Latest news with #InstituteforAddressingStrangulation
Metro
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Survivors of strangulation are being let down when they turn on their TVs
The first time I saw someone being strangled on TV was in EastEnders. I was 16 in 2005, when gangster Johnny Allen (Billy Murray) held Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) against the wall by her throat, yelling threats into her face before she revealed she was pregnant. The scene did not really stick out to me back then, nor did I find it shocking or moving. But therein lies the problem. To me, it seemed like Sharon walked away with no shock afterwards, confusion, trauma, or flashbacks. It was something that just happened – a small piece in a bigger storyline. Two decades later, the same thing happened when Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) strangled Sharon until Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) stopped him before it was too late. But the thing is, strangulation is rarely broken down and seen for what it actually is. I'm the Communications Manager of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS) and I want you to really picture it. The person you trust most in the world has their hands around your throat, restricting your breathing and is looking directly into your eyes as they do this. Fear is running through you, and you believe with every fibre of your being that you will die. These are your last moments. Only they are not. You survive. But this moment is lodged into your memory forever. This is what it means to be a victim-survivor of strangulation. So why can't popular culture reflect this accurately? The best we can seem to muster is that it's a harmless sexual act, which is not only alarmingly inaccurate but also minimises the health risks. Films such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, Obsession, and 365 Days all feature strangulation as a normal part of sexual experiences. But watching these scenes, you would never know how easily the act of strangulation can cause harm. Then there's strangulation as a purely violent act, as seen in the TV series, Mr Bigstuff, where Danny Dyer's character is strangling someone using a hammer handle. But what sits between these extremes is much more complex, widespread, and dangerous. Strangulation often occurs as part of domestic abuse or sexual violence, often perpetrated by someone you know or maybe even love and trust. It is the ultimate control you can exert on another human being. By applying pressure to the neck – a vulnerable area – and restricting someone's breath, you are showing you have final say over whether they live or die. That's why I want to see more scenes in popular culture of strangulation that take it seriously in domestic abuse contexts. Because the stats are truly sobering. Research has shown that a person can lose consciousness in around seven to 10 seconds of being strangled, damaging blood vessels in the neck, leading to blood clots forming, which may result in a stroke. In fact, evidence suggests it's the second most common cause of stroke in young women. IFAS analysed data from Domestic Homicide Reviews, which showed that prior controlling behaviours were present in two third of cases where the victim was fatally strangled. Over half of those who were fatally strangled had experienced non-fatal strangulation prior to their death. On top of that, of the 2,000 women aged 14 years and above who were killed in the UK since 2014, strangulation was used in 550 killings; 372 of those women killed were strangled by an intimate partner. One in 4 women will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives ONS research revealed that, in 2023, the police recorded a domestic abuse offence approximately every 40 seconds Yet Crime Survey for England & Wales data for the year ending March 2023 found only 18.9% of women who experienced partner abuse in the last 12 months reported the abuse to the police According to Refuge, 84% of victims in domestic abuse cases are female, with 93% of defendants being male Safe Lives reports that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic abuse as non-disabled women, and typically experience domestic abuse for a longer period of time before accessing support Refuge has also found that, on average, it takes seven attempts before a woman is able to leave for good. Shockingly, there were a total of 23,817 offences of strangulation and suffocation recorded in England and Wales in the first year of strangulation and suffocation becoming a stand-alone offence. Given how widespread strangulation is, media reporting on these cases is seriously lacking. To tackle this, organisations like End Violence Against Women (EVAW) – a UK-based organisation that campaigns to end all forms of violence against women – offers guidelines on how to report on this subject matter, which emphasise the importance of prioritising the voice of the victim or survivor. Their voices can help educate the public about the risks around strangulation and provide much needed context to the one-dimensional strangulation scenes we are often exposed to in film and TV. Overall, British soaps have done well to increase understanding of violence against women and girls. This is especially so around coercive control, like during Mo and Trevor's domestic abuse storyline in 2001. Through physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, Trevor