When touching someone’s throat, it can only take the pressure of a handshake to cause serious injury, unconsciousness or death. These injuries, which include brain damage and stroke, are often internal and invisible, showing up days or even months after the initial incident occurred. Experts say many who participate in sexual choking are not aware of the risks.
Choking or sexual strangulation is common among young people, says Prof Heather Douglas of the Melbourne Law School. In a 2024 survey of 4,702 Australians aged between 18 and 35, she and her research team found that 57% reported ever having experienced sexual strangulation; 51% reported ever having strangled a partner and 43.9% reported participating in both. A police investigation into the death of a 16-year-old girl in Sydney, who is believed to have become unconscious as a result of asphyxiation during sexual intercourse, has brought the practice to national attention again this week.
Douglas says their survey found gender differences in prevalence rates. Young women were more likely to report having been strangled (61%) and young men were more likely to report strangling a partner (59%). Among trans and gender-diverse young people the rates were even higher, with 78% reporting ever having been strangled and 74% reporting ever having strangled someone else.
Many had positive perceptions of the act – believing it was safe and led to more enjoyable sex. There have been similar findings globally. Dr Debby Herbenick is the world’s leading researcher on sexual choking.
When Herbenick conducted her first nationally representative survey asking about sexual choking in the United States a decade ago, “the data came back and I was just floored,” she says. Only a small percentage of adults in midlife and beyond reported being choked, but for those aged 18-39, “more than a third of them had reported being choked during sex”. The issue “felt really urgent”, says Herbenick, who is director of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion.
When she spoke to her students about it, “they were like, ‘Oh no, it’s OK. We’re all doing the same thing.’ “I think what bothered me about it, and worried me, was I felt like they weren’t making informed choices. They were making choices, but they weren’t informed.” In Australia, when choking results in serious harm, the laws are straightforward.
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