Merged Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

[dann]

Exactly. Except I know a court of law would consider it rape. (At least in the US) Consent is impossible if it involves coercion. Consent must be freely given.

So when somebody is faced with a 'choice' between sex as punishment or being handed over to the police, it's not consent!
We agree on that one!
And that is the scenario of those shoplifter porn videos!
The women being exposed to the fictional punitive sex act are professional porn stars in all cases, I think. I.e. the actual sex taking place is probably consensual in the sense that they were hired and paid to do the job. (It's impossible to know if they do it for the money, for their agent, for 'fame' or whatever the motive is. If they do it as a way to get out of debt or destitution, I would still consider it coerced, but I am aware that many of you wouldn't.)
Anyway, the storyline is one of coerced sex, sex as punishment or a possibly worse alternative, like in so many other porn videos, e.g. the ones about debt collectors or landlords coming around to collect the rent.

 

[Poem]

Because she cannot help but insert her personal conservative bias into the investigation! That's what people do - their political outlook weighs in on their political decisions. Conservatives are historically correlated very strongly with the religious, especially in the United Kingdom where there is explicitly no separation of church and state, and the religious are historically correlated very strongly with moralism over sex and sexuality. So no, I don't believe that she can possibly be impartial about something like porn.

When you have an actual reason to doubt her impartiality please do post it.

UK law - Domestic Abuse Act 2021, section 70:

75A​

(1)A person (“A”) commits an offence if—
(a)A intentionally strangles another person (“B”), or
(b)A does any other act to B that—
(i)affects B's ability to breathe, and
(ii)constitutes battery of B

In the recent case of R v Jones [2025] EWCA Crim 195, the Court of Appeal looked at the law on strangulation and suffocation and confirmed the position relating to the offence (from Brett Wilson, criminal and regulatory law team). In the case, the judge confirmed:

There is no requirement in a charge of this sort that there be any injury caused to the complainant or that there be any visible sign of that application of force thereafter. There is no requirement of any minimum duration that the breathing is affected for – any duration of time in which their ability to breathe was affected would suffice. If you are sure the complainant in question is being accurate when [they] tell you that the defendant put a hand or an elbow on their throat and affected their ability to breathe then he is guilty of the charge you are considering.

 

[Poem]

Because I went and looked.

I don't know what those words apply to in my post.

 

[dann]

They don't even look like they're being choked. They're often speaking when his hand's there. If you're being choked you can't breathe, and that's definitely not happening in any porn I've seen.

No, they don't speak. Not in the ones I've seen. I think you are making it up – as you are when you talk about hands "near" the neck! Being actually choked so you can't actually breathe is not what you'll find in the 'vanilla' porn videos showing choking because that kind of "breath play," as you enjoy calling it, would be actually illegal.

I ignore it because either I do not consider the sources reliable, or being news media they take rare situations and sensationalise them up so that they seem bigger than they are. And they cite sources that I don't consider reliable, because those kinds of sources are good for the kind of statistics that make for a good story.

No, you don't consider anything reliable if it doesn't conform to the fairy tales told by the BDSM community. We differ in this respect. And not all of it is news media. Go back and read it again, preferably not just the headlines or the short quotations I included. There are often links to studies in the articles.

Like I said, actual breath play is dangerous, and if someone engages in it without proper preparation, of course accidents are going to happen. This, again, is why proper education is so important. Kids of a sufficient age should be taught that there are unsafe sexual practices, and the sources you cite demonstrate why this is so important.

FTFY.
Yes, actual 'breath play' is not only dangerous but also illegal, which is why you won't find it on 'vanilla' porn sites.

And yes, proper education is important:

Kids, don't believe what you see in those porn videos. Choking kills, and only pervs engage in 'breath play'. It's not a normal part of sex and it's not something normal people do even though those videos make it seem so.
Don't end up like this guy - or even worse: Don't end up killing somebody else.
These are the proper Safe Sex Guidelines. No 'safe words' are needed! Talk with your partner about all of this.
And if somebody tells you that choking (sometimes referred to as 'breath play'), tell them it's not! If they don't understand it, get up and leave.

