Possession of porn featuring strangling to become a crime in the UK

Ok, so it can cause some brain damage. That's not good.

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.)

We even count domestic violence against men under the umbrella of "violence against women and girls" - men don't matter here.

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)

> Due to these dangers, non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation were made a criminal offence as part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021

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.

You can already screw over former partners by simply saying that some sex was non-consensual.

Just reacting to your first sentence: as a man I find it understandable that the protective laws are focused on protecting women and children as it's a simple fact of our reality that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by men, and that women and children have less physical ability to defend themselves. Yes I also want men protected (though that means mostly again from other men) but as a societal aim the women and children part clearly is a higher priority and need.

> We even count domestic violence against men under the umbrella of "violence against women and girls"

How is that possible, they’re categorically opposite?

> 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.)

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.

Can you? How would that work in practice? Isn't this just "he said/she said" with no way to resolve it, unless you're filming yourself every time?

The simplification in the article is because it is mostly men doing this to mostly women.

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.

If your partner asked you to stab them in the belly as a sexual kink, would you do so? I would hope not. Same principle applies to strangulation. You don't have to inflict harm just because you're being asked to.

I would start with assumption that strangling, cutting or beating someone is likely to be illegal. There are not that many countries with bdsm exception to those. And strangling is literally the most dangerous of all those. If you are strangling someome under assumptiom that of course it must be legal, you are likely breaking the law in all kinds of unaware and dangerous ways.

And yes, in domestic violence situation, strangling is pretty consistent predictor of actual murder attempt later on.

> Can you? How would that work in practice? Isn't this just "he said/she said" with no way to resolve it

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.

You created an account about half an hour ago and have submitted nearly 1/6 of the comments on this post. You're more or less uncritically parroting the talking points of the special interest groups behind this while dismissing real concerns about liberty, censorship, and sexism.

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?

The intention behind "non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation were made a criminal offence as part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021" might be good, but I do not see how this can be implemented in practice, because domestic abuse seldom has witnesses, and as noted in TFA "non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation" frequently leave no marks on the victim, so it is impossible to prove that they have occurred.

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)

>Ok, so it can cause some brain damage.

Can't believe they'd turn down the opportunity to get more voters.

The entire writing of the legislation as is also ignores the fact that light choking play is exceedingly common in the bedroom and can add significantly to both partners pleasure. We are not talking about full oxygen deprivation, but a single hand on the throat with pressure on the sides for 5 seconds at a time can be particularly erotic.

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.

What kind of nonsense argument is this?

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.

Please read this paper and reconsider your perspective, it's a systematic review from medical professionals that discusses the harms of strangulation: https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2020.1868537

> So it is clearly a problem.

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.

You didn't really answer my question, you just assured me that your opinion is right. What could be used here, exactly? Like, suppose I accuse someone. They say they didn't do it. There's no physical evidence or witnesses at this point, so there's no way to deduce anything from impartial evidence. What can be done here to decide who's right with any worthwhile degree of confidence?