this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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Online pornography showing strangulation or suffocation is to be made illegal, as part of government plans to tackle violence against women and girls.

It follows a review which found depictions of choking were "rife" on mainstream porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people.

Both the possession and publication of such material will be a criminal offence, under amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill currently going through Parliament.

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[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 91 points 1 day ago (28 children)

Jfc more conservative pearl clutching censorship laws in supposedly developed countries? What a time to be alive.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't worry, it's not the Conservatives, it's the Labour Government implementing this!

Good thing Labour will never be anything like the Tories amirite fellow chokers?

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[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The morality police in the UK strike again. They're slowly turning into Saudi Arabia the longer they keep this up.

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago (4 children)

What's next? BDSM?

Only porn allowed will be missionary position?

[–] OfCourseNot@fedia.io 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Only porn allowed will be missionary position?

No. I think it's a step by step approach, that will go further than that. After only missionary, they'll make the actors get married before having any sex, all under the blankets and as clothed as possible, no condom or pulling out allowed either, and at the end of the scene it has to show the beautiful baby born nine months after. No gay porn, of course, or trans, interracial, more than to people (man™️ and woman™️)... sex is for procreation! How you dare enjoying it, you sinner!

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[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 8 points 1 day ago (7 children)

I think Australia tried or did ban flat chested woman in porn. Could see that happen more.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago

Only if it's for procreation, too.

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[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 47 points 1 day ago

Search: How to do the Heimlich maneuver? YouTube: sorry this video has been deleted for depicting scenes of people choking.

[–] hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“We’ve found a lot of videos online, and we’re going to keep watching until you stop making them!”

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[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago (4 children)

So men don't get choked? Why are these things always gender specific?

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 13 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I like to get a little choked every now and then, during. Am I illegal?

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yes I recommend you handcuff yourself immediately, maybe tie yourself up a bit, you’ve been pretty naughty

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[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Might be a good idea to say which government when you're posting to world news?

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[–] thelivefive@startrek.website 36 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Penetration itself can be viewed as an act of violence and the government should probably put everyone who has thought about it on a surveillance list.

[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

Surveil everyone in the country? already done ✅

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[–] 30p87@feddit.org 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Humanius@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's a BBC article, so it stands to reason that this is about the UK government.

[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Wait, that's not a porn site?

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 29 points 1 day ago (4 children)

This is in direct response to some recent studies that claimed that chocking is the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. Other studied found that there is no safe amount of oxygen deprivation, any chocking leads to brain damage. Other risks of choking are difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage.

What happened is that porn normalized chocking. It used to be limited to the "hard core" types of porn but now it's mainstream and kids that grew up watching it think it's just normal part of sex. Most women asked about it say that they don't enjoy it but do it "for their partner’s pleasure".

So yeah, the government treats it as a public health issue and bans it.

I'm not a scientists, I didn't review all those studies and frankly I don't care one way of the other. Just wanted to give people some context.

You can read more about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/07/no-safe-way-risks-of-choking-during-sex

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

First they came for the Chokers , And I did not speak out Because I like to breath

Then they came for the Foot fanatics , And I did not speak out Because I was not into feet

Then they came for the thigh highs , And I did not speak out Because I was not into socks

Then they came for the Brazilian cake farts , And there was no one left To speak out for me

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[–] indomara@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

An article about this was posted 6 months ago and I looked into it: https://lemmy.world/comment/16311493

I wrote:

This article is feeling kind of clickbaitish, as the sources are ... odd.

However, restricting blood flow to the brain can also have serious health implications.

While not all pressure on the neck will be fatal, research shows even relatively low pressure can cause death by strangulation.

The first source is a medical journal describing the physiology of the arteries in the neck, and does not seem to include anything about restricting blood flow (never mind temporarily) having serious health consequences.

The second source is a book from 1991 about autoerotic asphyxiation with the quote:

autoerotic asphyxia denotes death resulting from failure of a release mechanism of the device, apparatus or prop designed to attain cerebral hypoxia for heightened arousal.

Which is ... not the same as doing this with someone, and doesn't address the risks of a partner who releases pressure immediately after a loss of consciousness.

