Safe Alternatives to Choking and Breath Play
Sexual choking involves blocking the airways for sexual pleasure. It is also known as breath play, strangulation, and erotic asphyxiation. It has become more common, especially as young people may mimic sexual choking as they see it in porn. But it can have dangerous and even deadly consequences.
In this article, author, sex educator, and activist Heather Corinna and sexologist and researcher Giselle Woodley discuss the dangers of choking, guidelines for BDSM and kink, and alternatives to choking.
Heather and Giselle emphasize that there is no safe way to engage in breath play. Sexual choking can also be a predictor of intimate partner violence, which can result in homicide. There are alternatives that offer pleasure in similar ways and reduce the risk of harm. These alternatives include role play, other methods of neck stimulation, safe restraint, impact play, and fantasy.
Recent studies have shown that sexual choking (also known as: breath play, strangulation or erotic asphyxiation), the act of blocking airways for sexual pleasure, has become more popular recently, especially among young adults. A recent study in Australia found that out of 4702 individuals 18–35 years old, of all genders, a total of 57% reported being sexually strangled. Another study done in 2021 of 4254 randomly sampled American students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, found that among those with any partnered sexual experience, 43.0% had choked a partner, 47.3% had been choked, that the mean age of first choking/being choked was about 19, and that more undergraduates than graduate students reported first choking/being choked in adolescence.
SOURCE: Scarleteen • AUTHOR: Heather Corinna and Giselle Woodley • LAST UPDATED: January 8, 2025
