'I knew I was starting to have a seizure': women describe lasting effects of being 'choked' during sex

Three women tell of blacking out, feeling dazed and dizzy, and of ongoing memory issues and fatigue

UK survey shows ‘choking’ becoming normalised in sex

Warning: this article includes graphic content

Robyn Vinter
Tue 18 Nov 2025 00.00 EST

When Sophie* woke up on the floor ...

“I blacked out, my legs were kicking, I broke a glass,” she says. At 19, it was the first and only time anything like that had happened to her. “When I came to, I couldn’t work out who he was, where I was, what was going on. And it was utterly terrifying.”

She had not asked to be strangled, or “choked” as it is often called, but the encounter had been consensual and she says she had accepted being strangled as “a normal part” of sex.

Snip...

She realises now she should have seen a doctor after the seizure, but the man “persuaded me not to because he didn’t want to get into trouble and I was worried about being shamed in some way”.

The first major study on strangulation during sex found that more than half of people under the age of 35 had experienced it and it was common among teenagers as young as 16 who had seen it in porn and on social media.

Snip...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/18/women-describe-lasting-effects-choked-strangled-sex

*All names have been changed