Is it rough kissing? Something else?” The thing is, Anna* isn’t averse to choking, at least in theory. “There’s no doubt that power and sex are related,” she says. “We can all enjoy giving up power, taking it, feeling it”. But, she stresses, “it has to be our power. You have to be choosing to play with it.”
In 2020, a national probability survey of Americans aged 18 to 60 years found that 21 per cent of women reported having been choked during sex. Twenty per cent of men reported that they had choked a partner during sex. What was striking, however, was the difference across age groups. The survey reported adults aged 18 to 29 engaging in choking at much higher rates than older adults. This apparent generational shift in sexual attitudes has been backed up a number of times, with another US survey finding that 58 per cent of female college students have been choked during sex, with a quarter having been choked by age 17.
On this side of the Atlantic, there are signs that choking could be even more commonplace. In 2020, BBC Disclosure and BBC Radio 5 live commissioned a survey of 2,049 men in the UK aged 18 to 39 to assess the prevalence of so-called “rough sex”. Seventy one per cent of the men who took part said they had slapped, choked, gagged or spat on their partner during consensual sex. So, it seems young people like it rougher than their parents did. And what’s the problem with that? Well, firstly, choking is more risky than a bit of spit – strangulation can and does kill. And secondly, it seems that if choking has been mainstreamed for young people, what still hasn’t been normalised is seeking enthusiastic, ongoing consent. Indeed, the 2020 BBC survey found that, of the men who had engaged in what the study defined as “rough sex” practices, one-third said they would not ask whether their partner would like them to do it, either before or during sex.
Anna adds that she’s observed a definite gender split when it comes to choking and consent. “The only time it’s been consensually checked with me was when I slept with women,” she says. On the other hand, in her past sexual encounters with men she has often felt like the lines between submission, control and consent became blurred. When it comes to general “roughness”, too, Anna has noticed “an absolute inability to negotiate with nuance”. Crucially, she also underlines that “breath play and rough handling are different”. Having “never practised” breath play, Anna says she’s aware she doesn’t know “the signs or limits of what’s fine”. When she has been choked without warning, then, she has told people to ease up or manually loosened their grip. For her, the whole thing should be simple. “You know what’s sexy as f***? Asking me.”
Yet even this appeal to vocal communication and enthusiastic consent may shock some who think of choking as an extreme sex act. Or even an act of aggression. A fortnight ago, journalist Marie Le Conte caused a minor Twitter storm when she declared there’s “quite a mad generational divide” when it comes to choking. “If you’re under about 35 it is basically a ‘normal’ sex act,” she suggested, “for good or ill”.
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