Online pornography showing strangulation or suffocation is to be made illegal, as part of government plans to tackle violence against women and girls.
It follows a review which found depictions of choking were “rife” on mainstream porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people.
Both the possession and publication of such material will be a criminal offence, under amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill currently going through Parliament.
In this thread: a lot of chocking
While im not cool with making playacting illegal I would be very happy for it to not be so fucking common in the vids. Can we stop with the little slaps to. I think the problem with a lot of kinks that don’t completely drive the person away. Am I still gonna watch the porn. Well yeah, probably, but I would prefer it without it. Whats funny is seeing the same porn videos with differen titles. various incest scenarios and then something else.
Their have been a lock down on a lot of explicit content online but no one thought it was worth fighting for them, know they’re trying to ban videos depicting choking. Idk seems like karma
The morality police in the UK strike again. They’re slowly turning into Saudi Arabia the longer they keep this up.
So men don’t get choked? Why are these things always gender specific?
It’s less prevalent, but this content definitely exists too.
I like to get a little choked every now and then, during. Am I illegal?
Choking cause permanent brain damage period. MRI scans prove that the brain has to literally rewire itself do to massive cell death.
Furthermore, this is a one way street with the vast majority being males choking women. Over 58% percent of undergraduate women report a choking incident during sex.
Only 8% of men report choking during sex. If this is such a “universal” fetish why is it so one sided. This is because it isn’t. Choking is rarely consensual and even if it is it is extremely damaging to the human mind.
That paper isn’t quite as compelling as I’d hoped it would be for you conclusions. It’s good research, but I’d really like to see a larger sample size, differentiation as to whether people are choked to the point of passing out, and more cognitive tests (because this paper didn’t see any decrease in ability).
For sure, but it is not new knowledge that brain cells are very oxygen dependent. Even brief lapses of oxygen to the brain causes cell death.
I don’t disagree that it’s troubling how mainstream choking is in modern porn. It’s definitely been a huge shift. There’s nothing against it as a fetish, but it being a fetish with potential harmful consequences suggests that it should be in the same category as BDSM - something which can be problematic unless it’s done as an exercise in trust between partners with full informed consent.
And there have been plenty of seemingly not agenda-led studies which suggest that teen boys and girls are both picking up a lot of what they consider to be “normal” about sex from porn.
And not even talking to each other about it. IIRC, there was one such study which had both boys and girls engaging in a particular behaviour (I forget exactly which, maybe even choking), and neither party actively enjoyed the behaviour, they were just doing it because they thought that’s what you do and therefore what their partner wanted.
But is the solution to ban porn which features choking? Firstly, I don’t see how this could in any way be effective. How would you possibly enforce it? Are police really going to raid people’s homes based on suspicion that they’ve got a nowadays-vanilla porn video on their harddrive? The police literally don’t have enough resources to investigate and prosecute everybody creating and sharing child porn. And now they’re supposed to go after everybody who visits PornHub?
Secondly, we’re basically talking about a de-facto porn ban because, as the consultation itself noted, that describes pretty much all porn made in the last 10-15 years.
I’m not sure what the solution is. I mean, talking about the difference bewteen porn and sex is something that should be part of sex education at school. But I kind of assume it already is? It would be weird if it weren’t in 2025.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to engage with creators themselves? I know that several porn companies used to put disclaimers before their videos saying that there’s a difference between porn sex and real sex and talking about consent. Several BDSM porn producers also have pre and post-shoot interviews with the performers and make sure they talk on camera about safe words & gestures and consent.
But then that’s something that’s probably not going to be terribly effective in any case and which would require absolutely everybody to get on board, which would have been basically impossible back when it was only really studios producing content, and 100% impossible now that OnlyFans etc are the way that most performers make and distribute porn.
I don’t think it’s an easy question to answer, TBH, but I’m pretty sure that “ban all the porn” isn’t the correct solution.
Nice to see a measured comment.
