Rough sex is not an excuse to get away with murder| Glamour UK

As part of her new three part documentary series on ITVX, Laura Whitmore investigates the rise in rough sex - and its lethal consequences.

Growing up, going to school in a convent in Ireland and being taught sex education by nuns as a teenager, frankly there wasn’t much talk of actual sex at all, let alone talk of rough sex. It wasn’t something I had to think about or was even aware of. We were more concerned that even looking at a boy could get you pregnant (!) and myself and my friends pretty much avoided talking about sex at all times. Looking back now, I really wish I’d had more open conversations about all of this.

But that was over two decades ago and since then, teenage sex conversations and the big concerns that come with them have changed and progressed beyond all recognition; as have conversations about sex in the media and online. But alongside this, images of rough sex and BDSM have bombarded popular culture.

Young men (and women) learn about what sex looks like from porn, readily available 24/7 on the internet, films and television shows such as Fifty Shades of Grey or this year’s The Idol. The hit HBO show, from Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, used Sadism and Masochism in its barefaced effort to seem cool and subversive.

At the end of the first episode, Jocelyn, the lead female played by Lily-Rose Depp is asphyxiated during sex so much that she almost loses consciousness until the male character played by The Weeknd, cuts an air hole with a knife and she gasps for breath.

We are bombarded with images and videos such as this, of women being used and abused and, what's more, apparently enjoying it.

BDSM (meaning bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism) is sex that involves some type of power play for added excitement and pleasure. Think whips, chains, cuffs, and restraints. But for some people, BDSM can also involve asphyxiation, or choking, which can create power dynamics in the bedroom, which those participating can find really sexy. Giving someone permission to choke you—or vice versa—is allowing the two of you to take on dominant and submissive roles in bed. This rough sex is something many yearn for in sex and receive pleasure and endorphins from.

BDSM is now a booming multi- billion-pound business that’s growing year on year. During the pandemic sales of bondage kits in the UK rose a whopping 97% and Google searches for “what is BDSM?” were up by 70%.

It’s sold as playtime for adults, but does this seemingly harmless fun have a dark side? Yes, it very much does.

As people in this country become more adventurous in the bedroom, there are worrying reports of a simultaneous rise in sexual violence. The highest ever number of rapes within a 12 month period was recorded by police in England & Wales last year. Charges were brought in just 3.7% of those cases. In a 2020 survey of men under 40 by the BBC, more than a third said they choked a woman during sex and nearly a quarter admitted doing it without any discussion beforehand. Choking is not a taboo subject with a lot of my friendship groups casually dropping the term when talking about dating experiences.

But at what stage does rough sex become killer sex?

Fiona from the charity We Can’t Consent to This told me 70 Women in the UK have been killed by men due to rough sex since 1990, where the perpetrator then claimed that the violence was consensual.

This is why I decided to investigate rough sex, its depictions, representations, and how it plays out in real life in my new documentary, Laura Whitmore Investigates: Rough Sex, which is part of an ITV three-part series of investigations (the other two uncovering the rising incel culture and cyber stalking in the UK.)

I learned that even if choking is wanted during sex, there are extreme ramifications for our long-term health from blood clots, preventing oxygen from going to the brain which can cause strokes, and if choking goes really wrong, it can even kill you. And pretty quickly too.

Knowing how serious choking can be, can you really consent to that? Can you really consent to the risk of being killed? If a woman consents to being choked but doesn’t know what could happen, is that really consent? These are the questions I explore throughout the documentary.

One thing I wanted to achieve from this film was a balance. I go on to a porn set, I attend a BDSM workshop. I test different whips for spanking. I actually was surprised that my BDSM teacher said she would never teach choking or breath play and it is widely condemned as too dangerous in BDSM. This was relieving, but outside of these spaces, some people are using BDSM acts as an excuse to hurt people.

The most shocking part of shooting was learning about the rough sex defence (sometimes called the ‘50 Shades Defence’) where men have killed women and used the defence of: ‘it was rough sex gone wrong’.

As well as immersing myself in this world I needed to be respectful to all parties involved. Some of the interviews I found very emotional and wanted to give the victims who had been killed a voice that was taken from them.

Victims such as Charlotte Teeling from Birmingham, who was 33-years old when she was killed in 2018 by a man she’d known for just a few hours. Her killer, Richard Bailey, had strangled and smothered her in what he claimed was a sex game gone wrong. I speak to her sister who will forever be traumatised by her sister's murder. However her killer received a heavy sentence and there is some comfort in that for her family.

But these types of cases with victim shaming and previous sexual experiences used by the defence team can be difficult to process.

Chloe Miazek from Aberdeen was just 20 years old, and was a week off her 21st birthday party, when she met Mark Bruce at a bus stop after a night out with her friends. Two hours later she was dead. Bruce claimed he accidentally strangled her to death while they were having sex. Bruce received a relatively light sentence and is due to be released this year.

I travelled to Scotland to her brother Nathan’s home to speak to him and her dad, Bob. It was one of the hardest but most important interviews I think I’ve ever done. Even writing this now I feel myself well up, thinking maybe I’m not cut out for this, but I am in awe of Bob and how he has never stopped defending his little girl’s honour. You never get over losing a child, especially in such a brutal way. Bob has fought to get her the respect and justice she deserves. His child was choked to death, this is not a consensual sex game gone wrong. This is a young girl taken too soon and a family destroyed forever.

Speaking to these people who know, all too well, how wrong rough sex can go, it’s hard to believe how commonplace non-consensual choking has become. Unfortunately, I think a lot of women share this contradictory feeling of not wanting to go ahead with sexual acts that we’re not comfortable with, but also not wanting to appear like a prude, so succumbing to it. We wonder if everyone else is doing these acts? We assume that it’s normalised and assume that we should feel ashamed for not wanting to join in - but that’s not what sex is about. Sex should be about expression and fun, and you should know the dangers of certain acts and be able to talk about them openly.

BDSM may give a lot of people pleasure and of course there’s nothing wrong with people being curious. But I’ve learnt the importance of conversations. It is very clear that asphyxiation or choking is not the go to act for spicing up sex. TV and Porn have misled us. In fact, breath play is the most dangerous of all and as I have seen, can be lethal. There’s this whole new generation of young people growing up seeing choking normalised without knowing the consequences. It’s not a trial and error experience and above all, it’s not an excuse to get away with murder.

So what is the solution? I spoke to Hannah Bows an Associate Professor in Criminal Law about legislation that could be drafted to protect victims' identity in murder cases where the defence is rough sex. This would serve to protect the reputation of the victim and the families who are left behind being subjected to the painful consequences of the trial and resulting media frenzy.

Now that I’ve finished the investigations, I know how much this culture of silence and avoidance is hurting us. We need to have tough conversations about rough sex more than ever, and I wanted to encourage that with the documentary.

Violent imagery will probably always be available, and we can’t pressure or expect platforms who show it to raise our children or protect our friends. What we can do, though, is educate our children and young people about it. That way, we can help them to understand the risks, know that they don’t have to do certain sex acts just because their partner might want them to, and avoid succumbing to pressure. I was nervous before shooting it, but now I feel a lot stronger. I know more than ever, how important consent and having control over your body, life, and opinions is, and that no one can take that from you.

Laura Whitmore Investigates: Rough Sex, is one of three episodes revealing and exploring modern problems in society, including Laura Whitmore Investigates: Cyber Stalking and Laura Whitmore Investigates: Incels. They are available to watch on ITVX now.

As told to Beth Ashley.

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