 

[Darat]

No, they don't speak. Not in the ones I've seen. I think you are making it up – as you are when you talk about hands "near" the neck! Being actually choked so you can't actually breathe is not what you'll find in the 'vanilla' porn videos showing choking because that kind of "breath play," as you enjoy calling it, would be actually illegal.

No, you don't consider anything reliable if it doesn't conform to the fairy tales told by the BDSM community. We differ in this respect. And not all of it is news media. Go back and read it again, preferably not just the headlines or the short quotations I included. There are often links to studies in the articles.

FTFY.
Yes, actual 'breath play' is not only dangerous but also illegal, which is why you won't find it on 'vanilla' porn sites.
And yes, proper education is important:

Kids, don't believe what you see in those porn videos. Choking kills, and only pervs engage in 'breath play'. It's not a normal part of sex and it's not something normal people do even though those videos make it seem so.
Don't end up like this guy - or even worse: Don't end up killing somebody else.
These are the proper Safe Sex Guidelines. No 'safe words' are needed! Talk with your partner about all of this.
And if somebody tells you that choking (sometimes referred to as 'breath play'), tell them it's not! If they don't understand it, get up and leave.

Not acording to Poem and their sources.

 

[Poem]

Not acording to Poem and their sources.

I laid out the UK law and a judge said:
There is no requirement of any minimum duration that the breathing is affected for – any duration of time in which their ability to breathe was affected would suffice.

 

[Darat]

"which is why you won't find it on 'vanilla' porn sites."

That was the part I was meaning to refer to - sorry for highlighting the entire sentence and not making that clear.

 

[Poem]

"which is why you won't find it on 'vanilla' porn sites."

That was the part I was meaning to refer to - sorry for highlighting the entire sentence and not making that clear.

The law needed updating in order to capture porn content....the 6th November I believe. If it looks remotely like strangulation it will be an offence. Whether any of it is enforceable is very debatable. If the government is serious then they'll have a lot of work to do.

 

[Darat]

The law needed updating in order to capture porn content....the 6th November I believe.
If it looks remotely like strangulation it will be an offence. Whether any of it is enforceable is very debatable. If the government is serious then they'll have a lot of work to do.

Which as I may have mentioned once or twice is not what you are seeing on the mainstream porn sites.

 

[Poem]

Which as I may have mentioned once or twice is not what you are seeing on the mainstream porn sites.

How do you know if pressure was or was not applied...even if momentarily? And what is your sample size? As the judge said - there is no minimum amount of time. When you broadcast potentially influential content then we should act.

When you add in social media chat about the wonders of such sex...

 

[dann]

Which as I may have mentioned once or twice is not what you are seeing on the mainstream porn sites.

You saying it ain't so don't mean it ain't so.

How do you know if pressure was or was not applied...even if momentarily? And what is your sample size? As the judge said - there is no minimum amount of time. When you broadcast potentially influential content then we should act.
When you add in social media chat about the wonders of such sex...

A good question. The answer is that you don't know unless you consider that porn sites will try to avoid stuff that's illegal to protect themselves. If you start analyzing what you see, you'll also notice that the chokee doesn't get blue in the face or start fighting back as a rape victim would. (I actually wish they would start fighting back because that would make it clear to a naive observer, i.e. young people who are learning about sex this way, that this is not a normal part of normal sex!)
I don't know why it's so difficult to understand for some of the people in this thread.

Not acording to Poem and their sources.

I think Poem is aware that the kind of choking you risk seeing in vanilla porn is pretend choking, not actual choking.
The problem is that if you don't go into details, it looks like choking and makes choking look as if it is a normal part of normal sex, which makes choking become something that people expose each other to IRL as the articles I referred to in post 6,459 show.

