The widespread normalisation of one extreme sex trend has dangerous hidden implications for women, one expert warns.
With Pornhub amassing more visitors than Amazon and Netflix, there’s no denying that pornography has seeped into the everyday lives of Brits. And the content is getting more and more extreme.
Choking during sex has become so normalised that it’s often referenced in popular culture. In 2023, rapper Jack Harlow’s song “Lovin on Me” went to number 1 in the UK Official Charts. He sings in the chorus: “I’m vanilla, baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby”. And across social media, there are “choke me daddy” memes which promote “breath play” during sex.
Professor Clare McGlynn, a legal academic and expert on violence against women and girls, explores this disturbing shift in her new book Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back. “Millions are watching those sites,” she warns, “yet hardly anyone is talking about it”.
McGlynn spoke to The Mirror‘s resident book critic Dr Aimee Walsh about her work, the frightening real-life consequences of ‘strangulation sex’, and how we can fight back against ‘Big Porn’.
It comes as the government has put the dangers of choking on the school agenda, as teenagers will be taught that strangling or suffocating someone during sex could be an imprisonable offence in new sexual education lessons. The government-backed lessons for 14- to 15-year-olds includes an updated Relationships, Sex and Health (RSHE) curriculum when new statutory guidance comes into force in September.
Professor McGlynn has worked on the front lines of extreme porn for decades. Her research with Erika Rackley reconstituted what was then referred to as “revenge porn” to what is today called “image based sexual abuse”. She has seen the rise of adult content from decades ago when porn was purchased in shops and ‘soft core’ meant topless women while hardcore showed an erect penis. Now, her research shows that mainstream pornography sites depict illegal acts, such as incest, as “fantasy”.
Before we tackle the misogynistic ‘Big Porn’ beast, we must first know what it is that is meant by “extreme porn”. How can we define such a term when desire is so subjective? Professor McGlynn explains: “There is a legal definition of extreme pornography which covers rape pornography, life-threatening injury and is going to now cover strangulation and incest.” However, she says that the term, in her usage, is “a more general term that doesn’t really have a strict definition,” adding: “I would use extreme porn to describe porn that reproduces illegal or unlawful acts.”
In 2015, Professor McGlynn successfully campaigned for the criminalisation of rape porn. However, it has not gone away; instead it has simply been relabelled as “force” or “sleep” porn, or with titles such as “oops – wrong hole”.
McGlynn said that this is a concern, as “on the mainstream sites it’s blurring the boundaries as if the sleep content or stealth or force is normal and it’s acceptable.” Some of this porn is acted out – which McGlynn criticises for “valorising or glorifying rape”.
She tells The Mirror that pornography depicting rape used to be hosted on dedicated websites. While these sites were not hard to find online, it was clear that what the viewer was looking at was rape. Now, McGlynn says, it is “everyday mainstream pornography,” appearing in much more subtle ways.
Misogynistic porn forums and sites have entered the public consciousness too. In 2024, the world was rocked by the Gisele Pelicot case in France, were 51 men, including her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, raped her as she slept.
Dominique Pelicot orchestrated the crimes, while the other 50 co-defendants were men he recruited online to abuse his drugged and unconscious wife. All 51 defendants were found guilty of offenses ranging from aggravated rape to sexual assault.
Closer to home, the National Crime Agency reported this month that at least eight people were arrested in the UK as part of a probe into a “highly international network” of men who drug and rape women and use online forums to share footage of the abuse.
From kink to mainstream
Another popular act in modern porn is non-fatal strangulation, as known as “choking” which has has moved from “kink” to the mainstream, as increasing numbers of people report engaging in this activity during sex. Professor Glynn chalks up some of this rise in everyday use to ‘Big Porn’ normalising the act, by driving this content through algorithms.
It is now so commonplace that The Guardian reported in 2022 that, “many young people don’t think [choking] even requires consent.” It is defined by Durham University’s Dr Hannah Bows as “the grabbing, holding or compression of another’s neck either by hands, or limb, or by use of a prop or weapon, and typically involves restriction of blood or air flow.”
In April 2026, amendments to the Crime and Policing Act 2026 criminalised the possession or publication of pornographic content depicting non-fatal strangulation or suffocation. Yet choking is still shockingly prevalent on porn sites. McGlynn says: “It is a misogynistic aggressive act even when consensual. Although women have been collectively convinced that it’s a normal part of sex and it’s just one of those things you do. At root, it is a misogynistic exercise of power. The terminology choking does minimise it without a shadow of a doubt.”
The Mirror asked her about the relationship between seeing choking in porn and the increase in the act in everyday sex lives of Brits. She explained: “It’s a bit like with advertising or the PR industry, when you’re repeatedly shown something, you start recognising that car and someone goes out and buys it. It’s a similar sort of process from porn.
“In the strangulation context there are studies that have been done particularly on young people and the more porn they watch, the more strangulation they see in porn and the more they act it out.
“Strangulation is one of the clearest examples of the impact of porn … Twenty odd years ago there was hardly any of that in pornography and we’ve seen over twenty years that increasing in pornography it is becoming quite ubiquitous”.
She argues that “there is no safe way” to choke somebody. “It is exceptionally risky to your long-term health and well-being of women. It’s just terrible.”
New medical research shows that extreme damage is lurking beneath the surface. Professor McGlynn says: “The evidence that’s coming out from the MRI scans and the blood tests about how it is giving young women brain damage because it’s impacting on the pathways in your brain, on your memory function, on your information processing. It’s like concussion in sports.”
“[People say] that’ll never happen to me, so this will be fine”, she adds. “You don’t know whether that’s happening to you or not. The slow impact on your brain is imperceptible and is difficult unless you’re getting an MRI scan. You don’t actually know.”
How to take action
With more daily users than Amazon and Netflix, there is no denying that porn has an effect on our society. It is there whether we talk about it or not. So how can the average Brit fight back against this harmful content?
Professor McGlynn said: “Under the Online Safety Act, these platforms should not be presenting this material to us. It’s just that it’s not enforced.”
Last year, Ofcom brought in age verification requirements for visitors to porn sites. However, McGlynn thinks that this isn’t addressing the issue at hand. She said: “We would not need all of these age assurance laws were it not for the nature of the content. We’re only bothered about the 15-year-old accessing it because it’s so violent, racist, and misogynistic. We’re worried about the impact.”
But how do we resist these mind-warping depictions of sex? McGlynn said “don’t use these main websites. Pay for your porn. Search out material that is not made, [or] is not being produced and shown by some of these platforms.”
Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back by Clare McGlynn is out now.
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If something sexual happened to you without your consent, or you are not sure, you can talk to Rape Crisis England & Wales. It does not matter when it happened.
If you need support, please contact Rape Crisis’ 24 hour sexual abuse support line. You can contact them at any time, day or night, all year round, on 0808 500 2222
