![\"British](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-1.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
British backpacker Grace Millane, 22, (pictured) was strangled by a man she met on Tinder, experts revealed their views on the rise in extreme violence during consensual sex<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But despite Karyna\u2019s clear and repeated requests for Ben never to choke her again, over the next few months his hands kept creeping up to her neck. He also tried slapping her around the face.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019d say to him: \u201cPlease, I\u2019ve asked you not to do that. If you love me, as you say you do, why inflict pain?\u201d He\u2019d say: \u201cI\u2019d never hurt you. You need to trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019d tell me I should want to let him do it, to make him happy. He\u2019d add that plenty of women liked it, and if I didn\u2019t, he\u2019d find other girls who did.\u2019<\/p>\n
A few years ago, it would have sounded like a terrifying brush with a sexual psychopath. Yet Karyna\u2019s experience has become increasingly common.<\/p>\n
A BBC survey on the subject this week found a third of women under 40 have experienced unwanted acts of choking, slapping, gagging and spitting during consensual sex.<\/p>\n
When I typed \u2018choking\u2019 and \u2018strangling\u2019 into Google, I was confronted with thousands of clips showing men with their hands around women\u2019s necks.<\/p>\n
Others showed hands pressed over women\u2019s noses and mouths, or ligatures, such as rope or ties, around their necks.<\/p>\n
In many more cases, I saw women gasping for breath or passing out. In one easily discovered clip, I saw a young woman kneeling on a bed, being pulled up by a noose, hanging from a rafter, that went around her throat while a sex act was performed on her.<\/p>\n
Another scene showed a woman being strangled with a rope and left for dead, her face puce. Moments earlier, she had told the man pulling the rope that she \u2018liked\u2019 it.<\/p>\n
While it is true some people enjoy sa do-masochistic sex, in the videos I saw, many women had tear-stained faces, often contorted in pain and fear.<\/p>\n
![\"Hannah](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-2.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Hannah Pearson (pictured) was strangled at age 16, by 24-year-old James Morton who had watched strangulation videos and had choked previous partners<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
There are those who say this is all just play-acting, despite the research showing how porn-makers often exploit women who are abused.<\/p>\n
But just to make it clear what these clips are really about, they are captioned with titles such as \u2018Slut spat on, slapped and choked\u2019. Teen girls are particularly popular subjects, with videos called \u2018Teen choked\u2019 or \u2018Choke me Daddy\u2019.<\/p>\n
The rise of violent porn also appears to have handed men who are already violent or misogynistic an easy excuse for murder, as in the recent case of Grace Millane, the British backpacker who was strangled by a 28-year-old man she had met on Tinder.<\/p>\n
Her murderer falsely claimed the 22-year-old had died in a \u2018sex game gone wrong\u2019. After her death, he went online to look for violent porn.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s beyond belief \u2014 and yet her death is just one of 59 UK cases highlighted by the campaign group We Can\u2019t Consent To This, in which men have given \u2018rough sex\u2019 as their defence for killing women. Some had no charges brought or were acquitted.<\/p>\n
Karyna is in no doubt where her boyfriend, Ben, got his obsession with choking: the violent internet porn he had consumed since his teens.<\/p>\n
\u2018He was proud of how much porn he watched,\u2019 Karyna says. \u2018He\u2019d message me pornography at work, although I had asked him not to.<\/p>\n
\u2018When he wanted to choke me, he\u2019d say: \u201cThis is what girls do in porn.\u201d It was like normal sex was too boring.\u2019<\/p>\n
After a year of Ben refusing to respect her wishes, Karyna ended the relationship. \u2018It was too terrifying. If he\u2019d decided to keep squeezing, I would have been dead. My life was literally in his hands.\u2019<\/p>\n
The practice of inflicting pain during sex is not new; the Marquis de Sade wrote about it in the 18th century. Auto-erotic asphyxia has long been used to increase sexual excitement by restricting oxygen supply to the brain.<\/p>\n
But while sado-masochism has always been a niche interest \u2014 and is governed by strict safety rules, including agreeing beforehand what will happen, ensuring all parties consent and using \u2018safe words\u2019 in case any participant becomes uncomfortable \u2014 throttling is now not only part of mainstream porn, but also mainstream sex.<\/p>\n