 

[Darat]

How do you know if pressure was or was not applied...even if momentarily? And what is your sample size? As the judge said - there is no minimum amount of time. When you broadcast potentially influential content then we should act.

When you add in social media chat about the wonders of such sex...

I have watched or rather skimmed through about 40 to 50 videos from Pornhub since this thread started, not in any did I notice any form of strangulation.

 

[Darat]

You saying it ain't so don't mean it ain't so.

A good question. The answer is that you don't know unless you consider that porn sites will try to avoid stuff that's illegal to protect themselves. If you start analyzing what you see, you'll also notice that the chokee doesn't get blue in the face or start fighting back as a rape victim would. (I actually wish they would start fighting back because that would make it clear to a naive observer, i.e. young people who are learning about sex this way, that this is not a normal part of normal sex!)
I don't know why it's so difficult to understand for some of the people in this thread.

I think Poem is aware that the kind of choking you risk seeing in vanilla porn is pretend choking, not actual choking.
The problem is that if you don't go into details, it looks like choking and makes choking look as if it is a normal part of normal sex, which makes choking become something that people expose each other to IRL as the articles I referred to in post 6,459 show.

As I said in the videos I watched there was no form of strangulation. Each and every time I check what is being reported I find the evidence is simply not there. Whatever these people are doing they are not going to the likes of Pornhub and watching the videos presented there.

I totally agree strangulation has no place in porn, or reallife. It is right that we have made such "breath play" illegal and you cannot claim someone gave consent to such "rough sex". Neck compression as the law has it is inherently dangerous, even if strangulation doesn't occur.

 

[Poem]

I have watched or rather skimmed through about 40 to 50 videos from Pornhub since this thread started, not in any did I notice any form of strangulation.

It's possible that porn websites are removing such content or putting it away from the front pages of UK consumers idk. Can they do that? As I said, you and Lithrael have pointed out the fact that the BBFC have certificated content that prima facie looks like roleplay (or at least dodgy in that respect) - the point being, in those cases, they were seen to not be overly proscriptive.

So when the BBFC say there is a lot (a very large volume) of violent and abusive material online, there is good reason to take them seriously. That they link such content with the rise in real-life chocking sex tells us that there is a good amount of it on mainstream.

You once said that perfect is the enemy of good. Sure, they (the BBFC) won't be perfect.

 

[Poem]

Pornography with strangulation and incest to be banned in England and Wales next month

Campaigners welcome legislation which follows recommendations by 2025 review into pornography regulation

www.theguardian.com

Non-fatal strangulation is already an offence in its own right, but it is not illegal to show it online.

Gemini:
Geo-blocking & Filtered Front Pages: Major commercial platforms use IP addresses and user location data to alter what is visible based on the country you are browsing from. They can remove specific categories, search terms, and videos from front pages, search results, and recommendations specifically for UK visitors.

 

[Lithrael]

IDK man. I don't think young people see normal handshakes on TV and then go out in the world and start mistakenly giving bone-crushing death grip handshakes, and I don't see why they'd see someone placing a hand on a neck in a porno and, attempting to emulate that, choke somebody, and especially I don't see how they wouldn't immediately figure out it's not like that and stop. If porn had eye-gouging in it are consumers such mindless parrots that they'd try eye-gouging, and not back off when a girl goes '◊◊◊◊ right off with that ◊◊◊◊?'

Until I see where this glut of choke porn is at I'm defaulting to the hypothesis that it's a combination of pop culture misapprehensions, a lack of education/common sense, and bad actors making excuses.

The deaths at Dann's links were not of youngsters foolishly and mistakenly experimenting, misled by porn. They were kinksters too deep into unsafe scenes. Which is a problem yes! But not one a teenager is going to catch from casually watching mainstream porn.