The issues around consent are troubling indeed, consent should always be paramount.

I also found it amusing that the beginning of the article said

Although rare, strangulation is the leading cause of death in consensual BDSM play.

Which links to a study that found a total of 16 cases that included strangulation between 1982 and 2020. Rare indeed.

My husband and I dabble in breath play, so I was curious and read a few studies myself. It seems that every case study I could find included atypical circumstances. Things like accidental hanging, or asphyxiation due to bags etc being over the head.

This paper includes a 50 year review of cases for anyone interested. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOFORSJ/TOFORSJ-1-1.pdf

It is also worth noting that loss of consciousness due to cutting off blood flow to the brain (cerebral hypoxia) is not dissimilar to the hypoxia experienced by pilots, who even train with repeated exposure to hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers.

I would be curious to know if there were any studies of the long term effects of this on pilots. (My dive into the rabbit hole is done for the day, lol.)

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[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (18 children)

I can't help but feeling as though the exact same pearl clutching wieners are behind this as the growing attempts at overall porn ban, as though restriction of access to the content will somehow cut the legs out from under the already widespread (albeit uncommon) practice.

To wit, people aren't choking each other during sex or risking David Carradine'ing themselves while wanking because of some shit-production porn, they're doing it because it's enjoyable to them (choker and choke-ee). I'm not going to kinkshame except to say that there's no method of getting a head-rush that I'd personally recommend, but based on what sex-choke enjoyers that I know have said, it makes them cum extra-hard. So... there's that, the mega-cums.

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[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don’t disagree that it’s troubling how mainstream choking is in modern porn. It’s definitely been a huge shift. There’s nothing against it as a fetish, but it being a fetish with potential harmful consequences suggests that it should be in the same category as BDSM - something which can be problematic unless it’s done as an exercise in trust between partners with full informed consent.

And there have been plenty of seemingly not agenda-led studies which suggest that teen boys and girls are both picking up a lot of what they consider to be “normal” about sex from porn.

And not even talking to each other about it. IIRC, there was one such study which had both boys and girls engaging in a particular behaviour (I forget exactly which, maybe even choking), and neither party actively enjoyed the behaviour, they were just doing it because they thought that’s what you do and therefore what their partner wanted.

But is the solution to ban porn which features choking? Firstly, I don’t see how this could in any way be effective. How would you possibly enforce it? Are police really going to raid people’s homes based on suspicion that they’ve got a nowadays-vanilla porn video on their harddrive? The police literally don’t have enough resources to investigate and prosecute everybody creating and sharing child porn. And now they’re supposed to go after everybody who visits PornHub?

Secondly, we’re basically talking about a de-facto porn ban because, as the consultation itself noted, that describes pretty much all porn made in the last 10-15 years.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I mean, talking about the difference bewteen porn and sex is something that should be part of sex education at school. But I kind of assume it already is? It would be weird if it weren’t in 2025.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to engage with creators themselves? I know that several porn companies used to put disclaimers before their videos saying that there’s a difference between porn sex and real sex and talking about consent. Several BDSM porn producers also have pre and post-shoot interviews with the performers and make sure they talk on camera about safe words & gestures and consent.

But then that’s something that’s probably not going to be terribly effective in any case and which would require absolutely everybody to get on board, which would have been basically impossible back when it was only really studios producing content, and 100% impossible now that OnlyFans etc are the way that most performers make and distribute porn.

I don’t think it’s an easy question to answer, TBH, but I’m pretty sure that “ban all the porn” isn’t the correct solution.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nice to see a measured comment.

I don't think it will lead to banning porn. Just tell actors/directors to stop chocking and cut some sequences from old videos. If a video is an hour long chocking session then geoblock it. I don't think it's an existential crisis for the industry.

Banning possession is insane though.

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[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 23 points 7 hours ago

You know, there's a fun observation to be made here: for every perversion you ban, the more niche ones move further up the view list. In essence, short of a complete porn ban (which is their final goal), they're likely to make the problem worse.

