Welcome to Doing It, a column where sex educator Varuna Srinivasan explores the deep connections between sex and emotions. This month, they explore sexual choking and breath play, which is on the rise despite concerns from medical experts. Have a question or story idea for Dr. Srinivasan? Submit it here.
I’m on X, doing my nightly scroll ritual before going to bed, combing through the internet before I fall asleep when I come across a post with an illustration of…. and I can’t believe I’m writing these words…. Spongebob being choked and enjoying it. If that wasn’t enough, the tweet was captioned “Choke Me Daddy.”
Stopping dead in my scrolling tracks, I was—as the kids would say—gagged. Quite literally. Because truly, at no point has a meme had such an impact on me or led me down such a rabbit hole of intrigue.
Turns out, the Choke Me Daddy meme—which peaked in 2022—was so popular that academics from the University of Indiana combed through 300+ memes related to the hashtag #chokemedaddy to analyze their role in how young people perceive sex. I wonder if their research team is hiring…
More importantly, their research found that because much of the content normalizes choking as fun and sexy, it inherently minimizes the psychological and physical risks, of which there are many. I really don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble here because I get it, we all want to be choked by Aubrey Plaza in the backseat of a Honda (was I speaking out loud again?)—but choking is inherently dangerous, especially if done by someone who has no idea what they’re doing.
Miss Madeline, a sex educator and dominatrix who runs workshops on how to choke a partner safely, worries that that the prevalence of choking in media—which she refers to as “an iconic kink move and one of the most commonly displayed acts to denote rough, primal or animalistic sex”—is leading to the popularization of a move that’s actually quite advanced.
“Choking is not a beginner level activity,” Madeline warns. She says that even though choking can be an entry point to BDSM for many new players, it does require training and if not done right can have severe consequences.