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.
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