 

[Darat]

It's possible that porn websites are removing such content or putting it away from the front pages of UK consumers idk. Can they do that? As I said, you and Lithrael have pointed out the fact that the BBFC have certificated content that prima facie looks like roleplay (or at least dodgy in that respect) - the point being, in those cases, they were seen to not be overly proscriptive.

So when the BBFC say there is a lot (a very large volume) of violent and abusive material online, there is good reason to take them seriously. That they link such content with the rise in real-life chocking sex tells us that there is a good amount of it on mainstream.

You once said that perfect is the enemy of good. Sure, they (the BBFC) won't be perfect.

I've tested as from the UK and via a VPN registering elsewhere - the content doesn't change. "when the BBFC say there is a lot (a very large volume) of violent and abusive material online, there is good reason to take them seriously." no there isn't - as you are aware I am familiar with the BBFC - they are dishonest and biased and will lie when they want, I would not trust them to tell me it is raining.

 

[Darat]

IDK man. I don't think young people see normal handshakes on TV and then go out in the world and start mistakenly giving bone-crushing death grip handshakes, and I don't see why they'd see someone placing a hand on a neck in a porno and, attempting to emulate that, choke somebody, and especially I don't see how they wouldn't immediately figure out it's not like that and stop. If porn had eye-gouging in it are consumers such mindless parrots that they'd try eye-gouging, and not back off when a girl goes '◊◊◊◊ right off with that ◊◊◊◊?'

Until I see where this glut of choke porn is at I'm defaulting to the hypothesis that it's a combination of pop culture misapprehensions, a lack of education/common sense, and bad actors making excuses.

The deaths at Dann's links were not of youngsters foolishly and mistakenly experimenting, misled by porn. They were kinksters too deep into unsafe scenes. Which is a problem yes! But not one a teenager is going to catch from casually watching mainstream porn.

Perhaps the porn performers are choking on Tide pods....

 

[Poem]

I've tested as from the UK and via a VPN registering elsewhere - the content doesn't change. "when the BBFC say there is a lot (a very large volume) of violent and abusive material online, there is good reason to take them seriously." no there isn't - as you are aware I am familiar with the BBFC - they are dishonest and biased and will lie when they want, I would not trust them to tell me it is raining.

Whilst your research is of interest, it's hardly difinitive. Sample size? Definition of skimmed?
And the BBFC isn't dishonest because you say so.

No one is without bias.

 

[arthwollipot]

How do you know if pressure was or was not applied...even if momentarily?

"Applying pressure", momentarily or otherwise, is not the same as "asphyxiating". In order for it to be erotic asphyxiation, you need to actually prevent someone from breathing. A little bit of pressure for a moment on someone's neck will not do that.

The problem is that if you don't go into details, it looks like choking...

No it doesn't. Not unless you're profoundly ignorant. It passes the "any fool can see" test.

It's possible that porn websites are removing such content or putting it away from the front pages of UK consumers idk. Can they do that?

Absolutely. Since most mainstream porn sites accept user submissions, they are constantly detecting and removing content that does not comply with their terms of use. This is something that we established in this thread years ago.

IDK man. I don't think young people see normal handshakes on TV and then go out in the world and start mistakenly giving bone-crushing death grip handshakes, and I don't see why they'd see someone placing a hand on a neck in a porno and, attempting to emulate that, choke somebody, and especially I don't see how they wouldn't immediately figure out it's not like that and stop.

We can go with an analogy here. Every time the link between violence in movies and games and real world violence has been studied, there has been found to be no link at all. The violence that people see in movies, on TV, and in video games does not translate into real world violence - in fact, some studies have shown that people who partake in violent movies are less violent in real life, though I should say that this is not universal. At most, some studies link violence in games and media to aggressive and antisocial behaviour, but not violent behaviour.

So why should sex be any different from that? Why are people acting out the sex that they see in the media but not the violence? I put it to you that by and large they are not, and this whole argument is based in moralistic conservative thinking that attaches shame and guilt to sexual acts.