Choking during sex was once taboo, but has become an increasingly popular topic in today’s society — but just how common is it? A study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior suggests that 40% of undergraduate and graduate students have participated in sexual choking.
The rise of social media and internet pornography has led to rapid increase in sexual choking, especially among adolescents and young adults. Though sexual choking has a long history, for most of history it has been considered controversial and risky.
Sexual choking can involve using hands, limbs, or ligatures to squeeze the neck and restrict airflow. This can lead to blurry vision, loss of consciousness, or even loss of bowel control, but can also cause the side effect of euphoria. Current literature fails to differentiate between choking as a game, choking as assault, and sexual choking, which this study seeks to correct.
For their study, Debby Herbenick and colleagues examined 4,242 participants who were undergraduate or graduate students recruited from a university in the Midwestern United States. Participants were 62.9% undergraduates and 37.1% graduate or professional students. Participants completed measures on demographics, social life, Greek life involvement, lifetime history of choking and/or being choked, age of first being choked, how many partners they’ve choked or been choked by, consent, method/frequency of choking, choking intensity, responses to being choked, and if they ever lost consciousness or caused a partner to lose consciousness from sexual choking.
Results showed that around 40% of participants had partaken in sexual choking. This was more common in undergraduate students than graduate students and being choked was more common in women than men. On average, participants were 19 years old when they first experimented with sexual choking, but a quarter of participants reported first being choked between 10 and 17 years of age.
The primary form of choking participants engaged in utilized manual choking with one’s hands rather than ligatures. On average, intensity of choking was on the low end at 3.8/10, but men reported using higher intensity when choking a partner than women did.
Less than 1% of participants shared that themselves or a partner ever lost consciousness while engaging in sexual choking. Most commonly, participants reported experiencing head rushes, feeling as if they can’t breathe, watering eyes, inability to speak, and difficulty swallowing. Surprisingly, pleasure from being choked was only experienced by the minority.
“We found that more undergraduate students rated being choked as ‘very pleasurable’ compared to graduate students, which may reflect the rapid pace with which choking has moved into the mainstream among young people,” the researchers noted. “Yet, for a sexual practice that is consequential to health and potentially lethal, we were struck that a minority of participants (albeit, a sizable minority) described being choked as ‘very pleasurable.’ If it is not very pleasurable and yet carries significant risks, it is curious how choking has grown so quickly in prevalence.”
This study took significant steps in better understanding the characteristics of sexual choking. Despite this, there are limitations to note. One such limitation is that measures were all self-report and people frequently don’t remember if they lose consciousness in sexual choking situations. Additionally, this study did not differentiate between choking that stops breathing, choking that prevents blood flow to the brain, or choking that does both. This can be significant for how choking affects the body and what side effects people experience.
“With choking now prevalent among youth, it will be important for parents, educators, and clinicians to consider how to educate young people about choking during sex, its potential for lethality and health consequences, as well as legal consequences for those who cause injury or death by choking their partner(s),” Herbenick and colleagues wrote.
“Given the challenges of providing medically accurate information to young people about even basic sexual health information, we acknowledge that most high schools will not address choking or rough sex—nor would most teachers likely have sufficient expertise in this understudied area to teach about choking in a way that is accurate and does not further stigmatize already marginalized communities.”
The study, “Frequency, Method, Intensity, and Health Sequalae of Sexual Choking Among US Undergraduate and Graduate Students“, was authored by Debby Herbenick, Tsung-chieh Fu, Heather Eastman-Mueller, Sally Thomas, Dubravka Svetina Valdivia, Molly Rosenberg, Lucia Guerra-Reyes, Paul J. Wright, Keisuke Kawata, and John R. Feiner.