Summary

The article discusses the prevalence of sexual strangulation among teenagers, leading to the introduction of a new law in Ohio criminalizing the act, reflecting broader concerns about the impact of social media and pornography on youth sexual behavior.

Abstract

The phenomenon of sexual strangulation has become alarmingly common among teenagers, prompting Ohio to introduce a specific law to address it. This behavior, once considered a niche fetish, has rapidly entered mainstream sexual practices, particularly among young adults. The rise in strangulation cases coincides with a decrease in real-life sexual interactions, as adolescents increasingly engage with digital media, including pornography and social platforms. The article highlights a significant shift in sexual behavior, with research indicating that the majority of college students have engaged in choking or strangling during sex. The legal system is now grappling with these changes, as evidenced by the new legislation that treats strangulation as a distinct crime, separate from assault. The situation is further complicated by societal expectations and the misunderstandings of consent among teenagers, often influenced by their online interactions and the portrayal of sexual scenarios in media.

Opinions

The author, with a background as a legal secretary, emphasizes the rarity of new laws being enacted, suggesting that the creation of the strangulation law reflects a serious and widespread issue.
There is a clear distinction made between online sexual behavior and real-life sexual interactions, with the former being seen as disconnected from real-world consequences and consent.
The article implies that the prevalence of pornography and social media is contributing to a decline in actual sexual encounters among young people.
The author points out that teenagers often lack knowledge about safe sexual practices, such as the use of safe words in BDSM, and may not fully understand or respect the concept of consent.
There is a critical view of how the legal system may inherently bias towards believing one party over another in cases of sexual misconduct, particularly when it involves male and female adolescents.
The article suggests that parents may be out of touch with their children's sexual behaviors and the modern sexual landscape, which can perpetuate misunderstandings and unsafe practices.
The author seems to advocate for a more nuanced understanding of teenage sexuality, acknowledging that girls can also initiate sexual activities, and that both boys and girls can be confused or misguided in their sexual explorations.

Sexual Strangulation Among Teenagers Is So Common, They Had To Invent A New Law

Down the rabbit hole of social media and the criminalization of boys.

I’ve been a legal secretary for a very long time, and I can tell you, it’s not every day that we run across a new law.

Laws tend to be very rooted in place, like old, particularly ugly trees that need to come down, but no one wants to spend the time or money.

That is, until a behavior becomes so widespread and such an undeniable problem that something has to be done.

I am by no means an expert on sexual kinks and fetishes. But at this point, sexual strangulation has left the realm of “fetish” and landed solidly next to the missionary position.

And it’s done so with lightning speed.

There are a lot, a lot of sexual kinks and fetishes out there. This article in Allure may leave some people clutching their pearls and wondering what the hell is wrong with people. (Vorarephilia was a new one to me — thanks, Armie Hammer.)

But despite TV shows like Euphoria and the prevalence of pornography on every possible platform, people are actually having much less sex.

Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women. — Emily Willingham in Scientific American, January 3, 2022

The respondents to the confidential survey that produced these percentages ranged in age from 14 to 49.

Those aren’t statistically insignificant numbers. There are vast numbers of people who are no longer engaging sexually in real life with sexual partners.

What they are engaging with is pornography, social media, and online gaming.

And the problem with that is that the online world is not the real world. When people are online, they aren’t necessarily their “real” selves. They say and do things they wouldn’t do in person, in real life.

There’s the safety net of distance, anonymity, and a computer screen to protect them from the consequences of their actions.

Until there isn’t.

Effective April 4, 2023, strangulation is now a crime in Ohio, completely separate from other crimes such as assault.

Why? Because of findings like this:

Especially for those 18 to 29 years old, there have been increases in what many people call rough sex behaviors. Limited research suggests that an earlier idea of this was what I would consider fairly vanilla rough sex: pulling hair, a little light spanking. What we see now in studies of thousands of randomly sampled college students is choking or strangling during sex. The behavior seems to be a majority behavior for college-age students [emphasis added]. — Professor Debby Herbenick in Scientific American

“Ravishment” (or rape) fantasies are nothing new. But as young people are increasingly exposed to sexual scenarios at a younger and younger age, the hazards of those scenarios are either ignored or lost in the overwhelming noise of the internet. (For example, see every single TikTok “challenge” ever invented, like the “cinnamon challenge” or the “passing out game”. )

But strangulation puts on display a very specific power dynamic between “aggressor” and “victim”. The kind of dynamic that used to require “safe words” in BDSM play.

Teenagers don’t know about safe words, nor do they care. They’ve been told repeatedly to ask for consent, but what does consent mean when you’ve already shown up at a guy’s house and he assumes you’re there to have sex?

That was his understanding of your text interactions. Therefore, to his mind, consent has been given.

And from that point on, anything goes.

Choking in sex is a kink. Yet it has somehow made its way under the mainstream umbrella of things that many young people assume are OK to do without consent — often the first time you’re sexually involved with them [emphasis added]. — Chanel Contos in The Guardian, December 7, 2022.

Which is how we come to our teenage client, who’s been charge with “Strangulation” in violation of O.R.C. 2903.18, a felony of the fifth degree.

It happened the first time they met in person. And because there were no witnesses, it’s a he said/she said crime.

The likelihood is that our client will be found guilty. Why? Because he’s a boy, that’s why. Our only real strategy is to ask for a misdemeanor charge of simple assault.

Because who is the court going to believe, the girl or the boy? Even though, oftentimes, the girl has in fact instigated the behavior. Much like the case where we actually did get a charge of disseminating nude pictures dismissed because it was the girl who kept sending the pics, unsolicited by the boy.

Girls can want sex, too.

Did this girl want to be choked? Maybe. And then it got out of hand, or she changed her mind, or her dad saw the fingerprints, or her friends thought it was weird, or a hundred other reasons why the police showed up at our kid’s door.

And because of the lies parents tell themselves that “My daughter doesn’t do things like that,” and “My son doesn’t lie,” no lessons are learned and society chugs along with a 1990s, Stacy’s Mom-mindset in a Euphoria world.

And it all started because a young girl went to a young boy’s house whom she had never met and didn’t know, to do things that they had probably talked about in graphic detail via text.

And the real world got a little too real, because there is no real world anymore.