In terms of boys learning violence from this kind of porn - surely the online safety act is doing that right? Of course not; that act has failed gloriously and this proposed change evidences that.

The real solution they should be considering is strong messages about "safe, sane, consensual". Stick it up on posters, make it a mandatory banner on porn sites (who would complain, really), even take that shit into schools (it's good practice even for vanilla). The real issue isn't the acts themselves, it's the way we talk about them, or more don't!

[–] supamanc@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

I think everyone is missing the point that this is effectively a shodow ban on porn. The Gov knows that sites aren't going to filter specific content for specific regions, it's cheaper and safer to simply stop serving those regions. Yes, a VPN will get around that, but VPNs are probably next on the agenda.

[–] Semester3383@lemmy.world 22 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

I am... Rather older than most of you, in all probability. My partner likes being choked; not hard, not actually cutting off air or blood, but the sensation of hands or an arm around their throat. They also like being caned, and spanked; I'm into fairly serious rope bondage (as a rope top) and CNC.

Under British law, a large percentage of the sexual activities that we both enjoy together would be criminal offenses.

For what it's worth, in the 1920s, oral sex was considered shocking to moral sensibilities, perverted, an affront against nature, and grotesquely obscene. I suspect that the view from the year 2100--should humanity survive that long--will see choking in much the same way.

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 19 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

If the argument for the ban is that depiction normalizes it, then there should be a ban on violence in all media, right?

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 18 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

To anyone celebrating this: you're defending a fucking bad faith law!

Does any of the recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws are just to protect little Jimmy being a "little confused", to protect him from "making life altering decisions"? Did any of the Nazi anti-Jewish laws were only made to stop predatory banking? Fuck no! And fuck you if you think we can just "undo it easily later on: no one wants to be the "pervert politician", no one wants to be smeared by the opposition as "the real misogynist" or a "pervert being occupied with things other than the economy", so no one will do it.

I don't like choking in porn. The problem is a failure of both the lack of sexual education, and not holding platforms accountable for replatforming the likes of Andrew Tate, not some smut.

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[–] etherphon@lemmy.world 17 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I suppose I would file this one under massive sex education failure, if youths are having to learn about sex from porn there's already a problem.

[–] nosuchanon@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think the government should stay out of peoples pants. The issue isn’t the pornography, it’s that children are allowed on the Internet whether there is pornography. More of a parenting and society issue than it is a pornography issue.

I think the larger issue is the fact that kids are given cell phones and laptops and unrestricted access to the Internet at a young age. The problem isn’t what’s on the Internet it’s that you don’t want kids to have access to it. There are other more effective ways at dealing with the problem rather than censorship for everyone.

Maybe a better way to handle these issues is giving minors only access to online libraries and curated educational content until they are 18 or considered an adult. Then you can make your social media profiles and access adult content.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 14 points 18 hours ago

I already don't like that kind of shit, it's an immediate turn-off for me.

But - I also know there's a whole kink around it, and as long as it's consensual.....who tf cares?

[–] Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago

I'll forward any I find to my local MP

[–] Renohren@lemmy.today 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

The way they define choking would also ban a lot of sucking scenes.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 10 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

That's the goal. First ban kink that are more extreme, but word the ban vague enough to be applicable to other things.

We call this kind of bad faith laws as "shotgun laws", due to how reminiscent they're to the operation of shotgun-type weapons from video games.

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[–] gigachad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I mean online porn is a problem, especially for youths. When many of us were young it didn't exist but it hit us as young adults. With 25 you might be a bit more sure about your sexuality or maybe you even have experiences. However, you are definitely more certain on who you are as a person. 13 year old being confronted with modern porn and the image it delivers breaks my heart a little bit to be honest. Young people having no idea what sex is about, watching violent and misogynistic porn is very dangerous for our society in general.

Of course I know censorship can't be the answer and UK can fuck itself with its age controls, but idk, I feel like we gotta do something about this.

Choking is for sure not the line we should draw, just to make that clear. Next thing is only missionary position, fuck your christian values.

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[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

In this thread: a lot of chocking

[–] Dijon@sh.itjust.works 7 points 19 hours ago

Chock full of it!

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