Kink Engagement Among Youth and Concerns
Comments Off on Kink Engagement Among Youth and Concernsby Danica Soule (they/she), University of Maine Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies student and Mabel Wadsworth Center intern
Language Disclaimer: In this blog, I will be switching between using choking/strangulation – choking is described as something being stuck in your throat, while strangulation is when someone uses an object or their hands to cut off airflow. However, in both the kink community and in common language, “choking” is often the language used. While accuracy is important, it’s also important to use understandable language.
IPV: An acronym for Intimate Partner Violence- Abuse that occurs in a romantic relationship past or present. Abuse can be physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, stalking, financial control, etc.
If you or someone you know is struggling with interpersonal violence, or domestic violence please contact a local help center.
To reach Partners for Peace’s domestic abuse helpline, call 1-800-863-9909.
Now, let’s talk about kinks! Kinks are making their way from private underground parties to your misspelling on a Google search. As technology advances within our society, so does the ability to access just about anything you can think of, and one of these things you can think of is sex. A majority of public schools are underfunded, leaving their sexuality education program at the bottom of the barrel. Alongside underfunding, we see schools that teach abstinence-only sex education, shaming the act of sex, or simply not teaching a sexuality education program at all. Let’s keep in mind that a lack of education does not stop teen pregnancy. In fact, we know this to be a precipitating factor in increasing the rate of teen pregnancy. The lack of comprehensive sex ed programs and funding has the youth searching for any information on the topic of sex out on the internet. Unfortunately when it comes to the internet, when you try to find the answers to your questions like “how to kiss girls,” “how to masturbate,” “how to have sex,” or “how to give a blow job,” the first few links are highly unlikely to be trustworthy, science-based sexual health information, but performative porn instead. When it comes to watching porn, the production of the film is for the entertainment and pleasure of viewers, not for educational purposes. However, with our lack of sex ed, and how taboo the topic of sex is in our culture, young folks can feel as though porn will be the best place to get advice. People, especially those with less experience, can be impressionable, and when they have no basis for the topic they are trying to learn about they will take whatever information they can in hopes that it’s correct.
In porn, even porn that’s not considered kinky (aka “vanilla”), there are acts of erotic asphyxiation. Erotic asphyxiation involves cutting off air supply on either yourself or your partner, to create a sexual thrill between either giver, receiver, or both. This is considered strangulation, but is referred to in the kink world as sexual suffocation/choking. Sexual choking can lead to life-threatening circumstances. It’s essential for anyone engaging in this practice to know how to properly communicate boundaries, safe words/actions, proper and safe techniques, along with consent. These are important factors as well when it comes to engaging in any kinks/play with a partner, but especially kinks that can lead to serious and/or fatal injuries.
Anecdotally, educators/counselors are reporting that youth (12-21) report being strangled/choked unexpectedly by their partner. In one case, an educator had 15 and 16 year old girls asking why boys want to choke them during intimacy and boys asking why girls want to be choked. Now, this question from the boys feels simultaneously disingenuous and genuine. On the one hand, as an analogy, most people wouldn’t watch a bunch of movies where women eat spaghetti and assume all women want to eat spaghetti for every meal, let alone that all women even like spaghetti. On the other hand, our society teaches young men and boys that consent and communication around sex are difficult and complicated, and that many sex acts are to be “assumed” as part of sex. Porn is normalizing rough sex and choking/strangulation to the point where some consider this “vanilla” and young people see this as what the other person presumably wants or what they should be wanting.
Alongside porn, we see the act of sexual strangulation trending on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels, where teen boys and young men make “thirst traps” imitating sexually choking another person. These “thirst trap” videos that sexualize choking/strangulation normalize the act to the viewers without any other context, like how communication and consent should be involved before attempting a risky kink, the importance of not performing these behaviors in public settings, and the fact that these are kinks! These are not vanilla acts that are standard to engage in during sex–these are kinks that need to be discussed (as, frankly, all sex acts should be).
At times, erotic asphyxiation is a disguise for abuse and is NOT being used in a way to bring pleasure to both parties but as a tool of power, control, and violence. Abusers want control over their victims and can disguise their want by using strangulation claiming it’s an act of BDSM to inflict serious pain on their victim. Strangulation is used to instill fear, secure compliance to the abuser, sexual gratification for the abuser, and used to avoid accountability for abusive threatening behavior by avoiding leaving marks. Strangulation is one of the most prominent indicators that abuse in a relationship is escalating to lethal levels and is associated with a “significant predictor of IPV-based homicide”(Mckay). In IPV homicide cases 82% of victims identify with being female, and approximately 15% of these homicides were due to strangulation. Victims who are sexually assaulted by a past or present intimate partner are 8.4x more likely to endure non-fatal frequent strangulation, and the occurrence rate of non-fatal strangulation over the course of a victim’s life can range from 3-68%. Each time a victim survives a non-fatal strangulation, their chances of being a victim to homicide increases.
Instead of normalizing risky sex acts without consent or communication, we need to normalize conversations. It can be hard to answer these questions, and even harder to hear them be asked, especially as BDSM-play trends around social media. We know porn can be harmful and that it’s easy to shift the blame onto the internet, but we also know that shaming those who lack healthy resources won’t make them stop what they’re doing. Shame leads to guilt, repression, and anger. Fighting against rape culture and the normalization of violence along with removing shame around sex generally allows everyone, especially those with less experience, the space to ask questions, learn, and communicate in healthy ways.