![\"Helen](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-3.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Helen Walmsley-Johnson (pictured) feared that she would die during sex and would pretend to pass out to make her ex-boyfriend stop strangling her <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In a crowded market, porn sites are showing ever more extreme practices to get clicks. And, terrifyingly, this multi-billion-pound business is often the most powerful form of sex education for today\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n
In a content analysis of the most-viewed porn films for the journal Violence Against Women, researchers found 88 per cent contain physical aggression, including gagging. Women are the targets 94 per cent of the time. According to the study, \u2018targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression\u2019.<\/p>\n
Astonishingly, choking or strangling is likely to be one of the first sex acts a child sees when they view porn for the first time \u2014 which they are doing at an increasingly early age.<\/p>\n
In the UK, half of 11 to 16-year-olds have seen online porn, according to a study by Middlesex University. The same study found 44 per cent of boys say it has given them ideas about the type of sex they want to try \u2014 and that, over time, young people become \u2018desensitised\u2019 to violence.<\/p>\n
The sooner boys start seeing this material, other research suggests, the more likely they are to treat girls like objects on whom they can act out what they have seen, regardless of the pain it causes.<\/p>\n
And with no disclaimers telling naive youngsters that this is not how the majority of women want to be treated, they start to believe it is.<\/p>\n
Professor Gail Dines, a British-born academic living in the U.S. and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, has spent 30 years studying the subject. She says: \u2018All these practices sound extreme, but these are what an 11-year-old boy sees when he first puts \u201cporn\u201d into Google.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018We know strangulation and choking are among the most popular acts seen in porn.\u2019<\/p>\n
Worryingly, she adds that simply seeing such behaviours can alter a young person\u2019s sexual tastes.<\/p>\n
![\"Paul,](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-4.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Paul, 23, from Hertfordshire, chokes his partners without seeking consent first as he enjoys the combination of giving pleasure and fear (file image)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018The younger they are when they see it, the more it\u2019s going to get seared into their sexual template. So now, a lot of young men are playing out porn sex. Women are the collateral damage of the porn industry.\u2019<\/p>\n
During my research, while I heard from young men who would never dream of strangling their partners and are shocked by the trend, I also heard from many who defended the practice as \u2018normal\u2019.<\/p>\n
One such man is 21-year-old Felix*, from Brighton, who says viewing porn from an early age has helped form his \u2018sexual identity\u2019. \u2018Watching porn helped me develop an interest in the more extreme stuff. Any \u201cvanilla\u201d type straight sex is just dull.<\/p>\n
\u2018One of the first girls I had sex with asked for it, and I found it turned me on, too. Now I\u2019d only seek out girls who are into the same things.\u2019<\/p>\n
Marketing manager Paul*, 23, also defended choking \u2014 without asking his partner first \u2014 as a sexual practice.<\/p>\n
Paul, from Hertfordshire, admits one girl \u2018freaked\u2019 out when he tried it, a reaction he blames on the fact she was a virgin. Even so, he says he still does not seek consent first, and if the woman doesn\u2019t move his hands from her throat, he continues.<\/p>\n
According to Paul: \u2018It\u2019s just pretend. I enjoy the combination of giving pleasure and fear. My girlfriend enjoys it, too.\u2019<\/p>\n
It seems many of today\u2019s young women are caught in a perfect storm: sex with men reared on violent porn; a crisis of self-confidence that they can never do enough sexually; and a hook-up culture which means if they don\u2019t agree to a certain sexual practice, the next date will.<\/p>\n
One such woman is charity administrator Joanna*, who was choked by a man she had been dating for a few weeks.<\/p>\n
\u2018He could see on my face I didn\u2019t like it, but I brushed it off because I felt naive,\u2019 she says. \u2018My priority was pleasing him.<\/p>\n
\u2018I thought: \u201cAre my tastes too boring? Is this what people do?\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n