terrorised Mo. This was in the form of coercive control by not letting her see family and friends, rape, and violent acts of aggression like pulling her hair or making her eat Christmas dinner off the floor. For British audiences at the time, it helped people to recognise signs of abuse in their own relationship and access support. In fact, one domestic abuse organisation stated that it was 'ground-breaking' and the most significant TV portrayal of violence in the home in 30 years. Since then, domestic abuse has thankfully been covered much more widely in TV and film, like coercive control in the film Alice, Darling, honour-based violence in ITV's Honour, and stalking in Netflix's Baby Reindeer. But more needs to be done to ensure strangulation is depicted realistically. Watching scenes play out on the big screen, I wonder how many of these producers, directors, or even actors have actually spoken to anyone who has experienced strangulation. More Trending The irony is that many of the scenes of late showing strangulation would likely have required intimacy coordinators on sets – and rightly so – to protect the actors' wellbeing through creating a safe, consensual, and respectful environment. But what about the audience watching strangulation scenes? Don't we need to be protected from misinformation, misrepresentation, and minimisation of what strangulation actually is and the harm it causes? TV and film have the power to help raise awareness of the risks around strangulation and move conversations forward. View More » But this starts with speaking to those who have lived experience. Only through these dialogues can we create complex, nuanced, and moving depictions of strangulation. Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. 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Telegraph
13-03-2025
- Telegraph
Strangulation during sex is not kinky - it's dangerous and misogynistic
For feminist campaigners against domestic and sexual violence, it is no surprise that a recent Government review has found that online pornography that features choking is affecting the sexual practices of young people. The report by Baroness Bertin, entitled 'Creating a Safer World – the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography', states that: 'Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) or 'choking' sex is perhaps the starkest example of where online violent pornography has changed 'offline' behaviour.' When I first started looking at pornography, as a young feminist determined to understand what I was campaigning against, it ranged from 'soft' Page 3 images to the infamous cover image of Hustler Magazine where a woman is being put head first through a meat grinder. Those images seem quaint today. Gone are the days of the ripped plumber coming to fix the washing machine who is greeted by the housewife in a negligée. The world of contemporary online pornography is more violent and extreme. And it is not just passively consumed; it also drives sexual fantasies and practices. Its ready accessibility to young boys and girls, moreover, means that it also passes for sex education. This month the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS) received Home Office funding to conduct a survey of 2,344 UK-based adults. It found that half of those who had experienced strangulation said they had consented. 17 per cent said they had not. A whopping 38 per cent of the women respondents aged 18-39 had been choked during sex. Strangulation as a sex kink has even entered popular culture. Just look at the lyrics of Jack Harlow's 2023 number one hit 'Lovin On Me': 'I'm vanilla, baby/ I'll choke you, but I ain't no killa, baby'. Perpetrators who choke their partners are seven times more likely to kill them. Strangulation is more than a precursor to homicide – it is also a predictor. But whether he stops in time or not, permanent damage has often been done. Some women have died weeks later due to internal injuries. Others suffer from traumatic brain injury, significant memory loss, miscarriage, seizures and changes in mood or personality that lead to agitation and hypervigilance. There have long been calls to decriminalise serious acts of violence on the basis of 'consent'. In 1990, 16 gay men were convicted following the 'Operation Spanner' police investigation. Police uncovered a group of sado-masochistic gay men who were inflicting actual bodily harm on each other. These men (and their supporters) campaigned against this criminalisation on the grounds that it was all consensual. Feminists, including myself, had argued that this argument was very dangerous because one defence commonly used by domestic abusers is that their victims had consented to 'rough sex'. Feminist campaign group We Can't Consent To This found that between 1996 and 2016 there was a tenfold increase in 'rough sex' claims used by men to defend themselves after killing a female partner in bed. Between November 2019 and March 2020, UK courts heard of 15 female victims where 'rough sex' claims were made. The latest Femicide Census shows that 550 (27 per cent) of the 2,000 women killed in the UK since 2014 were victims of strangulation. The invocation of 'consent' is nonsense. Strangulation kills. The pornography that pedals the message that women enjoy being choked during sex is insidious. It is a dangerous and misogynistic practice. This issue is not about 'freedom' or 'choice'. It is about the safety of women.
