'I felt terrified'
'Emma' is in her thirties and had just come out of a long-term relationship when she had a one-night stand. "We ended up in bed and during sex - without warning - he started choking me. I was really shocked and felt terrified. I didn't say anything at the time because, at the back of my head, I felt vulnerable like this man could overpower me." She also puts this down to the influence of pornography. "It felt like this was stuff he had seen online and wanted to play out in real life." The research also suggested that of those who had experienced slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual sex, 42% felt pressured, coerced or forced into it.Violence becoming 'normalised'
Steven Pope is a psychotherapist specialising in sex and relationships. He told 5 Live that he deals with the negative impact of the rise of acts of these kinds "day in, day out". "It's a silent epidemic. People do it because they think it's the norm but it can be very harmful. What we see is that for many, it devalues the relationship but - at its worst - violence becomes acceptable." He is concerned that those who engage in these acts are not aware of the risks. "People come to me when they've had 'near misses'; when strangulation or 'choking out' has overstepped the mark, and they were unconscious for a long time. "The thing with strangulation is that it's always high-risk, but that's literally the last thing people are thinking about." Campaigner Fiona McKenzie described the survey findings as "especially frightening". "I regularly hear from women who had been choked, slapped, spat on, verbally abused and punched by men they were having otherwise consensual sex with. In many cases women weren't initially able to recognise this as the traumatic assault it is." She set up a campaign group, We Can't Consent to This, after she noticed a rise in the number of cases where women had been killed during a so-called 'sex game gone wrong' - and where consent was used as a defence or mitigation. Anna said sex has become "very male-centric... It has become so 'pornified', there isn't much in it for women." And she said violence during sex has become normalised: "They were just ordinary guys. There was nothing unifying about them, although I assume they are fairly frequent consumers of porn. They watch that and assume that's what women want, but they don't ask." The research comes in the wake of recent cases that have heard defences of "rough sex' - such as that of murdered British backpacker Grace Millane. If you have been affected by sexual abuse or violence, help and support are available at BBC Action Line. You can hear more about this story with Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday 28 November from 10:00 GMT. Listen on BBC Sounds.DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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