As a Mum of four girls, I never planned to talk to my daughters about sexual strangulation. But these past days the choice was taken out of my hands.
The horrific news of the 16-year-old on Sydney’s Northern Beaches who died after suspected choking during sex and Tanya Plibersek’s concerns about the “explosion of sexual violence” among under-18s have prompted me to have confronting conversations with my daughters that I never thought I would.
I keep asking myself what, exactly, is my job here? How much do I tell them? How much do they already know anyway? How much will they listen? And if not to me, then whom?
When I was a teenager in the 1980’s the sexual danger talk was about mysterious strangers and dark car parks and not giving away your virginity too soon. I was brought up Catholic. Virginity was something to be guarded, then quietly surrendered (and faintly ashamed of either way).
But the sexual culture my daughters are living in isn’t out there lurking in the dark. Instead, it is brightly lit, full throttle and pushed to them around the clock in a relentless, free and constant delivery system in their back pocket.
So I have told them this.
A 2024 study by the University of Melbourne and University of Queensland surveyed 4,702 young Australians aged 18 to 35 and found 57 per cent had been strangled during sex. Most of the respondents say they first learned about the practice through pornography (60 percent), but many were influenced by friends (32 percent) or content in their social media feeds (30 percent).
As Chanel Contos, CEO of Teach Us Consent, said recently: “Mainstream pornography routinely depicts violence against women – slapping, strangling, and other abuse – while showing women as enjoying or accepting it.”
The problem here is repetition. Seen often enough online and framed as ‘normal’, sexual strangulation starts to seem like something everyone is doing or should be doing during ‘normal’ sexual relations.
But the experts are unequivocal: consenting sex is not violent, and there is no safe way to choke someone.
Women’s Health NSW Chief Executive Denele Crozier says presentations from women worried about strangulation-related brain injury have jumped 123 per cent since the launch of an awareness-raising and training program in 2023.
At the National Press Club this Wednesday, Contos will deliver a landmark address discussing the role of algorithmic funnels and the systematic promotion of outrage, misogyny and radicalisation online. Algorithms are sets of rules and instructions that social media platforms use to sort and rank content, deciding what users see in their feed and in what order. Contos believes these social media algorithms are squarely to blame for Australia’s new frontier in gender-based violence, and that social media platforms deliberately serve boys and young men a steady stream of extremist and misogynistic content to keep them scrolling.
The dark reality of this diet of misogyny is that online content is having a disturbing influence on societal attitudes and leading to catastrophic real-world consequences. Recent data shows a teenage boy is now the most likely perpetrator of child sexual abuse in Australia (the Australian Child Maltreatment Study finds that ‘known adolescents’ are now the most commonly reported perpetrators of sexual violence, as offending by adults has fallen and offending by peers has climbed).
Teach Us Consent’s current campaign Fix Our Feeds is calling on the government to urgently make social media algorithms opt-in, handing agency back to the user and preventing sexual violence content targeting of boys and young men. The campaign has had wide-spread support, with a growing public petition, Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull signing on, Tanya Plibersek urging Labor to consider a UK-style ban on strangulation in pornography and Zali Steggall pushing for a national respectful relationships campaign.
The conversation happening in Canberra right now is critical as Australia comes to terms with this crisis. But what is the conversation I need to keep having with my daughters?
When I was their age, the warning was simply “don’t”. However, the harm-minimisation research is clear that abstinence messaging fails and drives the conversation underground or online, where it gets more dangerous, not less.
The point isn’t to frighten my daughters off sex. I hope they have long and lustful sex lives! It’s to make sure that when they’re in the heat of the moment, they are already well informed, have agency and can set safe rules of sexual engagement.
So I have told my daughters this:
You own your own body. Always.
There is no safe way to choke someone.
If a boy ever says “Come on everyone’s into it”, he’s not a lover, he’s an algorithm with legs.
“Yes” isn’t a contract. You can change your mind at any point, about anything, even if you agreed to it five minutes ago, even if you’ve done it before.
Refusing to participate in a sexual act never needs a reason and never needs an apology.
Sex is meant to be pleasurable and fun. So if a part of it isn’t, you always have a choice to not do that part.
If he cites TikTok as his teacher, he is definitely not the one.
Yes, these conversations have been unflinchingly honest, occasionally icky, a tad mortifying and definitely taboo-smashing. But we have left nothing unsaid.
The thing is, the algorithm never has to look my daughters in the eye. But I do. And I refuse to let a dangerous feed get the last word.
So tell your daughters about choking before the algorithm does.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, chat online via 1800RESPECT.org.au or text 0458 737 732.