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

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/03/pornography-depicting-strangulation-to-become-criminal-offence-in-the-uk

by GaryBluto • 9 months ago

42 47 9 months ago

theguardian.com

eqvinox3• 9 months ago

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.)

GaryBluto2• 9 months ago

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)

goobatrooba• 9 months ago

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.

mock-possum2• 9 months ago

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

How is that possible, they’re categorically opposite?

kelnos• 9 months ago

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.

somedude895• 9 months ago

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

erdlet7• 9 months ago

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.

watwut3• 9 months ago

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.

tavavex4• 9 months ago

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.

erdlet7• 9 months ago

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.

adrian_b2• 9 months ago

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)

anakaine3• 9 months ago

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.

jpfromlondon• 9 months ago

Ok, so it can cause some brain damage.

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

droopyEyelids• 9 months ago

In a monarchy all justice, authority, and moral order are centered on the person of the monarch, symbolically and legally.

In medieval and early modern English law, the “King’s peace” was the fundamental idea behind criminal justice. The Peace was not an abstract civic order; it was the personal peace of the Sovereign, extended to the realm.

The Crown was the earthly reflection of divine order. To offend that order — whether by sedition or obscenity — was symbolically akin to rebellion against the sovereign.

Pretty cool to think about how different that was, compared to today when people want the law to be based on maximizing the greatest good. What if this was banned simply because it offends the King?

whycome• 9 months ago

Full throttle to the dark ages

thomassmith65• 9 months ago

If this comment isn't satirical, I've somehow ended up in an Anthony Burgess novel.

defrost• 9 months ago

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed throttling my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Powers

_345• 9 months ago

what is going on in the uk

happymellon2• 9 months ago

The elites are trying to come up with new ways to oppress.

No one voted for this, and the last government was actively voted out for all this sort of bullshit. However, to give a prime example of two faced ideology, we now have a government that had the position that trans-women are women, but as soon as they were elected switched to a trans-phobic position.

Nothing the current government does is based upon their election campaign, nothing we voted for is being pursued, and nothing happening is what we want. Labour are actively corrupt.

erdlet7• 9 months ago

This law was introduced to help deal with what is essentially a public health issue.

Any law can be framed as oppression on the basis that it informs people they're not allowed to do something. Speed limits oppress drivers who want to drive over 70 mph, etc.

Also, it was the Supreme Court who decided on the issue of transwomen being legally interpreted as men in the Equality Act, this was independent of the Government.

bfkwlfkjf• 9 months ago

I promise you some consultants are getting paid to come up with these ideas.

kazinator• 9 months ago

Watcb the flood of AI generated porn showing a naked Prime Minister Starmer in a compromised position with a leather leash around his neck.

nyargh2• 9 months ago

This has been a moral panic in Sweden recently too. It came out of nowhere and seeing the news now in the UK, it sure feels coordinated.

The Liberal Party (what's in a name, anyway?) are campaigning to make it illegal in Sweden, go figure.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/liberalerna-kriminalisera...

hulitu• 9 months ago

It came out of nowhere and seeing the news now in the UK, it sure feels coordinated.

There seems to be a network of NGO who supplies "news" to a lot of EU "news outlets". Seeing the same, almost out of context, news in two different corners and languages of the continent, is surreal.

nyargh2• 9 months ago

It's very out of context and so obviously coordinated.

It is also very strange to see the repeated attempts to import US culture war issues to Sweden. Often completely unrelated to Swedish national issues, just blindly throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks and capture headlines for a few weeks.

The far-right Sverige Demokraterna party does this regularly, but other parties often fall for it too.

A more paranoid person might say it resembles Active Measures operations of a hostile foreign government that wants to distract and sow chaos in western states, but who knows...

mock-possum2• 9 months ago

Sorry what?? Utterly ridiculous to criminalize a kink. Just flat out stupid. Who supports this??

erdlet7• 9 months ago

It's a public health issue. What people - mostly men - see in pornography, they copy and repeat in the bedroom. There should be no normalisation of strangling one's partner. It's dangerous and harmful.

Reubend• 9 months ago

Despite having little understanding of the law in the U.K., I can confidently say that strangling someone without their consent want already illegal. There's no need to criminalize the consensual version of it.

adrian_b2• 9 months ago

I would like to see some evidence that this is a public health issue.

This means that I want to see statistics with how many British men have strangled their wives/companions/casual encounters, and what percentage of them have previously watched porn featuring choking (and some plausible argumentation that those have strangled their victims because of watching porn and they did not choose to watch such rather unusual porn because they already intended to choke someone).

Without any concrete numbers any such justification is pure BS.

I have watched a lot of porn, but I do not remember ever seeing anything with choking, so I assume that this is a rather niche interest.

Even if this is a restriction that would not affect me directly, I am extremely concerned about this proliferation of laws that punish "crimes of thought", where someone is punished for possession of some kind of information, despite the fact that there exists absolutely no evidence of doing or attempting to do any kind of act against others that would really deserve punishment.

In my opinion, only those who write or vote such laws are criminals who deserve punishment, because only for them it is known with certainty that they have caused harm to other human beings, while against those punished by their laws there exists no evidence of causing harm to others.

tamimio• 9 months ago

Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Violence? This act of choking most of the time is requested by women themselves. It's the woman who fantasizes about it and asks her partner to perform it. I have never heard or read anywhere that the guy initiated it, simply because it adds nothing to the overall pleasure for him. Actually, women's fantasies are usually more messed up than men's on average, and you can compare the porn that men mostly watch vs the dark fantasies that women read in their books. Women's fantasies are usually about abduction, abuse, stalking, pain, among others. There's always this theme whenever you read about domestic violence or really anything bad in relationships or families, including things like manipulation and abuse. You always find that the man is portrayed as bad, the woman as the victim, a completely biased language as it's never the other way around, while in reality both can commit abuse. Males usually do so in physical form but females usually in emotional and mental form, which is far worse, and you can ask anyone who had an abusive mother.

Back to the ‘choking’ part, how will they regulate other forms of choking? And without going vulgar about it, hands aren't necessarily used, so can a woman accuse the man within the coming 3 years of the intimate event (per the article) after he had a “specific oral sex” with her and she choked on it? What if it's the other way around, the woman is big and was over the man's face? Will the same rule apply? This is a silly law and it's surprising it's already been in place since 2021. Probably in 10 years sexual intimacy will be done how it was in the Demolition Man movie, zero physical contact!

watwut3• 9 months ago

Males usually do so in physical form but females usually in emotional and mental form,

This is blatantly false. Physical violence is usually extension and escalation of mental and emotional form. Men who beat women verbally and emotionally abuse them first. Verbal abuse rates are similar in men and women, but it is men who commit more physical violence.

you can compare the porn that men mostly watch vs the dark fantasies that women read in their books. Women's fantasies are usually about abduction, abuse, stalking, pain, among others.

It kinda sounds like your fantasy about what women have fantasies about. Also, there is no shortage of violent degrading porn in video form.

anakaine3• 9 months ago

I think you're in the wrong here. You're talking almost exclusively about violence, the poster above you has 90% of their comment focused on intimacy.

Whilst I dont agree with the poster above putting women into a singular box, or using words like "always", then point they make is very valid. At least half my female partners have requested choking over the years. It is absolutely not a niche thing. I enjoy reading the odd popular smut or semi-smut book written from the womans perspective by female authors, and almost universally they have controlling behaviours present with choking being nearly omnipresent.

The law is clumsy. The messaging is clumsy. There's too much overlap into the bedroom and too little distinction between abuse and erotic undertakings.