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Content warning: sexual strangulation, misogyny
A few months ago, I opened my account and saw an Instagram reel by a popular sex-positive influencer whose content I generally enjoy. She said she was done with vanilla sex in her forties, and just wanted to swing from the chandeliers, have a man tie her ankles behind her head, and enjoy a little “choking” action. She mimed the hands of a partner choking her and made a gurgling sound while crossing her eyes for good measure.
Friends, I think sex-positivity had lost the plot in that post—and, honestly, much more broadly. Advertising what is properly termed sexual strangulation as a fun, sexy romp rather than as the dangerous activity it is is deeply misguided, indeed the height of irresponsibility. So many girls’ and women’s brain health is being badly injured.
I am not linking the reel or naming this content creator partly because I almost never call out women individually—I think we get more than our fair share of criticism already—and partly because I truly don’t blame her. The propaganda named pornography suggesting that strangulation is a safe, sexy, and almost inevitable part of heterosexuality is ubiquitous and insidious. Or so I argued in this essay.
Image credit: death play
In this intimate and earnest conversation, Zawn and I get into why we think patriarchal propaganda is systematically misleading women, and gaslighting us into feeling like prudes and bitches for resisting strangulation—and much else besides. We cover a lot of other territory too, including:
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