The Vile, Lethal Increase Of Sex-Related Choking

The Vile, Lethal Increase Of Sex-Related Choking

Too many women are losing their lives as a result of "sex games gone awry," according to those accused of their deaths. But how did choking ever come to be accepted?

Vicky's mother, Jan Wynne-Jones, barely knows anything about Vicky's final moments. She only knows that Vicky, a 25-year-old account manager who was tall and blond and could put together a wardrobe or calculate a balance sheet without breaking a sweat, was strangled by her husband one night in November of 2009.

Although Vicky and Michael Roberts had only been married for five months, they had been living together in Warrington, Cheshire, near to their family for the previous four years. Roberts was regarded as a member of the family by Jan, her husband, and their three other kids. There had been no "warning signs," no indication of abuse, and no irrational outbursts.

Vicky's death, in Roberts' opinion, had been a horrific accident caused by a "sex game gone bad." He said they had been having sex on the couch with a bathrobe cord around Vicky's neck and that she had told him three times to "pull tighter" as he entered his not guilty plea to her murder in court. He assumed she was joking when she fell to the ground and waited for her to stand up and exclaim, "Boo!" He sat in the corner and sobbed after learning that his wife had passed away.

Jan adds, "I knew that wasn't real, but I didn't want to fuss too much." We were forced to sit and listen to him for three days. "Haven't you done enough?" I questioned. There were only two persons present when it occurred, and the jury is only allowed to hear from one of them. That is the one thing you cannot alter.

Fortunately, Vicky had enough of evidence to support her claims. The pathology analysis revealed the force applied was considerable and that the injuries she sustained could not have been caused by a dressing gown cord. Roberts' front neck's hyoid bone has been broken. He did not dial 911 for an ambulance. Vicky left him for another man, he claimed, hiding her body in the garage. He had at least three ladies on his phone, and he had been phoning one of them nonstop on the night in question. Vicky left a note in the flat that said she had learned about Roberts' extramarital affairs and had given him a deadline, which fell the weekend before she passed away.

Roberts was given a minimum of 17 years in prison after the jury convicted him guilty of murder. He has never been completely honest about what actually transpired. According to Vicky's sister, Lindsey Wynne-Jones, "He took away Vicky, her options, her possibilities, and her future." And after that, he stole her dignity. Even now, attention is given to "sex games gone bad." Even though it was refuted, it will always exist.

One month after the trial, Michelle Stonall, another lady, was discovered dead in Birmingham's Sheldon Country Park with her dog's lead around her neck. The identical "sex game" defense was employed by her killer. Anna Banks, a 25-year-old teaching assistant, was killed by her four-month-old boyfriend less than two months later. Banks allegedly "enjoyed being choked during intercourse," according to Daniel Lancaster. He received a four-year sentence for manslaughter rather than murder and was found guilty of that crime.

We Can't Consent to This is a website where a group of women have been trying to compile any "sex games gone wrong" defense killings since December of last year. Such killings have increased by 90% in the ten years since Vicky's murder. Strangulation is involved in two thirds.

Strangulation, both fatal and non-fatal, often known as "squeezing," "neck compression," or even "breath-play," is strongly gendered. According to Women's Aid, one woman is killed by her boyfriend by strangulation every two weeks in the UK. It is a common element of robberies and rapes where women are the victims, as well as non-fatal domestic assaults. It is remarkable how infrequently it occurs in crimes against men.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that non-fatal strangulation is one of the most significant predictors of subsequent homicide, which is why Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the majority of US states have created preventative legislation to strengthen the policing, criminal prosecution, and sentencing practices that surround it. For instance, it is now required for police to file felony charges for strangling assaults in the majority of US states. However, in the UK, they are still subject to battery, the least severe kind of violence.

A lawyer and law professor named Susan Edwards has fought for the criminalization of strangulation for many years. It is systematically minimized at every level in the UK, she claims. "It appears to be a brief loss of control. Strangulation attempts typically result in no obvious damage, and too many fatal cases result in low penalties. You hear expressions like "lover's tiff." There is also the defense that strangulation wasn't the cause of death since a cardiac arrest might happen during the act in just a few seconds.

