*Content warning* Men who choke female partners during sex have little understanding of risks, study finds 🧵
Sexual choking (or strangulation, as it is more appropriately described) can cause serious, long-term damage and even death even weeks or months later.
Individuals who have been strangled can suffer strokes, depression, memory loss, seizures, motor and speech disorders and paralysis – and strangulation does not have to be prolonged or forceful to do serious damage.
Despite this, a research paper published this year in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that men studied who had choked a sexual partner did not have an awareness of the risks of choking (Herbenick et al, 2022) 
The authors interviewed 21 men, all of whom had sexually choked someone on at least one occasion.
The study participants described the ways they would strangle their partner during sex – with one or two hands around their neck, or using a leash, a tie, a belt, or a rope, or their penis.
One male participant described pinching a partner’s nose during ‘deep throating’ so she couldn’t breathe.
Some men reported concerning physical responses from their partners when they strangled them during sex.
"[R]eactions like their partner gasping for air, gagging, coughing, face changing colors, and tears were of some concern to the men in our study and sometimes prompted participants to ease off the choking pressure or to stop entirely."
"However, some men considered these physical responses as pleasurable discomforts that co-occurred with their partners’ pleasure and not necessarily reasons to decrease intensity or stop."
The authors noted that some participants would ask their partners for a sign they wanted the choking to stop. Some would ask them to tap them. One had his partner hold an item, and if they dropped it, he would know it was time to stop strangling them.
The study authors were struck by the confidence displayed by some of the male participants in their ability to “safely” strangle their partners – particularly given they had typically learned about choking from porn.
Injuries from strangulation may not always be immediately apparent, and men who choke their partners may therefore conclude their method or the intensity of their choking is safe.
"Aside from occasional mentions of being aware that choking could bruise a person, cause loss of consciousness, or kill someone, the men in our study did not describe an awareness of other forms of potential harm of being choked."
Additional research of heterosexual college-aged men found men who viewed porn more frequently were more likely to choke sexual partners and hold the beliefs that choking is safe, pleasurable and does not require consent (Wright, Herbenick and Tokunaga, 2021)
Porn is shaping young people’s sexual tastes and real-world behaviours. It promotes, normalises and eroticises acts of sexual violence that put women and girls at risk of serious injury and even death collectiveshout.org/_porn_has_a_lo…
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