerous, determined predator but the types of violence he perpetrated – restraint, punching, strangulation, use of spyware, filming without consent – are increasingly normalised in mainstream pornography.[ Our message is always ‘it’s not your fault’. Why does society sometimes say otherwise?Opens in new window ]Judicial systems pitched against a global industry projected to pull in almost €100 billion in 2026, are trying to address the harms. In late 2023 then minister for justice Helen McEntee introduced a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation or non-fatal suffocation. Within 18 months, there were 67 prosecutions under the new offence. In Northern Ireland, a new offence of non-fatal strangulation or asphyxiation resulted in 26 people being charged in the first month of its operation alone. Meanwhile, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said this week he plans to bring in laws to “effectively ban” violent pornography, including strangulation porn.It’s a start – but it’s a long way short of hobbling the pornography industry.