And now, consent has been introduced as a new line of defense. Following the uproar over the alleged "rough sex killing" of Natalie Connolly, 26, by her affluent partner John Broadhurst, 40, actuary Fiona Mackenzie founded We Can't Consent to This. Despite the victim suffering from 40 different wounds, including internal bleeding, a cracked eye socket, and bleach burns on her face, Broadhurst was given a three years, eight months term for manslaughter.

According to Mackenzie, "People were talking about this defense as if it were one unique instance, and I knew it wasn't." The Labour MP Harriet Harman has just declared her intention to have this reiterated in the next domestic violence bill, despite the fact that English law does not recognize agreement to choking or any physical injury in the context of consenting sex. According to Mackenzie, "it needs more focus because defense teams are increasingly offering it up, possibly because rough sex has into the mainstream. "I've had a ton of women contact me to tell that boyfriends who choked them during sex on Tinder encounters left them horrified. If you don't do it when you're dating, people will think you're uninteresting since it's required of you.

Amber*, currently 27 years old, experienced this when she was initially choked during sex in Dublin in 2012. "We went back to his after I had met a buddy of a friend on a night out. Although he was treating me more harshly than usual, I didn't pay it much attention. Again, I didn't think anything of it when he lightly touched my neck, but he then began to squeeze.

There wasn't much discomfort for Amber because of the choking. I tried to look well for him. So I just said, "OK, if this is what gets him out of trouble, I'll let him." She had recently ended a committed relationship. I reasoned that this must be the norm today for having sex.

33-year-old Lucy*, who met a man on Tinder in September of last year, remembers a similar event. He was an extremely attractive man who was well-groomed, she claims. They had dinner and drinks together. The two then moved into the bedroom once Lucy arrived at his residence. This is where things start to get a little hazy, Lucy says. "Despite being inebriated, I could agree. I said that I had done it before when he asked if he could choke me. Previously, the choking had not been "a major problem"; rather, it had been a little aspect of the whole experience, similar to "a bit of hair tugging," that is, a brief and minor amount of pain meant to be enjoyable.

"However, the next thing I recall is gasping for air when I awaken with him on top of me. How long I dozed off is unknown. At 6:30 am, I made an Uber reservation in order to go immediately. I noticed the marks on my chest the following day. After this, when we chatted, all he said was, "We both got a little carried away."

Mackenzie cites two recent strangulation cases that resulted in manslaughter verdicts. Chloe Miazek, 20, was strangled by Mark Bruce in November 2017 after they had met at a bus stop and gone to his apartment in Aberdeen. 32-year-old Mark Bruce received a six-year sentence. His defense claimed that Miazek had shown interest in "erotic sexual asphyxiation" with prior sexual partners.

Hannah Pearson, a resident of Lincolnshire, was 16 years old when she was killed in July 2016 by James Morton, a 24-year-old man she had just started seeing. He was seeking "his sexual enjoyment without any concern for the repercussions," according to his defense. He was found not guilty of murder by the jury, but he was given 12 years for manslaughter.

Both of those women were slain by considerably older males who they had only recently met while quite inebriated and very young, according to Mackenzie.

How did suffocation spread so widely? There have been documented incidents of autoerotic asphyxia, which occurs when someone restricts oxygen to their own brain in order to arouse, since the early 17th century. It has, however, historically been "niche" and primarily a male sport. And the two well-known incidents of the deaths of actor David Carradine and member of parliament Stephen Milligan demonstrate the tremendous hazards it has always entailed.

But now it's women who are being choked; Mackenzie hasn't come across a single instance of a guy being killed by a woman in a purported "sex game gone awry." Additionally, sex surveys, discussion boards, social media feeds, and women's publications demonstrate how the practice has spread to the general public. If role play and blindfolds have strayed into safe area, there are still plenty of sex techniques available, such as choking, advises Women's Health. Breath play is the provocative new sex act that has millennials spellbound, according to Flare. One sex educator was mentioned on elitedaily.com as advising that anyone in a sex rut may read up on "how to choke your lover safely."

