Wow, this sounds like a great way to get screwed over by a former, disgruntled ex-partner. Partner wants you to choke them a bit during sex, you know (or don't know) it's illegal, but think "eh, it's fine, what we do in the privacy of our own bedroom is our business, and $PARTNER really likes it". Fast-forward to an acrimonious breakup, and your former partner is now accusing you of an illegal act.
I 100% get that domestic violence is a real thing, and even aside from that, there are some things that we do try protect people from, even if they consent to it, but I feel like this crosses the line.
Conflicting claims or testimony are common in the legal system, and we do in fact have means of resolving them. They are not, of course, 100% guaranteed to resolve things correctly, but it is simply false to say that there is no way to resolve it.
Its not an opinion; whether we have a method of resolution is a verifiable question of fact, and the answer is yes, we do.
Juries make decisions where the key evidence is conflicting testimony of two witnesses all the time, where the other evidence, if any, isn't directly on the primary question but the reliability of the witnesses.
Usually, this will resolve against the accuser where the US criminal standard of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) applies, and have more mixed results where lower standards, like the preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence standards used for various purposes (e.g., usual judgements and permanent restraining orders, respectively) in the US civil justice system, apply.
Whether this resolution mechanism has satisfactory results is, of course, a subjective question.
In no way is being stabbed pleasurable. Your average person knows that this results in death, charges, jail, etc.
Light choking is quite common amongst sexual partners. It can be incredibly arousing for many. Its is, generally speaking, not at all dangerous when both parties have a very basic understanding of how to do the act safely. It is certainly possible for something to go terribly wrong, even if incredibly rarely.
There is a massive difference between domestic abuse choking and sexual pleasure choking, and tour argument is a fantastic example of how being incredibly reductive is damaging to the argument youre trying to make.
> […] However, no studies used formal neuropsychological assessment: the majority were medical case studies or based on self-report. Furthermore, few authors were able to control for possible confounds, including other physical violence and existing psychosocial difficulties.
So, not only is this not about consensual sex, but rather violence — and therefore inapplicable to consensual activities — but also built on very shaky grounds. The latter might be unavoidable in researching domestic/sexual violence cases, but the former just makes this paper completely useless in discussing consensual activities.
If they could reasonably argue that it were a safe practice, of course I would. Why wouldn't I? Except that argument can't be reasonably made. But it can be made for limited levels of sexual choking play. I specifically asked:
"But does it cause more damage than smoking? Alcohol? Cannabis in young people?"
And without a quantitative answer to this, the entire discussion is hot air and prejudice.
And I cannot help but noting that your way of argument is literally item #1 of Eristic Dialectic: The Extension. These methods are neither productive nor welcome.
And yes, in domestic violence situation, strangling is pretty consistent predictor of actual murder attempt later on.
It's unsurprising. GB has an unholy trinity of excuses for authoritarian laws:
1. "Think of the women and girls!"
2. "Think of the children!"
3. "This is a sacrifice we have to make to stop terrorism!" (which has taken a backseat to the first two)
How is that possible, they’re categorically opposite?
You can't create a moral panic by having nuance. Why would they care about what people of what genders actually participate in kink play like this? No, if justifying policy is what's needed, instead you have to manufacture a pressing crisis. Just pretend that there's an epidemic of random heterosexual men watching too much porn and starting to nonconsensually strangle their partners out of nowhere. This article already endorses a lesser version of this story - that strangling porn only features women, that it's created solely for men, that its purpose is to degrade women in general through these acts (because surely no one ever is actually into choking, am I right?), and that men are rapidly becoming more misogynistic en masse because of it. Now that slots right in alongside all the societal fears and beliefs we have about protecting women. Every encroachment on NSFW content to come will keep banging the same drums of protecting a group that's seen as needing protection or is marginalized (excluding marginalized groups that the government hates, of course). And most people will probably believe it.
In the worst outcome, there have been manslaughter charges raised against men who choked their partners to death, where "strangulation kink" has been used in the defence of these men. So it is clearly a problem.
Why are you so invested in this issue? Why did you create a throwaway account just to post on this topic? What relationship do you have to politicians, civil servants, and NGOs who have been involved in this campaign?
I didn't say there weren't rapists who were strangling their partners for their own pleasure. The "problem" you're describing is already illegal. I don't think there's a first-world country where you're allowed to nonconsensually choke someone. And "it was just my kink" isn't a good defense at all - just because it's used doesn't mean anything, the defense's whole point is to come up with the most tame interpretation possible for the crime, no matter how ridiculous.
The moral panic part is when the UK government decides that blanket banning everyone from doing it consensually is going to change anything about unrelated rapists who were already fine with breaking the law. And especially the fact that they think that the effects of this blanket ban are going to be large enough for it to be worth to criminalize consenting adults over.
And then then there's the choking porn part, where they seemingly have deduced that it was brainwashing men in such dangerous capacities that it's now worthwhile to brand someone a criminal for life if they dared to have that cognitohazard inscribed on their hard drive. It's okay, you may not have hurt anyone, you may have had a happy, consensual relationship, but we must simply punish you, don't you see. It's for the greater good, for we are fighting something which was already illegal.
Statistics don't matter here. When they come for the next "immoral" kink, they'll conjure up more statistics and conjecture to make it seem less insane. But statistics aren't what caused this. There is no choking porn crisis. They just wanted to go after it, and this was the best tool available.
I assume that in this legal text "suffocation" means the prevention of respiration by other means than compressing the throat, but it should be noted that this is a modern meaning of the word "suffocation". To "strangle" comes from Ancient Greek, through its borrowing in Latin, while to "suffocate" is the native Latin synonym of "strangle", so originally the two words were completely synonymous. ("suffocate" is derived from "sub", i.e. under, and "fauces", i.e. throat)
Similarly, if you read almost any smut book at the moment, a genre which has been going through an incredible renaissance and driving massive sales, you will find that the concept of light choking is prevalent throughout.
The UK parliament have really invaded the bedroom on this one.
Can't believe they'd turn down the opportunity to get more voters.
But does it cause more damage than smoking? Alcohol? Cannabis in young people?
We give people the right to exercise their own judgement in getting hurt for pleasure on those, so if the argument is that this one is not OK it better be an order of magnitude worse than the recreational drugs.
(I guess there's a distinction between the act and a recording of it, but last I checked smoking and alcohol are still legal in media for adults.)
Ed.: the act is apparently illegal too, "Due to these dangers, non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation were made a criminal offence as part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021".
And it's really... odd... how the entire article is written as if the practice is solely performed by men on women. (Even though that might be the prevailing pattern, this kind of 'condensing down' is ultimately sexist erasure.)