I don’t think it will lead to banning porn. Just tell actors/directors to stop chocking and cut some sequences from old videos. If a video is an hour long chocking session then geoblock it. I don’t think it’s an existential crisis for the industry.
Banning possession is insane though.
If you’re a porn producer in the US and the UK government says “don’t show choking in your videos any more and re-edit the past 15 years of videos”, what are you going to do? What’s in it for you to comply?
And what is the government actually going to do? Is it going to go through every single porn video on the internet to see whether or not it’s acceptable? There’s no way they have the resources for that. So then there are basically three options. 1) allow people to browse porn and probably unknowingly watch something which is now illegal, 2) do a blanket ban of studios which have choking videos - which is basically all of them, or 3) only institute a ban for the most extreme studios, which is then defeating the supposed purpose of this bill - to combat the mainstreaming of choking in porn.
I suppose option 4 is to require porn sites to label everything accurately and filter out all porn which contains choking from UK urls. But even that feels like a stretch in terms of practicality. It’s one thing to say to sites “you need to use an age-verification system which we deem acceptable or risk a fine” and something quite different to say “you need to manually review the millions of videos on your site under new criteria and implement strict new filtering based on geolocation”. If they tried this then the end result would probably be porn sites just doing an Imgur and blocking the UK entirely. Which, like the current age verification system on porn sites, would just see people using VPNs.
As legislation goes it doesn’t seem very well-thought-through. I suppose that’s what the Houses of Commons & Lords are for, but it’s far from a foolproof system.
This is in direct response to some recent studies that claimed that chocking is the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. Other studied found that there is no safe amount of oxygen deprivation, any chocking leads to brain damage. Other risks of choking are difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage.
What happened is that porn normalized chocking. It used to be limited to the “hard core” types of porn but now it’s mainstream and kids that grew up watching it think it’s just normal part of sex. Most women asked about it say that they don’t enjoy it but do it “for their partner’s pleasure”.
So yeah, the government treats it as a public health issue and bans it.
I’m not a scientists, I didn’t review all those studies and frankly I don’t care one way of the other. Just wanted to give people some context.
You can read more about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/07/no-safe-way-risks-of-choking-during-sex
porn normalized chocking
I’m not sold on the “porn normalized XYZ”, or non porn either. There’s plenty of content of all kinds showing all kind of things that would be deemed dangerous, wrong, lethal, immoral, cruel, etc. but somehow, it’s only porn and kinks we’re talking about. If the prevalence of something in easily accessible media was a thing, I’d have a thing or two to tell about cops choking/gasing/beating up people laying on the ground.
I’m more concerned by the amount of people that consider fictional content to be guidelines for how they actually live their life. It seems that there’s enough of them to warrant censoring weird shit, but as long as this side of the issue is not addressed, this will not stop.
When I was younger (yes… classic one) a lot of people were worried that younger generation could not distinguish fiction from reality. And we didn’t even have realistic fiction, too. Now that we do, it seems that too many people consider “normalisation” through any media the natural course of things. Kinda like video game making people violent… only when it is convenient.
An article about this was posted 6 months ago and I looked into it: https://lemmy.world/comment/16311493
I wrote:
This article is feeling kind of clickbaitish, as the sources are … odd.
However, restricting blood flow to the brain can also have serious health implications.
While not all pressure on the neck will be fatal, research shows even relatively low pressure can cause death by strangulation.
The first source is a medical journal describing the physiology of the arteries in the neck, and does not seem to include anything about restricting blood flow (never mind temporarily) having serious health consequences.
The second source is a book from 1991 about autoerotic asphyxiation with the quote:
autoerotic asphyxia denotes death resulting from failure of a release mechanism of the device, apparatus or prop designed to attain cerebral hypoxia for heightened arousal.
Which is … not the same as doing this with someone, and doesn’t address the risks of a partner who releases pressure immediately after a loss of consciousness.
