A Defence of Choking in Porn - Freedom of Expression Doesn’t Stop Where Violent Kinks Begin

Recently the government has announced they plan to ban strangulation in pornography. This is an unwarranted attack on freedom of expression predicated on a ridiculous focus on safety, a nutty notion of what consent is implying hundreds of thousands of young men are violent sex criminals, and, an illiberal idea that bad behaviour should be prohibited by law. Defending choking in porn may not be popular but it follows from the liberal commitment to freedom of expression more generally, and, it reaffirms the important idea that the consensual sex lives of the people should be entirely beyond the state’s reach. 

The mere fact speech or action may upset the receivers to a greater extent than it pleases the expressers is irrelevant to the question of its permissibility. While we may frown upon those who are rude, preach certain religions, publish risqué books, or, place garish gnomes in their garden, we accept they should be free to do so. Following Robert Nozick, the moral explanation for this is individuals are not mere means, instruments or tools to increase the aggregated wellbeing of society’s members. Rather, each individual properly pursues their own happiness in life provided they don’t infringe on the rights of others. This contrasts to JS Mill’s defence of free expression which simply sees it as the best means to the greatest sum of wellbeing. 

Should we accept freedom of expression in the above cases, analogously, we should accept it in pornography too, including in the depiction of strangulation. The mere fact strangulation in porn might diminish aggregated wellbeing because some women see it as objectionable is no more reason to ban it than we have for banning a Christian preacher in a Muslim area upsetting all of them, i.e., no reason at all. Yet Labour MPs Jessica Asato and Alex Davies-Jones have argued this particular instance of freedom of expression must be banned because it sets a dangerous example for having sex and is degrading to women. The paternalism behind such a ban is implausible and the idea strangulation is necessarily degrading is questionable at best, as many feminists would themselves agree. 

According to Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition: ‘There is no such thing as safe strangulation, women cannot consent to the long-term harm which it causes…[including] impaired cognitive functioning and memory’. Banning strangulation in pornography then is said to help contribute to ending it in the real world which is allegedly a good thing. Insofar as ‘safe’ simply means ensuring the health and longevity of the person, sure, strangulation is not safe. But nor by the same token is any recreational sex carrying as it does the risk of disease. Maximising safety would require banning strangulation and recreational sex. Obviously, this is an absurd conclusion; safety per se is clearly an irrelevant consideration to the permissibility of sex acts. 

Disregarding whether the pleasure 36% of 16-to-35-year-old women who have experienced strangulation outweighs the dangers of it, adults should be free to make mistakes anyway. You might know for certain someone will hate a particular nightclub after a while, that doesn’t warrant you stopping them from going, neither does the same knowledge concerning strangulation warrant stopping that either. Particularly ridiculous is the idea that 36% of women cannot consent to the long-term harms of it. We accept obese people are consensually buying doughnuts even though that damages their long-term health, so, obviously, women can consent to being occasionally strangled with much lesser health effects to them as well. 

Furthermore, if Andrea Simon really thinks there cannot be consent to strangulation is she really going to criminally charge the 39% of young men who have ever choked a woman during sex? That would equate to putting hundreds of thousands of them in prison for actual bodily harm. I doubt it. 

The second prong of attack on strangulation porn is it is degrading to women. According to some feminists, choking a woman pushes her down from being treated as a full person to being treated as a mere thing; it degrades her into an object of male sexual desire alone. If this is the real reason to ban strangulation porn then much of porn should clearly be banned altogether. 

Along with the liberal feminist Janet Radcliffe Richards, however, I would maintain that being consensually treated as a mere object of sexual desire is not objectionable per se, so, neither is strangulation in porn either. Richards gives the example of a female pianist who a man might desire to contact and hire purely due to her musical talent, no other part of her person. Should this be fine, why can’t a female porn star be contacted and hired by a male filmmaker for her sexual talent; no other part of her person. It seems there is no fundamental difference between the two cases. But let us assume there is a difference in the cases and degradation does actually remain. Would that warrant restricting freedom of expression?

No. Freedom of expression contains the right to insult, lie and degrade too. If you are in an argument with your girlfriend you can call her ‘no better than a certain gardening tool’ and she can call you ‘an ape’, yet in neither occasion would it be warranted for the police to break into your home and stop you from saying such harsh words. Once this is accepted though there is no reason for why consensually choking a woman in porn should be banned either. And notice that the argument of Andrea Simon would extend to regulating all of our sex lives and not just porn; this despite the fact the vast majority of kinky practices literally end in a kiss and a cuddle. 

A last-ditch justification for the strangulation ban in porn will run porn stars do not truly consent to such action because they have no choice but to work in the industry, so, to stop what ultimately amounts to unconsensual strangulation, it should be banned. Catherine Mackinnon makes this argument. For a start this argument would suggest almost all porn stars are being raped, warranting a huge ban on porn. Clearly though almost all porn stars are not being raped because the correct conception of consent is not as thick as Mackinnon suggests. In almost every instance a very attractive woman can turn down work in pornography for lower paying work; basically, the situation men face without the porn option. 

Strangulation in pornography is an entirely legitimate instance of freedom of expression. The fact young people may take up choking a little bit more due to it is irrelevant to its permissibility because safety is not all that matters in sex: pleasure does too. Nor are concerns about degrading women plausible objections to strangulation either because strangulation per se is not degrading, and, even if it was, degrading people, along with lying and being rude to them, does not warrant restricting freedom of expression either. In a liberal society the sex lives of the people, whether behind closed doors or behind computer screens, are nothing to do with the government: Strangulation in porn should be treated no differently.

Charles Amos studied Political Theory at the University of Oxford and writes The Musing Individualist Substack. He tweets @mrcharlesamos