According to feminist activist and CEO of Culture Reframed Gail Dines, there are two basic ways that strangling has come to be accepted. She claims that pornography is available to men whereas women can only get it in women's publications. And both of these media types validate it as a type of "play." According to her, women visit porn sites to "see what guys want, and they see choking" as the "number one standard act."

When Graham Coutts, the lover of Jane Longhurst's best friend, strangled the teacher and classical pianist with a pair of tights, the connection between suffocation and porn was discovered almost 20 years ago. Court testimony depicted Coutts as having a fascination with violent pornography and using the "consenting sex" defense. After the trial, Longhurst's family organized a campaign to outlaw violent porn, which ultimately resulted in section 63 of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which makes it unlawful to own an extreme pornographic photograph that features acts that endanger human life. However, the cases that have made it to court have involved child abuse or bestiality. According to Edwards, "It's not used for scenes of violence, strangulation, or rape, which is what was meant."

Erika Lust, one of the few female porn directors in the world, concurs that choking and strangled scenarios are now the norm in porn. She claims that, outside of a BDSM setting, "face slapping, choking, gagging, and spitting has become the alpha and omega of each porn scene." These are fringe practices that are marketed as mainstream means to engage in sexual activity.

"It implies that a woman whose spouse chokes her might not report it - and if she does, it might go nowhere," says Edwards. "A direct threat to life is becoming normalized." It implies that if a woman dies in such a fashion, judges and juries will assume that "this is how people have sex now" and won't always ask questions.

If sex education is insufficient, according to Lust, "young people will turn to the internet for answers. Hardcore porn is the primary source of sex for many people. This, she claims, teaches children that "degradation is the norm" and that "guys should be aggressive and demanding."

One young man who spoke to the Guardian for this article claimed that he had been choke-holding his fiancée for a number of years because "she likes it." He contacted me again a few days later. "I asked her about our talk after giving it some thought. She claimed that although she believed I loved it, she doesn't really like it. The problem is that I don't because I assumed it was what she desired.

In a "sex game gone wrong" case that resulted in a not guilty verdict, Sarah* served as a witness. She was a former prisoner for drug and sex offenses who lived in the apartment below the victim and exuded warmth, friendliness, and vulnerability.

Sarah overheard disputes upstairs one afternoon, intermingled with laughs. "Get off me!" her neighbor yelled. Falling to the floor noise was followed by scuffling, sex, and then silence. Sarah went upstairs later that evening because her ceiling was pouring with water. The kitchen tap was still on and her neighbor's door was open; she switched it off and went to the bedroom.

She says, "I saw my neighbor hanging from a rope. He was sleeping next to her. One policeman allegedly questioned Sarah if her neighbor was "the local entertainment," according to Sarah.

It took a while for the matter to go to trial. The victim, who sustained more than 30 wounds, was described to the jury as a troubled woman. She had texted indecent content. Her bed partner stated that they had only ever engaged in "regular sex." No one else was charged, despite the fact that Sarah and another neighbor believed there had been two males in the apartment. Not the defense, but the police or Crown Prosecution Service invented the sex game gone wrong. According to Sarah, "It seemed like the cops believed she had in some way requested it." The "sex game like in phim sex hd gone wrong" narrative served as a means of assigning blame to everyone and nobody. The man who was asleep was declared not guilty. Never was anything explained.

The deceased woman had three children; her mother, sister, and daughter were all present during the trial. Sarah has no idea how it will affect them. She admits, "I can see why she might be thought of as a challenging victim to present to a jury. However, as far as I'm aware, "Get off me" may have been her final words.

The Wynne-Jones family did have the outcome they desired; Roberts has served 10 years of his sentence, but to Vicky's mother, it has been a very short period of time. "It doesn't put a lot of value on a person's life for the people who have to go through what we did and then walk away with a charge of manslaughter and a four-year sentence," the defendant said. pornsexzone.com