The issues around consent are troubling indeed, consent should always be paramount.
I also found it amusing that the beginning of the article said
Although rare, strangulation is the leading cause of death in consensual BDSM play.
Which links to a study that found a total of 16 cases that included strangulation between 1982 and 2020. Rare indeed.
My husband and I dabble in breath play, so I was curious and read a few studies myself. It seems that every case study I could find included atypical circumstances. Things like accidental hanging, or asphyxiation due to bags etc being over the head.
This paper includes a 50 year review of cases for anyone interested. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOFORSJ/TOFORSJ-1-1.pdf
It is also worth noting that loss of consciousness due to cutting off blood flow to the brain (cerebral hypoxia) is not dissimilar to the hypoxia experienced by pilots, who even train with repeated exposure to hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers.
I would be curious to know if there were any studies of the long term effects of this on pilots. (My dive into the rabbit hole is done for the day, lol.)
First they came for the Chokers , And I did not speak out Because I like to breath
Then they came for the Foot fanatics , And I did not speak out Because I was not into feet
Then they came for the thigh highs , And I did not speak out Because I was not into socks
Then they came for the Brazilian cake farts , And there was no one left To speak out for me
I think everyone is missing the point that this is effectively a shodow ban on porn. The Gov knows that sites aren’t going to filter specific content for specific regions, it’s cheaper and safer to simply stop serving those regions. Yes, a VPN will get around that, but VPNs are probably next on the agenda.
I think the government should stay out of peoples pants. The issue isn’t the pornography, it’s that children are allowed on the Internet whether there is pornography. More of a parenting and society issue than it is a pornography issue.
I think the larger issue is the fact that kids are given cell phones and laptops and unrestricted access to the Internet at a young age. The problem isn’t what’s on the Internet it’s that you don’t want kids to have access to it. There are other more effective ways at dealing with the problem rather than censorship for everyone.
Maybe a better way to handle these issues is giving minors only access to online libraries and curated educational content until they are 18 or considered an adult. Then you can make your social media profiles and access adult content.
Might be a good idea to say which government when you’re posting to world news?
I mean, I honestly think it’s pretty obvious givwn how the brits banned fisiting porn
Fisiting whom?
Ah yes, “the government”.
It’s a BBC article, so it stands to reason that this is about the UK government.
Wait, that’s not a porn site?
What’s next? BDSM?
Only porn allowed will be missionary position?
Only if it’s for procreation, too.
I think Australia tried or did ban flat chested woman in porn. Could see that happen more.
Good thing women with flat chest (or non women for that matter) doesn’t exist, right?
The only thing I could find online regarding this was this stackexchange with the accepted answer claiming that there is no legislation, only a ruling from the Australian Classification Board against some media that they said “depicted [young persons] on the bordeline of 18 years old.” I.e. it was a discretionary ruling by a statutory regulator that thought someone looked a bit too much like a child.
There are some more links on that stackexchange but some are dead and I only skimmed a couple of them so I encourage people to read through themsleves since I was too lazy to sort the situation out for myself; I only found enough to satisfy my curiosity and thought I should leave this comment to add context to a bizarre claim (not blaiming prev commenter, my memory is horrible too and I also found some news articles that were definitely depicting the situation the way they remembered)
I saw an articles with 2015 date regarding it. I found this from another site as of 2020
In the process of banning the production, distribution and possession of child Adultography, the government also made it illegal for adults to portray children in these productions. Take special note that we said adults, not women with small breasts.
Small breasts Adult in Australia has not been banned, however, the actress must not be made to appear to be a child under the age of 18 years.
Only porn allowed will be missionary position?
No. I think it’s a step by step approach, that will go further than that. After only missionary, they’ll make the actors get married before having any sex, all under the blankets and as clothed as possible, no condom or pulling out allowed either, and at the end of the scene it has to show the beautiful baby born nine months after. No gay porn, of course, or trans, interracial, more than to people (man™️ and woman™️)… sex is for procreation! How you dare enjoying it, you sinner!
