“It Was Scary, But Then It Was Kind of Exciting”: Young Women’s Experiences with Choking During Sex

Herbenick, Debby; Guerra‐Reyes, Lucia; Patterson, Callie; Gonzalez, Yael R Rosenstock; Wagner, Caroline S.; Zounlome, Nelson O. O.

doi:10.1007/s10508-021-02049-x

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(78 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, the experience of being choked repetitively may alter functional and structural brain networks. Being choked, even if done for reasons related to increasing pleasure and arousal, is sometimes described as frightening and even terrifying (Herbenick et al, 2019 , 2021d ). Experience-dependent changes in neural plasticity and function have been well documented in both rodent models and humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acute and chronic effects of stress have been linked to widespread changes in activation and connectivity in the brain (van Oort et al, 2017 ; Kunimatsu et al, 2020 ). That said, the majority of sexual choking events have been described as consensual, wanted, and often initiated by women (Herbenick et al, 2021b , d , e ). Fifth, we did not assess tendencies to participate in risky sex or sensation-seeking behaviors, which may be contributing factors to engaging in sexual choking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Frequent and Recent Non-fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Association With fMRI Activation During Working Memory Tasks

Huibregtse

Alexander

Klemsz

et al. 2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Being strangled, or “choked,” by a sexual partner has emerged as a prevalent, often wanted and consensual sexual behavior among adolescent and young adult women, yet the neurological consequences of repeated exposure to this behavior are unknown. The objective of the study was to examine the association between a history of repeated, recent choking/strangling episodes during sex and fMRI activation during working memory tasks in young adult women. This case-control study involved young adult women (18–30 years old) at a large, public university, and consisted of two study groups: a choking group consisting of participants who were recently and frequently choked/strangled during sex by a partner (≥4 times in the past 30 days) and a choking-naïve (control) group who had never been choked/strangled during sex. Participants completed two variations of the N-back (0-back, 1-back, and 2-back) working memory task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): verbal and visual N-back tasks. Data from 20 participants per group were available for analysis. Between-group differences for accuracy and reaction time were not significant for either variation of the N-back task. Significant differences in fMRI activation patterns were detected between the choking and the choking-naïve groups for the three contrasts of interest (1-back > 0-back, 2-back > 0-back, and 2-back > 1-back). The choking group exhibited increased activation in multiple clusters relative to the choking-naïve group for the contrasts between the 1-back and 2-back conditions compared to the 0-back conditions (e.g., superior frontal gyrus, corpus callosum). However, the choking-naïve group exhibited increased activation relative to the choking group in several clusters for the 2-back > 1 back contrast (e.g., splenium, middle frontal gyrus). These data indicate that recent, frequent exposure to partnered sexual strangulation is associated with different neural activation patterns during verbal and visual working memory tasks compared to controls, suggesting that being choked/strangled during sex may modify the allocation of neural resources at increasing levels of cognitive load. Further investigation into the neurologic effects of this sexual behavior is warranted, given the prevalence of sexual choking among adolescent and young adult women.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequent and Recent Non-fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Association With fMRI Activation During Working Memory Tasks

Huibregtse

Alexander

Klemsz

et al. 2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…Even though sexual choking is now prevalent, little is known about how people engage in choking in terms of frequency, intensity, and method (e.g., use of hands, ligature) apart from qualitative interviews and one prior campus-representative survey of randomly sampled undergraduate students (Herbenick et al, 2021c(Herbenick et al, , 2022b(Herbenick et al, , 2022c. Understanding how sexual choking is enacted is important as choking/strangulation method and frequency have been predictive of health sequelae, at least as part of IPV and sexual assault (Messing et al, 2018;Smith et al, 2001).…”

Section: Choking Frequency and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency, Method, Intensity, and Health Sequelae of Sexual Choking Among U.S. Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Herbenick

