Choking: what's love got to do with it

David Sherman

Browsing the New York Review of Books, I stumbled upon a woman’s essay about her friend’s sex life. Her friend had finally found a guy she liked. The fly in the exchange of fluids was her boyfriend’s affection for choking her during sex. Men and relationships are hard to find, the author explained, so her friend decided playful strangulation was worth keeping the man. She’s not alone.

Numerous studies from the U.S. to Australia report anywhere from 20-60 per cent of young women say they have been choked during sex. This appears to be a relatively new phenomena, increasingly popular in the last 10 years. Reasons include the prevalence of “dating” apps where relationships are short-term and expendable, some women enjoy being dominated and some put up with abuse to make their partners happy -- young men wanting relationships with real women as opposed to what they find on their computer are difficult to find. And, of course, the prevalence of pornography where women are depicted as objects and some say it’s kinky fun. Some women admit they enjoy being totally dominated by a man’s hands around their throat. It’s their idea of foreplay. Maybe the threat is part of the fun. If it doesn’t kill you, it can increase the pleasure of orgasm.

What’s love got to do with it?

Hockey season hasn’t started. I’ve seen all the Bruce Willis flicks on Prime so I watched a bit of Pornhub and then hit my dating apps. I have a hundred and thirty-five of them.

In 10 minutes, I arranged to meet a good-looking woman, suitably desperate and lonely. I invested minimally in a quick, cheap beer and adjourned to her apartment – easier to get rid of her -- where we dropped our clothes, climbed into bed and I started choking her.

This is a bit tricky and, whether she liked it or not, was irrelevant. She was lonely and horny and choking is the latest. Straight sex is so yesterday. It’s a new age. Today, we have hi-tech silicone machinery, toys and creams and unguents and pills and powders. Some are into bullwhips, but they can leave marks or even scars, which some women resent, though others think it’s a red stripe of courage.

I’ve been choking women I meet on apps for the last several years. It’s the latest thing other than bondage and blindfolds and inviting your friends over to join the fun.

I’ve read men are afraid of relationships and women are hungry for men and good times. I’m not afraid of relationships as long as they don’t last for more than 30 minutes and don’t involve using the same woman again.

Who needs love and partnership when you can have a different woman each night, or several, most of whom willing to go along with a little good-natured, all-in-fun abuse. Some don't mind a lot of abuse. I mean, women want kids and families and men to do men things like going for walks, candle lit dinners, changing diapers and washing dishes.

Forget that. I’m into choking, improving the woman’s pleasure. Selfless. I do it for them. Sometimes they gag and choke and a few times they’ve passed out but it’s all good sexy fun as long as you don’t have to call 9-1-1.

My fingers around a woman’s throat amps up her pleasure, makes me feel like a real man. A gentleman. I don’t leave until I make sure she’s breathing. I don’t really know how she feels when I’m doing what comes naturally while my hands are wrapped around her throat. I’m sure her gasps are a sign of pleasure.

On a good night, I can go from one woman’s bed to another, bouncing from app to app on my phone, from cab to cab. Lot of lonely women out there and about half don’t mind a little choking.

Only a few have become testy. One even kneed me in the groin and threatened to call the cops but she just wasn’t with it. I’m a generous guy who wants to give the girl of the moment a good time, as long as it doesn’t take more than 20 minutes.

I used to like tying up women, blindfolding them. Guess where I am and what I’m going to do. Some girls hadn’t seen a man in so long it didn’t matter if they didn’t see me, either. And, it made them kinda willing. After all, a good man is hard to find. Even better when they can’t see you.

But if you tie a woman up you kinda have to untie them when you’ve had your fun. It takes as much time to tie as untie and some women don’t like to be trussed up like a turkey when I leave. And good ropes are hard to find.

Choking is the new bondage. No ropes needed and it goes right with all the other cool stuff I see on the web, like spitting, slapping, hair-pulling and other fun things women like. It’s 2025. Love, wine and candlelight are out. Anonymous hookups with a little moderate violence are in.

No more heartbreak, no more passion, no more love sick, no more divorce. Just a few bruises, a lot of orgasms, at least for me, and I get to meet new people every time the urge strikes – about three times a week. Sometimes nightly. A lot of lonely women out there, thanks to all those perverted incels pleasing themselves staring at porn.

Why please yourself when there are thousands of women desperate to please you, happy to be abused in the 21^st Century way.

And I respect women. I use a condom almost always, make sure my 10 p.m. doesn’t infect my 11 p.m. I even wash my hands cause my phone can get pretty grimy.

I know most women who allow themselves to be manhandled, spat on, yanked, pulled, choked and generally abused in the name of fun are hoping to trap me into marriage or being a full-time boyfriend. Screw that.

Who wants a girlfriend who’s had sex with a different guy every night and let herself be used that way? And the things these women do with their mouths. I want to have kids one day. Letting those lips kissing my babies would be sick.