Two women have come forward about their horrific experiences being choked without their consent, following MP Dame Diana Johnson’s call for the banning of violent pornography showing strangulation
Pornography that showcases the strangulation and suffocation is set to be criminalised by new legal changes introduced by Labour’s government, with two women speaking out about the effects the scenes can have on the general public’s sex lives.
On June 19, MP Dame Diana Johnson committed to tackling explicit content with the vital step forward, as part of the Governments new violence against women and girls strategy. Speaking in the House of Commons, she said: “We know that the increasing prevalence of this kind of content is fuelling violent sexual encounters”.
‘He was oblivious to how much pain he was causing’
Speaking anonymously to Glamour Magazine, Hannah*, aged 18 at the time, recalled accompanying Connor* back home for the night, only to be left shocked by the level of bruising and harsh treatment she experienced.
She explained how she had not expected to be choked during sex, but when she opened her eyes, she saw his hand wrapped tightly around her throat. During the interaction, she also described being “spanked so hard that blood vessels burst on her buttocks” and claimed Connor remained “oblivious to how much pain he was causing”.
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She said: “I left his house the next morning, covered in bruises,” which she initially “wrote off”, but now, six years later, she says she’s “only beginning to realise how wrong it actually was”.
Unfortunately, Hannah’s experience is not unique as sexual violence, which includes non-consensual choking and hitting, is now seen more and more in young adult’s sex lives, despite non-fatal strangulation laws being introduced in Britain in 2022.
A Children’s Commissioner report found that 47 percent of young people between 18 and 21 have experienced a violent sex act, and were 50 percent more likely to if they were regular viewers of pornography.
Although the victim has accepted the sex with Connor as legally consensual, she highlighted the importance of being careful, mindful and analysing how aggressive sexual behaviour might induce a casual acceptance to violent or coercive sex.
She said: “Truthfully, I wouldn’t have said yes if I knew he was going to choke me, and I think he knew that too. That’s why he didn’t bother to ask me, and that doesn’t feel very consensual to me”.
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‘I thought it was a normal part of sex’
Rachel* also spoke to the BBC about her experience of being suddenly choked without consent. She told the BBC that she had sex with a man who began choking her suddenly and non-consensually. She said: “He was on top of me – we were kissing and having sex, then suddenly he put his forearm on my neck and pressed hard with his full weight. I just froze”.
The BBC reported that the victim found this “deeply frightening” as she had never slept with a man before and felt a “numb” as it happened. Rachel shared: “He just did it like it was normal and it caught me by surprise, so I just went with it”.
Whilst she did not faint, she described how “this numbness came over [her] and [she] just waited for it to stop” – only for the incident to reoccur two weeks later, this time with a different man from a dating site.
Rachel said that she “disassociated” after feeling the man’s hands around her neck. She added that after losing the sense of safety and control of the situation, she abstained from sex for a whole year as the harrowing events caused her to feel “alienated” from her body.
Rachel believes both perpetrators learned this behaviour from pornography, concluding that “it felt like it was – in their minds – just a normal part of sex”.
*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the victims