That fetish already exists.
Jfc more conservative pearl clutching censorship laws in supposedly developed countries? What a time to be alive.
Don’t worry, it’s not the Conservatives, it’s the Labour Government implementing this!
Good thing Labour will never be anything like the Tories amirite fellow chokers?
Always great to see that politics are broadly similar everywhere. It’s always irritating to see Democrats cross the aisle when it comes to shitty pearl clutching laws like this. It’s somewhat comforting to know that your fake left wing party is also shitty in similar ways to our fake left wing party.
I’m a fairly progressive liberal, and I don’t think this is an entirely bad idea as it can be a dangerous practice. It’s so prevalent in porn (especially the free stuff those new to sex are likely to start with) that it makes it seem an almost routine part of sexual activity. The more aggressive young people sometimes will then pressure their partners to try it without really understanding the limits, potentially leading to deadly results.
I honestly don’t know if this happens much - if at all - so I admit I may indeed be “pearl clutching,” and am open to being proven wrong. As things stand, however, I don’t see how allowing the act to be so frequently portrayed can be seen as a net positive.
where the fuck do you source your porn from so that choking is so prevalent ?! When looking for this sort of content it’s super hard to find some…
Answered in a later comment. I’ve NEVER searched for it, but I rarely see it mentioned as a searchable item (or I’d have used that to avoid them) - it’s just automatically there. Where i can’t tell you for sure since it’s been so long since I watched due to always hitting upon that crap. Maybe redtube, xhamster, etc.
Then don’t look it up. My partner likes to be seriously choked during sex…what you gonna arrest me for making my partner cum?
what you gonna arrest me for making my partner cum?
It might be the endgame at this point, who knows. We’re currently at “actors doing plays and people watching plays might become illegal”.
You would seriously give your partner permanent brain damage?
That is a seriously problematic study with few controls and a small sample size.
Pilots regularly train in for hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers, losing consciousness repeatedly to train.
Consent and education are important, but safely engaging in breath play is very unlikely to give your partner brain damage.
This is patently false. It cause brain death period. Perhaps you can argue it is not that big of a deal because of the brains ability to rewire itself once you have destroyed a portion of it
People do all kinds a bad activities for the brain so this is really nothing new.
One person’s breath play (so gross to minimize it this way) is another person’s sexual violence.
Edit: I would also like to point out frequency. The frequency of preferred sexual activity dwarfs the training you are talking about. Seems like a convenient and not thought out excuse.
I’ve NEVER “looked it up,” but it seems to be an almost mandatory part of most videos produced anymore - along with the usual several positions that must be assumed, and ending virtually every video in a facial. They all look the same.
Well okay, did the last time I bothered looking for porn videos regularly. It’s been quite a while since I just couldn’t seem to avoid shit like that. Text stories are my porn anymore.
I don’t GAF what you & your partner prefer to do in your private time. Conflating that with porn is both disingenuous, and possibly telling of how highly you think of yourself.
I mentioned what my partner and I do because at what point do these ridiculous laws stop? Right now, it’s just porn, but then it’s what you do in the privacy of your bedroom.
Choking has not been a big thing in porn. There’s a shit ton of porn so of course there’s a lot of choking porn, doesn’t mean it’s the main thing.
And positions now? What are you a nun? Does doggy bother you? Does Cowgirl? And highly of myself? Nah, I’ve been having a healthy sex life for 15 yrs…I’m just confident in my abilities.
You’re the one coming off highly of themselves. Like we should care that you get bothered by sex between 2 or more consenting adults.
Like, where do folks like you get this entitlement? That you can tell the rest of us what to do? Leave us alone. Leave others alone. Maybe worry about the pastors and government officials raping kids?
High horse riding.
Whatever you say. I’m done with this childishness. There are valid concerns on all sides, but the attitudes since my initial rather fair comment have been utter shit, and so I’m done here.
