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Last month the Guardian covered the normalisation of choking of women in sex: women report you'll be called vanilla if you don't want it, and women are being choked - sometimes into unconsciousness - on dates without prior discussion.
theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
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theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
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How did this become the norm? Women's magazines promote choking as a beginner's kink, tumblr's famed for being full of cutesy choking images and it's standard for women to be choked in porn. But we wanted to look at instagram
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3/4 @instagram has a billion users and has acted to remove explicit content - self harm, sex and even nipple pics - previously. Here's what you can see under tags #chokeme #chokemedaddy and #suffocate. Strangulation of women shown as bold, mainstream, loving, funny, sexy. 
(And no, this @instagram content seems never to feature men being choked by women - although there are men being choked by men)
In the context of women now being choked by their dates, has this insta content normalised the violent assault of women?
theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
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In the context of women now being choked by their dates, has this insta content normalised the violent assault of women?
theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
4/4
ps: Some of the @instagram tags which host thousands of images (photos, illustration, video) of women being strangled. Many photos/videos are realistic and extremely distressing.
ps 2: One Instagram account is dedicated to videos of women being strangled, taken from tv/film, porn and amateur video and tagged with #neckfetish and #breathplay. We will not repost this content here, but the account posts quizzes on followers' preferences:
ps3: That instagram account's latest video was an amateur video of a woman being strangled by a man - only his hands were visible. She appeared in extreme distress - instagram's response:
It's somewhat astonishing that @instagram hosts so much of this, given their own guidelines.
And uk extreme porn law criminalises pornographic, realistic images of violence which appears lifethreatening. Would be worth testing how much of this insta content meets that threshold.
And uk extreme porn law criminalises pornographic, realistic images of violence which appears lifethreatening. Would be worth testing how much of this insta content meets that threshold.
UK "extreme porn" law brought in after the murder of Jane Longhurst. The man who killed her viewed strangling+ necrophilia "porn" for years.
Law applies to lifethreatening, realistic, pornographic images. Much insta strangling content could meet this:
cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance…
Law applies to lifethreatening, realistic, pornographic images. Much insta strangling content could meet this:
cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance…
