Sophie
“I blacked out, my legs were kicking, I broke a glass.”
Sophie woke up on the floor after having a seizure, and it took a while for her to comprehend that it had been caused by a man who strangled her during sex.
“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 hadn’t asked to be strangled, or “choked” as people often call it, but she says she accepted being strangled as “a normal part” of sex.
“You create a narrative in your head where you wanted it or it’s a good thing or it’s OK, because you don’t want to face the fact that somebody could have hurt you in that way.”
The man convinced her not to see a doctor after the seizure because he didn’t want to get in trouble, and Sophie was afraid of being shamed.
Now 21 years old, Sophie says the proliferation of violent porn among her generation means they’ve grown up with “such a warped perception of intimacy.”
Carrie
Carrie says she first experienced strangulation at a “vulnerable” time in her early 20s. Her partner was much older and had a powerful job.
“He had said ‘Do you submit to me?’ and I said yes, but I didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. And then he was very violent with me, more than I expected. And I was really afraid. I was panicked.”
“I remember, frequently he would be strangling me, and I would be fighting to stay awake. And I felt like I was fighting to keep my eyes open. And sometimes that was something that I could not do. And then afterwards I would feel very dazed and sometimes, like, off balance. I would almost struggle to walk. And then it would be like I was, like, mentally slow for a couple days afterwards.”
Carrie looked online and discovered she may have suffered brain injuries, and that was what gave her the courage to end the relationship. “[I thought] if only I had known this sooner, maybe I would have left sooner.”
Laura
Laura’s partner of over 10 years enjoyed watching violent porn. “It was, I think, the only thing that could excite him – which is really worrying – and that’s what he got used to.”
When he strangled Laura during sex, she often felt dizzy and even went unconscious multiple times. “I realized he had no idea about the fact that any of those times he could have killed me,” she said.
The last time they had sex, he used a ligature to strangle her. “I knew instantly that I was starting to have a seizure and then I woke up on the floor.”
Like Carrie, she then found the strength to leave the relationship. She is now in her 30s and suffers from memory issues and fatigue. “I get a lot of headaches. I get weakness. I have a lot of tinnitus, light-headedness, all sorts of things like that.”