I’ve always wondered about people who use the word “anymore” like you do. Can I ask where you’re from?
No, sorry. I already reveal more about myself than I should through my various comments.
Well, where are all those deaths caused by choking during sex because of porn? I would bet that many more visits to er are caused by trying to emulate the sex in the bath tube while having a couple wine glasses around scenes so typical in ‘romantic’ movies/shows, than by all the kinks seen in porn together.
Parents should, and I’m aware many do, tell their children that tv, movies, porn… are meant to entertain, not teach, and they are very different from how real life things work.
Exactly what I wondered when this was brought up 6 months ago!
https://vger.to/lemmy.world/comment/16311493
This article is feeling kind of clickbaitish, as the sources are … odd.
However, restricting blood flow to the brain can also have serious health implications.
While not all pressure on the neck will be fatal, research shows even relatively low pressure can cause death by strangulation.
The first source is a medical journal describing the physiology of the arteries in the neck, and does not seem to include anything about restricting blood flow (never mind temporarily) having serious health consequences.
The second source is a book from 1991 about autoerotic asphyxiation with the quote:
autoerotic asphyxia denotes death resulting from failure of a release mechanism of the device, apparatus or prop designed to attain cerebral hypoxia for heightened arousal.
Which is … not the same as doing this with someone, and doesn’t address the risks of a partner who releases pressure immediately after a loss of consciousness.
The issues around consent are troubling indeed, consent should always be paramount.
I also found it amusing that the beginning of the article said
Although rare, strangulation is the leading cause of death in consensual BDSM play.
Which links to a study that found a total of 16 cases that included strangulation between 1982 and 2020. Rare indeed.
My husband and I dabble in breath play, so I was curious and read a few studies myself. It seems that every case study I could find included atypical circumstances. Things like accidental hanging, or asphyxiation due to bags etc being over the head.
This paper includes a 50 year review of cases for anyone interested. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOFORSJ/TOFORSJ-1-1.pdf
It is also worth noting that loss of consciousness due to cutting off blood flow to the brain (cerebral hypoxia) is not dissimilar to the hypoxia experienced by pilots, who even train with repeated exposure to hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers.
I would be curious to know if there were any studies of the long term effects of this on pilots. (My dive into the rabbit hole is done for the day, lol.)
You can read about the deaths in the Wikipedia article on the topic. Just because there are other mishaps during sex that also lead to injuries and/or death, that doesn’t invalidate concerns over this method as it even more directly can be shown to be problematic than accidents occurring due to other causes. Never mind the other possible life-altering outcomes such as brain damage.
We all know that the success rate of parents telling their teens anything can be wildly unpredictable. Often, it can even be a motivator to try to do the exact opposite of what their parents recommend. As such, that’s not really a reliable method of addressing the issue.
That article only cites deaths due to autoerotic asphyxiation, which I haven’t seen or heard portrayed in porn, and says that are mostly men, which contradicts the stated objective of preventing harm to women. Have you even read the source you linked or the article, mate?
No, it mentions both, “mate.” Just because you like that act doesn’t mean the concerns are warrantless/unjustified, and if you were truly objectively thinking about it then you wouldn’t be denying that fact.
I’m done arguing this. We’ve both said our pieces. Just because I’m not an expert ready and armed with documented facts doesn’t mean I don’t have a valid point. You don’t like it, TFB - go argue it with the lawmakers because I’m done with this childishness.
At the same time, it seems to be overstepping a bit to be classifying it as equal in severity as CSAM and terroristic content. People presumably aren’t being choked to death in the video.
I didn’t read the details, and just went off the general concept, TBH. If that’s how they’re treating it, then there’s definitely some manipulative bullshit going on that I don’t agree with. That’s not at all what I was thinking about.
Search: How to do the Heimlich maneuver? YouTube: sorry this video has been deleted for depicting scenes of people choking.