Eastman-Mueller

et al. 2022

Arch Sex Behav

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Although sexual choking is now prevalent, little is known about how people engage in choking in terms of frequency, intensity, method, or potential health sequelae. In a campus-representative survey of undergraduate and graduate students, we aimed to: (1) describe the prevalence of ever having choked/been choked as part of sex; (2) examine the characteristics of choking one's sexual partners (e.g., age at first experience, number of partners, frequency, intensity, method); (3) examine the characteristics of having been choked during sex; and (4) assess immediate responses of having been choked including the extent to which frequency and method (e.g., hand, ligature, limb) of having been choked predicts the range of responses endorsed by participants. A total of 4254 randomly sampled students (2668 undergraduate, 1576 graduate) completed a confidential online survey during Spring 2021. The mean age of first choking/being choked was about 19, with more undergraduates than graduate students reporting first choking/ being choked in adolescence. Women and transgender/gender non-binary participants were significantly more likely to have been choked than men. Participants more often reported the use of hands compared to limbs or ligature. Common responses to being choked were pleasurable sensations/euphoria (81.7%), a head rush (43.8%), feeling like they could not breathe (43.0%), difficulty swallowing (38.9%), unable to speak (37.6%), and watery eyes (37.2%). About 15% had noticed neck bruising and 3% had lost consciousness from being choked. Greater frequency and intensity of being choked was associated with reports of more physical responses as was use of limb (arm, leg) or ligature.

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“…Additionally, one experimental study found women exposed to sexually explicit media that depicted clitoral self-stimulation were more likely to report clitoral self-stimulation a week later (Kohut & Fisher, 2013). And, in a qualitative interview study, some women and men reported first learning about choking during sex from pornography (Herbenick et al, 2021). These studies suggest that pornography (like other forms of media as well as peer and partnered interactions) may shape individuals' solo and partnered sexual repertoires.…”

Section: Pornography Use and Sexual Partnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study of Swedish adolescents found that young men who were high consumers of pornography were more likely to try to act out behaviors they see in pornography (Häggström-Nordin et al, 2005). Additionally, qualitative studies have demonstrated that many young people describe learning about sexual behaviors from watching pornography and then incorporating these behaviors into their sexual repertoires (Herbenick et al, 2021;Cruz & Sheridan, 2021;Rothman et al, 2015).…”

Section: Pornography Use and Sexual Partnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Porn Sex versus Real Sex: Sexual Behaviors Reported by a U.S. Probability Survey Compared to Depictions of Sex in Mainstream Internet-Based Male–Female Pornography

Fritz

Malic

et al. 2022

Arch Sex Behav

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Using data from a 2014 U.S. nationally representative probability survey and a 2014 content analysis of 2562 male-female videos from two popular pornographic websites, this study aimed to: (1) compare the prevalence of survey respondents' eventlevel sexual behaviors with those depicted in mainstream pornography online videos; (2) compare event-level condom use with condom use prevalence in pornographic videos; (3) compare event-level orgasm with prevalence of orgasms in pornographic videos; and (4) assess whether respondents' partnered use of pornography was associated with the sexual behaviors in which they report engaging. We found that kissing, male orgasm, female orgasm, and condom use were significantly less prevalent in the pornographic videos than in survey respondents' most recent sexual experiences. Conversely, penile-anal intercourse and fellatio were significantly more prevalent in the pornographic videos than in participants' reports of their most recent sexual experience. There were no significant differences between the prevalence of cunnilingus or sex toy use represented in the videos as compared to survey respondents' reports. Finally, we found that individuals who reported partnered pornography use during their most recent sexual experience were more likely to report having engaged in oral sex, penile-anal intercourse, and sex toy use and were also more likely to report female orgasm during their most recent sexual experience.

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“It Was Scary, But Then It Was Kind of Exciting”: Young Women’s Experiences with Choking During Sex

Cited by 24 publications

References 61 publications

Frequent and Recent Non-fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Association With fMRI Activation During Working Memory Tasks

Frequent and Recent Non-fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Association With fMRI Activation During Working Memory Tasks

Frequency, Method, Intensity, and Health Sequelae of Sexual Choking Among U.S. Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Porn Sex versus Real Sex: Sexual Behaviors Reported by a U.S. Probability Survey Compared to Depictions of Sex in Mainstream Internet-Based Male–Female Pornography

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