It started with a shocking statistic read out in a lecture hall.

A man who strangles a woman is 750% more likely to subsequently murder that woman. In fact, the link between non-fatal strangulation and femicide is so well-established that many organisations consider strangulation as the last warning shot before intimate partner violence turns fatal.

Non-fatal strangulation, which is the intentional or reckless restriction of another person’s breathing, became a crime across the island of Ireland in 2023. Through conversations I have had with organisations that work to tackle domestic violence, the message is clear: non-fatal strangulation is a key weapon in the arsenal of abusers. At the same time, though, non-fatal strangulation is far more common than it is actually understood.

I am a Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and this year I started a project to raise awareness of the prevalence and danger of this crime. Joined by ten students from the Master’s programme in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, what started as an educational campaign, rapidly transformed into a wider conversation about how violence and deadly control has become normalised and accepted within sexual relationships.

Shocking new statistics: a normalised danger  

Given the scale of gender-based violence in Northern Ireland, the project started by investigating non-fatal strangulation in this specific context. What I found was a stark reminder of the fact that NI is one of the most dangerous places to be a woman or a girl in Europe. My research shows, for the first time, that strangulation has been a feature in over half of all femicides in the North since 2020. Where full details are known, 57% of these women were subjected to non-fatal strangulation prior to their death, and/or strangulation was a feature in their cause of death. As more cases go to trial, this number is only likely to rise further. From the outset, the stated aim of the project was to raise awareness of this lethal connection between strangulation and femicide.

Even with this focus, I was continuously, albeit reluctantly, being drawn into conversations about sex. When project members discussed these statistics, whether in lectures, or amongst their peers, most people were shocked, often distressed. There was also a meaningful number of smirks. In fact, I have never once mentioned the project and not been laughed at and told that what I am describing is actually “choking,” apparently a normal sexual practice.

How has a crime that clearly foreshadows femicide become accepted, normalised, even routine? How has strangulation made itself comfortable in our homes and bedrooms, and the sexual experiences of over half of all 16–34-year-olds surveyed by The Institute for Addressing Strangulation?

Despite its prevalence, the medical advice on “choking” is clear: there is no safe way to strangle someone. In less than 4 seconds, and with less pressure than opening a drinks can, a person can lose consciousness. Even when there is no loss of consciousness, a person is vulnerable to complications such as stroke, seizures, and incontinence for up to two weeks after the event.

Proponents of strangulation during sex argue that it heightens their sexual experience, resulting in a feeling of euphoria. But consent does not remove risk. There are also valid questions as to how a person can give consent to an act that restricts their voice, their breathing, and can impact their short-term memory. You can be sex-positive and still recognise that when medical research shows that strangulation is causing irreparable brain damage, then it should have no place in any type of relationship or experience. Strangulation is violence.

Yet, it is normalised, if not celebrated, as a routine sexual behaviour.

Ending the doublespeak

How did a clear predictor for future femicide become entangled in sexual relationships? Across Ireland and the UK, this year has seen moves to ban depictions of strangulation in pornography as a core effort to combat this normalisation of violence. But strangulation is everywhere. It is in the “choke me, daddy” comments on social media posts, it is fetishised as a “hand necklace” in so-called romance novels, and when you try to push back against the brain damage it causes, you are accused of “kink-shaming”.

All of these efforts to muddy the waters of what is being spoken about and what is being done, predominantly to women, are deeply revealing. This is lethal violence wrapped up in doublespeak. This is the death of women – whether from femicide or post-strangulation complications – that is being sanitised, if not glamorised.

Strangulation needs to be clearly understood, and called out, for what it is: a red flag for femicide.

Dr Aishling Mc Morrow is a Lecturer in International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast. She has led the award-winning Non-Fatal Strangulation: Know the Signs research project alongside students from the MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice in the School of HAPP.