Mental Health

Open Access: No.

Abstract

Choking/strangulation during sex is prevalent among young adults in the United States. We examined associations between having ever been choked and participants’ current mental health  symptoms (e.g., feeling depressed, anxious, sad, lonely) in the prior 30 days and in the prior year. Participants were 4352 randomly sampled undergraduates who completed a confidential online  survey and reported lifetime partnered sexual activity. 33.6% of women and 6.0% of men reported having been choked more than five times. After adjusting for demographic characteristics,  having been choked remained significantly associated with all four mental health outcomes, except for overwhelming anxiety among men.

Relevance

“We found that a history of having been choked during sex was associated  with college students’ reports of feeling sad, lonely, so depressed it was difficult to function, and (for women but not  men) overwhelming anxiety; this was the case for mental health symptoms reported for the prior 30 days as well as in the prior year.”

Also, “as hypothesized, with few exceptions, those who reported having been choked during sex more than five times were more likely to report” these mental health symptoms than those who had been choked fewer times or not at all.

Women are “disproportionately checked during sex.”

“In conclusion, we found that women college students were more than five times more likely to have been choked during sex as compared to men. Additionally, we found that a history of having been choked during sex was related to feelings of depression, sadness, loneliness, and (for women) overwhelming anxiety.

Citation

Herbenick, D., Fu, T. C., Kawata, K., Eastman-Mueller, H., Guerra-Reyes, L., Rosenberg, M., & Valdivia, D. S. (2022). Non-Fatal Strangulation/Choking During Sex and Its Associations with Mental Health: Findings from an Undergraduate Probability Survey. Journal of sex & marital therapy, 48(3), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2021.1985025