Joanna, 29, has watched porn regularly since her mid-teens and says she finds videos of women being choked \u2018degrading\u2019. However, she admits she allows her current partner to put his hands around her neck, saying it makes her feel desired and \u2018as if he will do anything to have my body\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the act which is the problem. It\u2019s the lack of consent,\u2019 she says. \u2018I enjoy the feeling of not being in control.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Helen](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-5.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Helen (pictured) believes her ex partner would’ve said it was a sex game gone wrong, if he had killed her during sex<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Porn expert Professor Dines points out: \u2018Porn not only teaches men about dominance, it teaches women about submission.\u2019<\/p>\n
It has not helped, she adds, that strangulation has been euphemistically re-branded as \u2018breath play\u2019 and touted as a new type of risqu\u00e9 sex by women\u2019s magazines. The novel Fifty Shades Of Grey also romanticised S&M culture.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you are a young girl growing up in a heavily pornified world, you are going to feel it\u2019s normal for you to want those things.\u2019<\/p>\n
However, choking features in 16 per cent of domestic violence cases in which women need hospital treatment. Its use in sex dangerously blurs the line between experimentation and abuse. One woman who feared she would be killed by a partner who throttled her during sex is Helen Walmsley-Johnson.<\/p>\n
When I spoke to her this week, her voice was rasping, a consequence of being regularly choked, which caused permanent damage to her throat.<\/p>\n
Helen says her ex, Franc*, a French businessman, used strangling during sex as a threat.<\/p>\n
\u2018At first, I pretended to pass out to get him to stop [choking me]. But he soon got wise to that and would do it regularly to make me do what he wanted.<\/p>\n
\u2018People talk about strangulation as a type of sexual pleasure, but I found it terrifying.\u2019<\/p>\n
Helen, who documents her experiences in her recent book Look What You Made Me Do: A Powerful Memoir Of Coercive Control, ended the relationship when Franc moved abroad for work.<\/p>\n
Now, she says: \u2018If he had killed me, he would have said it was a sex game gone wrong. From my own experience, I would say to any woman: don\u2019t do it.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Wendy](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-6.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Wendy Murphy, Professor of Sexual Violence at the New England Law School, believes because sex is involved many fail to see strangulation in porn as extreme violence (file image)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Indeed, campaigners say we are in urgent need of a reality check. The tragic number of women killed in what men later claimed were violent games gone wrong offers compelling evidence of this.<\/p>\n
Grace Millane is one of them; another is Charlotte Teeling, 33. After 41-year-old Richard Bailey met her in the street in February 2018, he strangled her during what he claimed was \u2018rough sex\u2019.<\/p>\n
Another man, Ashley Foster, 24, searched online for porn videos about schoolgirls after strangling Meghan Bills, 17, during sex at a Birmingham hostel in 2017.<\/p>\n
Schoolgirl Hannah Pearson was only 16 when she was strangled by 24-year-old James Morton in his bedroom in Newark, Notts, in 2017. The jury heard he had watched strangulation videos and had choked previous partners.<\/p>\n
Yet even though there are laws against extreme pornography \u2014 introduced after the murder of 31-year-old teacher Jane Longhurst in Brighton in 2003 by a man obsessed with it \u2014 such legislation is rarely used.<\/p>\n
According to a new study in the Journal of Criminal Law, the vast majority \u2014 85 per cent \u2014 of prosecutions linked to extreme porn are for sexual attacks on animals (bestiality), not on women.<\/p>\n
Wendy Murphy, Professor of Sexual Violence at the New England Law School, says the fact sex is involved prevents many from seeing strangulation in porn for what it is: extreme violence.<\/p>\n
Wendy says: \u2018If you beg your neighbour to come and hit you with a baseball bat because you insist you will really enjoy it, your neighbour will still go to prison. The same should apply to strangulation.<\/p>\n
![\"Fiona](\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/femail-investigation-reveals-the-terrifying-sex-trend-being-forced-on-young-women-7.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Fiona MacKenzie, founder of the We Can\u2019t Consent To This campaign, argued that the pressure for women to go along with the violence shouldn’t be underestimated (file image)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018We wouldn\u2019t tolerate this sort of violence against animals, so why do we tolerate it against women?\u2019<\/p>\n
Unless we take action now, Wendy says there will be many more cases in the future.<\/p>\n
\u2018We are training our children to think that sex is violence. In boys, that trains their brains to respond to violence with an erection. Then the body starts to want the violence in order to feel pleasure.\u2019<\/p>\n
Fiona MacKenzie, founder of the We Can\u2019t Consent To This campaign, says it\u2019s essential to bring the subject into the open.<\/p>\n
