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“I’m vanilla, babyIFASIFASIFASBBCIFASIFASYour browser does not support the element./ I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killababy,” raps Jack Harlow on his number-one hit from 2023, “Lovin’ On Me”. According to a survey of over 2,000 people published in December by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (), a charity, more than one in three Britons aged between 16 and 34 have been strangled during consensual sex on at least one occasion. was established with Home Office funding in 2022, when non-fatal strangulation was made a distinct offence in England and Wales. Previously, crimes involving strangulation were often charged as common assault (a category that also covered simply shaking a fist at someone or using threatening words).Despite the perils, sexual strangulation—or “choking”, by its friendlier name—appears to be widespread. It refers to the obstruction or compression of airways and blood vessels in the neck by external pressure, usually a hand. Starving the brain of oxygen is known to induce feelings of euphoria. A survey in Australia found that most first encountered such strangulation in online porn.The survey probed the quality of “consent”. It found that only half of those who said they had experienced strangulation had always agreed to it beforehand; 17% said they had never agreed to it. For consent to be genuine, it must also be informed. Yet the dangers are not widely known. The oxygen deprivation from even modest pressure to the neck can lead to brain injury. Damage to blood vessels in the throat can cause clotting and, ultimately, a stroke—weeks or months later. A meta-study in 2020 suggested that strangulation may be the second-most common cause of stroke in British women under 40.Data are, unsurprisingly, scarce. In 2019 a survey of over 2,000 women aged 18-39 found that more than one-third had experienced unwanted strangling, slapping, gagging or spitting during sex. According to one study, women who are non-consensually strangled face a seven-fold increase in the odds of being murdered by their partner.Victims now have better recourse to the law, at least on paper. A strangulation case typically takes about three years to get to court. Campaigners say their work has just begun. Although they raised the alarm about sexual strangulation several years ago, the survey is the first major British study on its prevalence. wants to conduct more detailed research and (like the recent “Breathless” campaign in Australia) raise awareness of the practice’s risks among those most likely to experience it. But that will take money. And despite the Labour government’s pledge to halve violence against women within a decade, cash can be in short supply.
