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Choking Safety

I've been seeing some kind of scare-mongering type posts going around about choking during sex, so I wanted to address how to approach choking in a safe way. Choking is not a 0 risk activity, but it is also not so dangerous that you will just randomly die either. Anyone who does martial arts will confirm that thousands of teenagers are being successfully trained to choke each other safely (for self defense) every day! There's no reason you can't learn to do it too.

First you should be familiar with some basic anatomy of the neck and throat:

The carotid veins on both sides of the neck and the trachea/windpipe in the center are the most important things to be aware of. If you want to enjoy the psychological element of having someone's hands around your neck with relatively little risk, you can do "choking" play that avoids putting any pressure on those arteries or the trachea. As with all choking play, safety is highest when both parties are fully sober. I'm not actually sure if there are people out there who are into having the windpipe or trachea blocked. This tends to hurt like fuck and cause an autonomic choking response. You'll know if you went too far center because generally the bottom will be like "WTH". I don't know if there is a way to do this play safely or not as I don't have experience with it. It probably carries some risk of the trachea collapsing which would be a hospital trip for sure. Most choking play is done with the intention of cutting off the blood supply to the brain by applying pressure to both the left and right carotid arteries. This type of choking is not really "breath play" because of the way it works (though many people refer to it that way.) This creates a pleasant light headed feeling, but is also where the higher risk comes in. It often doesn't take long for a person to lose consciousness once these arteries are blocked, often less than 10 seconds. Sometimes getting completely choked out is the goal, sometimes not. Either way, the top has to pay very very careful attention to every aspect of their bottom's body language. Once you realize that a person has lost consciousness, the choking must stop immediately. Because of this: the most dangerous way to do this kind of play is alone. (hence all the auto-erotic asphyxiation deaths you hear about) It goes without saying that intoxication also dramatically increases the risks. It's not recommended to lose consciousness this way on a regular basis. It's just not good for your brain to repeatedly go through, especially in rapid succession. Generally, the more time spaced out between this type of play: the better. Though some people may have medical conditions that make the risk higher, as long as you stop choking when you reach the desired headspace, this play is approachable. Anyone who's REALLY into the idea but feels unsure or scared, I highly recommend taking a few martial arts classes. MMA guys do this to each other all the time! For sports! The key is just stopping at the right time. There are two main ways to go about blocking the carotid arteries. The main one used in martial arts and self defense is the rear naked choke.

This type of choke is incredible effective at choking someone out quickly and easily. The forearm and the bicep are squeezing each artery until the desired effect is achieved. The risk here is how quickly it works in combination with not being able to have a visual on your bottom's facial response. When someone loses consciousness they will go limp and begin twitching somewhat. This is normal, and you should stop immediately if you notice those signs. The more common method of choking play during sex is what looks more like typical choking. Facing your partner, using both hands.

You want to find the arteries with both hands, and use the meat at the base of your thumbs to apply gradually increasing pressure upwards towards your partner's head. You can keep the thumbs tucked to avoid accidental pressure on the windpipe. (Though this is not required so long as you remember not to apply pressure to the windpipe.) This type of play has a few safety benefits. First, you can see your partner's face so it's more obvious when you can see they've hit a headspace that is desirable. Additionally, it's just a little more difficult to find the arteries and push up on them correctly. If your goal is to get a little light headed without losing consciousness, this is more easily accomplished with this type of choke. However, losing consciousness is still a risk and both partners being fully alert will ensure the lowest risk environment. I know choking play is incredibly popular, even 'vanilla' people participate in this type of play on a regular basis without really knowing the technical details. Most of them don't get seriously hurt...but knowing what you're actually doing with risky play is a base component of risk aware consensual kink. Anyway I hope people find this helpful! Happy choking!!

babyclove

this is useful info, but i would push back a bit against the idea that it is "not so dangerous that you'll randomly die". it is dangerous enough that you really may randomly die, even when you do everything you can to lower the risks. strokes & brain damage can happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and the neurologic effects of frequent strangulation are still unclear.

yes, many of us do participate in risky activities every day, like smoking, riding a motorcycle, or even just driving a car, but one unique consideration in this case is that a choking-related death could very likely result in the top being charged for manslaughter (at the very least), not to mention the lifelong burden of having killed your partner.

i think it's important for people participating in breathplay to come to terms with that, and to have a very clear safety plan for what you would do if something goes wrong and you're lucky enough (!!!) to have enough time to get medical assistance before death or permanent injury occurs.

that said, that doesn't mean all forms of breathplay/strangulation are equally dangerous, so knowing the safer ways to go about it is important. please always do your own research and get comfortable saying no to under-negotiated/under-researched play; you can always return to something after everyone has done their research and seriously considered their own risk tolerance.

see this article for some more discussion about this topic.

fucktoyfelix

I think it's important to add that many medical conditions like heart conditions, family history of stroke, past personal history of stroke, high blood pressure, etc dramatically increase risk. However, the main reason why I'm pushing against the "randomly die" narrative is due to a lack of supporting statistics. We don't know for sure how many people engage in this type of play, but I was only able to find less than one person per year who claimed they choked a partner to death accidentally. I think it's safe to say thousands of people do this type of play yearly. Some of these reports of accidental deaths were in situations where people were drunk. We also can't say for certain how many of the people who claimed they choked their partner on accident were just using that as an easy way to change a murder charge into a manslaughter charge: it's a good defense. (By FAR most 'accidental' choking deaths are caused by police brutality, not sex.) Because of my experience in martial arts: knowing how rarely accidental deaths happen in those controlled environments...even when practiced by children? In fact: none of the deaths in sports fighting have ever been recorded to be caused by a choke-hold. That's more than enough evidence to me that harm reduction is extremely effective in preventing accidental deaths. It's a good idea to question why there's so much scrutiny over sex, but less over things like MMA. This type of choking is extremely common in that sport, and yet the sport is deemed safe enough to continue. I think people are just more likely to fear monger about sex because we exist in an extremely sex negative culture and even kinky people have not entirely unlearned that. But of course: choking is not a 0 risk activity and it should be treated with complete consideration of all these factors and a healthy amount of respect.

fucktoyfelix

I found a study! This study used a convenience sample so the results are not really generalizable to the whole population. It sampled 4,242 college students from Indiana. 24.9% of men had been choked at some point in their life, and 53.9% of women had been choked. 42.1% of undergraduates had been choked, and only 32.1% of graduate students had ever been choked. This suggests that choking may be rapidly becoming more popular with younger people, meaning: if the sample had surveyed a truly randomized sample: older people would possibly have been choked much less often. A more randomized study would be needed to confirm any information about the general population. Average choking intensity was 4.1 out of a 10 point scale, and less than 1% of participants reported having lost consciousness. So the vast VAST majority of choke-play is probably the most low-risk type.

magnus-rhymes-with-swagness

[ID:

1: A medical diagram of a person’s neck with specific parts pointed out. The internal carotid artery and internal jugular vein sit on either side of the center of the neck. The sternocleidomastoid muscles start just above the center of the collarbone, then go up and around the sides of the neck, ending around the jaw. The brachiocephalic veins sit between the sternocleidomastoid muscles and the collarbones. The subclavian veins sit just below the collarbones, about halfway between the person’s neck and shoulders.

2: Photo of person 1 choking person 2 in a martial arts or self-defense context. Person 1 has their arms crossed with their hands resting on their own shoulders. Person 2’s head is hooked in person 1’s right arm, which is tight around person 2’s neck. Person 1’s elbow is aligned with person 2’s chin.

3: Photo of someone getting choked in a kink context. A set of hands holds the sides of their neck, not applying pressure to the front.

/end ID]

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