\u2018We are hearing a lot from young women who have been choked without consent and gone along with it, pretending to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
\u2018I would not underestimate the pressure on women to go along with this.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t believe the men who do this are always bad. But I do believe many are being coached by porn into doing stuff that overrides their knowledge that strangling is extreme violence.\u2019<\/p>\n
A year on, Karyna is not only deeply traumatised by her experience, but also worried for other women.<\/p>\n
\u2018It makes me feel sick knowing that my ex-boyfriend will be doing this to other women. \u2018I wouldn\u2019t want any other woman to fear for her life as much as I feared for mine.\u2019<\/p>\n
How to talk to your child about porn <\/h3>\n\nProfessor Gail Dines, of Culture Reframed (culturereframed.org), offers this advice:<\/p>\n
\n- Don\u2019t delay. You can start conversations with your child at any age as there are age-appropriate ways to discuss most topics. They are very likely to find explicit content sooner or later, so they\u2019ll be better equipped to cope if you\u2019ve talked to them about the existence of pornified images and videos.<\/li>\n
- Turn to tech for help. Filtering apps such as Safe Surfer and computer programs like McAfee Safe Family can block porn sites much of the time.<\/li>\n
- Keep the conversation going. Let them ask questions, so they know they won\u2019t get in trouble if they talk to you about watching porn.<\/li>\n
- Encourage them to question what they see. Explain that the people in the videos are actors, and their behaviour is not typical of real relationships.<\/li>\n
- If you discover your child has watched porn, don\u2019t make them feel ashamed, as this will stop them confiding in you. Talk to them and find out if anyone else was involved before deciding what to do next.<\/li>\n
- Seek outside help. The organisation Culture Reframed (culturereframed.org) has developed a set of tools for parents to help them advise their children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
* Some names and details have been changed to protect identities.<\/span><\/p>\nTanith Carey is the author of Girls Uninterrupted: Steps for Building Stronger Girls In A Challenging World.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When 24-year-old Karyna* met her new boyfriend on a dating website, she thought he could offer her everything she was looking for in a relationship. Well-spoken, well-educated, with two degrees and a career in web design, 28-year-old Ben* was sweet and attentive, sending her good morning texts and planning romantic dates. So Karyna, a graphic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181864,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273\/revisions\/181864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Professor Gail Dines, of Culture Reframed (culturereframed.org), offers this advice:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Don\u2019t delay. You can start conversations with your child at any age as there are age-appropriate ways to discuss most topics. They are very likely to find explicit content sooner or later, so they\u2019ll be better equipped to cope if you\u2019ve talked to them about the existence of pornified images and videos.<\/li>\n
- Turn to tech for help. Filtering apps such as Safe Surfer and computer programs like McAfee Safe Family can block porn sites much of the time.<\/li>\n
- Keep the conversation going. Let them ask questions, so they know they won\u2019t get in trouble if they talk to you about watching porn.<\/li>\n
- Encourage them to question what they see. Explain that the people in the videos are actors, and their behaviour is not typical of real relationships.<\/li>\n
- If you discover your child has watched porn, don\u2019t make them feel ashamed, as this will stop them confiding in you. Talk to them and find out if anyone else was involved before deciding what to do next.<\/li>\n
- Seek outside help. The organisation Culture Reframed (culturereframed.org) has developed a set of tools for parents to help them advise their children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
* Some names and details have been changed to protect identities.<\/span><\/p>\n
Tanith Carey is the author of Girls Uninterrupted: Steps for Building Stronger Girls In A Challenging World.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When 24-year-old Karyna* met her new boyfriend on a dating website, she thought he could offer her everything she was looking for in a relationship. Well-spoken, well-educated, with two degrees and a career in web design, 28-year-old Ben* was sweet and attentive, sending her good morning texts and planning romantic dates. So Karyna, a graphic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181864,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139273\/revisions\/181864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}