Why strangulation has become part of the sexual 'playbook'

Why strangulation has become part of sexual 'playbook' for young Australians In short: Young Australians say sexual strangulation has become so normalised it is no longer considered a kink. A 2024 study revealed nearly 60 per cent of young people have experienced strangulation during sex. It's prompted a conversation about why sexual strangulation is so common. Warning: this story contains details readers may find distressing. Laura Crozier can't believe the conversations she used to have in high school about sex. Specifically, sexual strangulation, commonly referred to as choking. "I would talk with my friends and be like, oh yeah, he put his hands up my neck, and it was really cool," she said. "It was just kinky." The now 25-year-old runs the Yeah, Nah: Affirmative consent education project with the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria. A proud bisexual woman, Ms Crozier said strangulation had become "just a part of the playbook of a sexual encounter". "It's so normalised it's barely kinky anymore. It's just vanilla, which is terrifying because nobody understands it." University student Elaquare Spencer, who is in her early 20s, said that for her and her friends, strangulation was framed as a sexual preference. For Talon, a heterosexual man in his early 20s, strangulation was a way to play with power dynamics. "Like that balance between subjugation and domination." These young people candidly shared their experiences of sexual strangulation in a Radio National panel discussion this week, alongside violence prevention educator Maree Crabbe. They did this to give context to staggering statistics about the rates of sexual strangulation among young people, and in the wake of the death of a 16-year-old girl in Sydney's northern beaches last month, which the ABC understands is related to a suspected choking act. Loading...Why is sexual strangulation so common? According to Maree Crabbe, a violence prevention educator and co-founder of the Breathless campaign, there has been an enormous increase in depictions of sexual strangulation in television, films and popular culture. But Ms Crabbe said research indicated pornography was the most significant influence shaping the increase in rates of sexual strangulation. "A study that looked at depictions of strangulation in pornography from the early 2000s through to 2024 found that it went from being in basically zero per cent of scenes to being in 15 per cent of scenes in popular pornography," she said. Ms Crabbe said strangulation had become such a pervasive part of sexual culture that even without watching porn, the expectation to engage with it was emerging in the bedroom. When Ms Crozier first began exploring her sexuality, she said there was a gap between her idea of pleasure and the sex she agreed to have. "Sex wasn't really based on what I thought was good. It was based on what society thought was good," she said. As a young man who has consensually strangled partners during sex, Talon said he felt like he was following a script expected of him. "I see within my peers … myself, this sense of, well, I feel like I have to do this. I feel like I should do this," he said. "Why do I as a man feel obliged to take part of this normalised culture? "When I think about how I experience this play of power … why is it coming up as strangulation? Why do I want to cause this physical harm?" The gendered nature of sexual strangulation Ms Spencer said that while she had never asked someone to strangle her, she has had to ask not to be strangled. "In my own personal sexual encounters, I have had situations quite a lot of times where a man's hand has just sort of crept up on my throat," the politics and international relations student said. In those moments, Ms Spencer said she even apologised for asking not to be strangled. "How damning that is, that people feel uncomfortable to ask to not be strangled," she said. Ms Crabbe said it was most common for men and boys to strangle, and for women, girls and sexual and gender diverse people to be strangled. She said the power imbalance in sexual strangulation was highly gendered. "Inequality is not edgy or sexy. It's not new, it's old. It's the patterns that we've tried to reject." Ms Spencer thinks the historical context of strangulation is important. "Harm towards and dominance over women has often been portrayed as sexy," she said. "And what better way to assert dominance than to literally strip the air from their lungs?" The health risks of strangulation Ms Crabbe is concerned the wide range of health consequences of strangulation are misunderstood. "Anybody could harm someone if they put pressure on their neck, because you only need the level of pressure of opening a can of soft drink to kill someone," she said. "It's not just that someone can die in the moment, but the possibility of it impacting on your memory and migraines and eyesight and hearing and miscarriage and strokes and all sorts of things. "A deprivation of oxygen to the brain impacts our capacity to make decisions and also to act. "That can mean that even if someone consents at the time that they commence engaging in sexual strangulation, that they are likely not to be in a good position to make decisions in an ongoing way." Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said there was no safe way of strangling someone. "It can cause death immediately, it can cause death weeks down the track through blood clots, it can cause dementia years and years after the practice has been used," she said. The minister has called for depictions of strangulation in porn to be banned. What do the statistics say? Read more- A 2024 study of 4,702 young people aged 18-35 published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour from the University of Queensland and the Melbourne University Law School found that 57 per cent had been strangled during sex at least once and 51 per cent had strangled a partner at least once. - Of those young people who had experienced sexual strangulation, one third were between 19 and 21 when they were strangled by a partner for the first time. - On average, people reported they had been strangled five times by three partners. - People said they found out about sexual strangulation through various sources, most commonly pornography (61 per cent), but also through movies (40 per cent), friends (32 per cent), social media (31 per cent) and discussions with current or potential partners (29 per cent). There is nothing hotter than consent Ms Crozier encouraged sexual partners to listen to each other. "Find pleasure in hearing each other and bonding and connecting rather than doing what society thinks is the best thing for you to do," she said. Talon agreed. "There is genuinely nothing wrong with just having plain old vanilla sex. "I don't even want to use that language … but honestly, look your partner in the eyes and just be with them and be present and don't rush and take your time. "Strangulation, it's not necessary." Talon encouraged men and boys to self-reflect. "What are you actually looking for? "What do you actually want? Figure your own shit out before you go engaging with anyone else." "I think consent is sexy," Ms Spencer said. "The best, the sexiest and the nicest practice is to ask that person what they want, what makes them comfortable: what do they enjoy?"