Sex education in England to include warnings about choking – what parents need to know
New government guidance for England will see pupils at secondary schools taught about the risks of choking and suffocation in sex and relationships education. If you’re a parent, the idea of this topic being introduced to your child might sound alarming.
But as an academic expert researching risky sexual practices, I believe this inclusion – and the way it’s presented – is absolutely a good thing. We can’t ignore that choking is becoming a more normalised part of sex for young people. To keep them safe, they need to know about it – and how dangerous it is.
The Department for Education guidance states that by the end of secondary education, schools should cover: “That strangulation and suffocation are criminal offences, and that strangulation (applying pressure to the neck) is an offence, regardless of whether it causes injury. That any activity that involves applying force or pressure to someone’s neck or covering someone’s mouth and nose is dangerous and can lead to serious injury or death.”
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Though this stipulation does not explicitly link strangulation to sex, it marks a step in the right direction. Add to this acknowledgement that any sexual practice that explores these themes should only occur if participants are informed about the dangers, and we start some of the work of raising awareness of the risks associated with strangulation during sex.
Research from the US which surveyed nearly 5,000 undergraduate students – with an average age of 20 – found that 58% of the women had experienced choking during sex. In the UK, a 2024 survey of 2,344 people found that 16% had taken part in choking during sex. But this rose to over a third of younger people aged 16 to 35.
Teenagers need to know the risks of rough sex.
WorldStockStudio/Shutterstock
In 2020, I was teaching a postgraduate module on sexuality, gender and crime. In one of the classes about unconventional sexual expression and sexual subcultures, we were talking about bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM) and rough sex, including practices such as choking and strangulation. I remember one of the students was incredulous – not that people enjoy choking for sexual gratification, but that some people weren’t doing it. “Surely everyone does choking during sex,” she declared.
I was really taken aback by her certainty that this practice was normal. I said to her, and the class, that choking is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a sexual encounter – but it struck me that the message of this risk is getting lost in representations of “kinky” sex in the mainstream.
It has become so ordinary, it is even treated as a joke: in episode four of the new season of the BBC comedy Such Brave Girls, Josie, a lesbian, pretends to be hypersexually attracted to her husband, Seb, and goads him into having sex with her. As she recoils under his touch, she cries “choke me” while thrusting his hand on to her neck.
This, according to social psychologist and sexuality expert Nicola Gavey, is the “mythology of everyday kink”: that everyone is doing it, that this is how we have sex now.
Knowing the risk
Choking really is dangerous. According to campaign group We Can’t Consent To This, instances where women have been killed during a sexual encounter in the UK, often as a result of choking, have increased significantly over the past 50 years.
Since 2020, I have been researching rough sex gone wrong, and what happens when these cases go to court: my book on this topic is coming out later this year. My research demonstrates that more education about unconventional sexual expression is needed, so that people who are curious about it can explore it from a risk-aware, empowered vantage point. This includes knowing which aspects of rough sex can not ever be done safely.
The issue is that people, including young people, are curious about being choked during sex. Some people want to do it. Some people find it arousing. Some find it exciting, even if it is also scary. Simply denying that these desires or curiosities exist makes it much more difficult for people to explore rough sex in an informed or risk-aware way.
It’s only by talking about it candidly that young people can learn there is absolutely no safe way to strangle or choke their partner, and that there are other ways to explore these more unconventional desires.
BDSM educator Jay Wiseman has noted that in his experience, the more people know about how unpredictable and risky suffocation and strangulation is, the fewer choose to do it.
This is how we can deal with dangerous, reckless sexual practice and better protect women, who are disproportionately harmed or killed in these cases.
Alexandra Fanghanel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
