STRANGULATION ISN'T A FETISH
Strangulation isn’t a fetish
By Anna Fearon
I would be lying if I said I was shocked when I saw that tweet promoting choking and strangulation by the US edition of Men’s Health. It shocked me for all of 5 seconds until I remembered that articles, films and literature promoting violence against women have very much become the norm worldwide. 50 Shades of Grey, Netflix’s 365 Days, the list goes on…
For those unaware, Men’s Health published an article on their website titled, ‘The Safest Way to Play With Breath Restriction During Sex’; they then promoted the article on Twitter, tweeting:
‘Before you try breath play in bed, read this’.
The tweet prompted worldwide horror from women’s rights campaigners such as myself, and campaign groups such as the Centre for Women’s Justice and We Can’t Consent To This. MP for Pontypridd, Alex Davies-Jones also shared her disgust tweeting ‘Strangulation is not sexy, it’s a violent, dangerous act!’
Firstly, it must be noted that there is no such thing as ‘breath play’ - that is just a polite term used to disguise strangulation, choking and suffocation. Strangulation and choking is violence and it’s more commonly used against women and girls. BDSM fans will tell everyone that choking is a ‘fetish’, but it’s not, it’s violence. A fetish is toe-sucking or an obsession with armpits, not violence.
Men’s Health boasted they can teach readers how to choke ‘safely’. It must be pointed out that it is not possible to strangle or choke someone safely. The neck area is very fragile, and it can take just four seconds for a person to lose consciousness from strangulation, and a lack of oxygen to the brain results in mild brain damage. The health problems linked to strangulation and choking are severe and include: strokes, cardiac arrest, seizures, brain injury, miscarriage, incontinence, speech paralysis, and PTSD (which I suffer with). All conditions which can cause permanent damage.
I know this only too well, as a victim of domestic abuse who’s experienced strangulation. It wasn’t ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’; it was life-threatening. The closest I have come to death. I was lying next to my boyfriend (of the time) in bed. We’d just had a disagreement and I was ignoring him - facing away from him, lying on my side. Suddenly his arms were around my neck. I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that my breathing had stopped. I was paralyzed, lying there in shock, staring at the wall knowing that I couldn’t breathe. He eventually let go having fulfilled his fantasy of experimenting murdering a woman and total and utter control of me. I asked him what just happened and he said he was practising martial arts. I took his word for it, but a tiny voice inside said, ‘that’s not martial arts, that’s violence’.
It would take me months to properly process it. And five years on I still suffer flashbacks. Sometimes out of nowhere I feel like I can’t breathe or I feel invisible hands around my throat trying to stop my breathing.
No woman consents to this. And yet, Men’s Health are trotting out the myth started by 50 Shades of Grey and the like that women are horny for anything violent. Men seem to think that just because a woman has read 50 Shades that she is “up for it”. I wasn’t up for it. Perpetrators tell themselves that “women want to be choked” because it justifies and excuses their violence. They know damn well that women aren’t up for it. All they want to do is control and dominate women. They’re sadists who enjoy hurting women. Calling strangulation and choking ‘consensual’ and ‘sexy’ is an insult to the memory of women murdered by men this way. Women like Grace Millane - whose murderer said she was up for strangulation because she liked BDSM, which I don’t believe for one second.
While many slammed Men’s Health, there were some odd people that tweeted their support for the magazine. A woman tweeted me saying choking is a ‘recreational activity’ and that she loves being choked. A fair few men tweeted me supporting the violent act and telling me I should stop shaming their sex lives. Violence and sex are two different things, not to be confused, but often are.
Many women convince themselves they like being choked in the bedroom because they want to keep their partner, and so feel compelled to submit. Their male partners, who no doubt get their ideas from porn, pressurise their female partners. My former university housemate is one such woman that fell victim to peer pressure. One day I was sitting on her bed when she casually dropped into conversation that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend. I was so shocked I had no words. She didn’t see herself as a victim and acted like it was enjoyable, proudly showing off her bruises.
Yet if you were to peel back the facades, you’ll find deeply troubled women doing anything they can to hold onto their relationships, even if that means consenting to choking. What they fail to realise is - they’re being abused. Women are brainwashed and conditioned by society to like what men like. And most often that is anything in hardcore porn. Even if the woman verbally consents to being choked, it doesn’t change the fact she’s being attacked. It’s still an act of violence, and in a lot of cases, leads to murder.
Strangulation is the number one indicator that a murder will take place, as well as being the second most common way that woman are killed. As the Centre for Women’s Justice states ‘Strangulation and asphyxiation are the second most common method of killing in female homicides, after stabbing’. If we saw a woman being choked in the street, people would be horrified and no doubt intervene, and yet replace the street with a bedroom and suddenly strangulation and choking becomes ok to people. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
As I write, Men’s Health have still not removed the tweet, nor the article. They even brag about how many views the article has had:
“This Men’s Health story on choking, specifically, has been viewed nearly half a million times”
It really is sick to boast about endangering women. Men’s Health can boast as much as they like, but this doesn’t change the fact they’re encouraging violence, and in many cases murder. I’d like all women to know that strangulation and choking is not part of sex, it’s part of murder. If your partner has done this to you or tries to, please leave as soon as it’s safe to do so. Otherwise it’s much more likely that you will end up dead.
The fight continues to expose the normalisation of violence against women in popular culture. We all have a part to play in calling it out.
Here’s two things you can do to help:
Email your MP asking for non-fatal strangulation to be made a criminal offence, using this template provided by the Centre for Women’s Justice.
Follow Anna, Feminist | Writer | Survivor on Twitter: @anna_fearon