can i be a hater for a second. i think everyone’s new year’s resolution should be to reblog more art
btw art does not just mean drawings. reblog drawings and gif sets and fics and meta and edits and moodboards and anything else i may have missed. reblog people’s creations
We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.
Reblogging for the very high percentage of people here who haven’t received adequate sex education. No shame–this included me until a few years ago, I’ve participated many times myself, and I’m a nurse.
Choking is always edgeplay (i.e very risky). There is no safe way to choke someone. Even light pressure is not safe.
There is a nerve in the neck whose function is to lower heart rate. If you accidentally stimulate this nerve, it’s possible to lower the heart rate to zero very quickly. This can result in sudden cardiac death in seconds. Sometimes symptoms can be minimal and they unfortunately also mimic the symptoms of low oxygenation, which are the sensations you’re trying to provoke.
Also, if your partner has cholesterol buildup in the major artery leading to the brain–which there is no way to know except an angiogram–small chunks of cholesterol can break off, travel to the brain, and result in stroke. This too can initially cause minor symptoms the partner may not notice until it’s too late to reverse the process.
Breathplay is no kidding my very favorite kink in the world, and I hated giving it up, but please think very, very seriously. This is a Risk Aware Consensual Kink activity, not a safe, sane, consensual one.
Having your partner wrap their hands around your throat (strangulation) is both imminently dangerous, potentially dangerous for days afterward, and unless it’s something you’ve specifically asked them to do to you, can be a huge warning sign that you should be worried about their willingness to use violence against you.
A lot of people think the big issue is that strangulation compresses the trachea and hinders breathing. That’s a thing, but what’s even more dangerous is the compression of the blood vessels in your neck, which can directly cut off blood flow to your brain.
Even after the strangulation is over, there are potential lasting effects—brain damage, memory loss, and confusion, which often make strangulation victims very poor reporters of their own level of injury, which means that if, say, police show up following a fight, the victim might honestly say that they don’t think they were hurt very much and they feel fine.
About half the time they will have very small visible symptoms, like bruises on their neck, a raspiness to their voice, very small red specks on the skin of their neck or face, or burst vessels in their eyes. Half the time they won’t.
Which is not always a great way to tell which of them, in the days afterwards, will have a blood clot travel into their brain and cause a stroke, or will experience seizures and memory issues over the next several months or years. Those things might not be spotted without specialized medical attention and tests. If you’ve ever been strangled, tell a doctor; it may still be putting you at medical risk.
And aside from the medical risks, there are indicators that someone who has survived being strangled by an intimate partner is at a much higher risk of being a homicide victim. That basically, the willingness to strangle as an act of aggression can signal that they are more willing and able to actually kill you.
Yep. Strangulation is the #1 lethality indicator in an abusive relationship. People who report being strangled by their partners are 11X more likely to murdered than people who do not. That’s because once an abusive person feels comfortable doing this behavior, they’ll keep doing it but the damage is cumulative. The risk is not stable. The risk gets higher every time.
People often think that they must be strangled to unconsciousness for it to be dangerous, but any amount of grabbing or pressure applied to the neck or throat carries these vascular and neurological risks. That’s why I want to highlight the language @star-anise is using again: It’s any amount of having someone wrap their hands around your throat that carries these risks. It’s any amount of pressure applied to the throat or neck with any object.
So back to a kink context: Being fully Risk Aware about breathplay means understanding that not only are there short and long term risks, but also that the risk carries over and builds up each time you do it.
Why is all the fun stuff dangerous ?
Because when your brain thinks you’re in real true serious danger, it pumps out all kinds of cool brain chemicals, like adrenaline and endorphins. Adrenaline is thrilling and exciting, and endorphins are your body’s homebrew version of opioids that produce euphoria and distance from pain. To many people (me included), they feel fucking amazing.
Uuuunfortunately, getting your brain to turn those taps on involves making it think you’re in real true serious danger. And one of the simplest ways to achieve that is to put yourself in real true serious danger. Which has the downside of being, well… dangerous.
i don’t know how to tell people that deriving pleasure - sexual pleasure included! - from art* is good actually, and that creating specific kind of art “just” because you find it hot or whatever is just as good a reason as any, and you don’t actually need some “deep and meaningful” reason to create art about things. pleasure - sexual pleasure included - is not the devil, it is not Bad and shameful, and it’s not any less valid of a reason to create something than because you want to, idk, explore the depths of the human consciousness or something
* art here includes writing
i’m glad this post resonated with people because i lost a years-long mutual over it when i made it lmao
There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun – but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation
“everyone experiences [symptom]” how many times does it have to be explained that it’s often about the frequency of the symptom, not the symptom itself
“nearly everyone has had a headache before” i agree. “most people get headaches regularly” you’re starting to lose me. “it’s normal to have a headache all the time” go to a doctor.
“everyone gets anxious sometimes” true! “people get anxious pretty often” um. “it’s normal to be anxious all the time” go to a doctor. etc
“everyone experiences [symptom]” how many times does it have to be explained that it’s often about the frequency of the symptom, not the symptom itself
“nearly everyone has had a headache before” i agree. “most people get headaches regularly” you’re starting to lose me. “it’s normal to have a headache all the time” go to a doctor.
“everyone gets anxious sometimes” true! “people get anxious pretty often” um. “it’s normal to be anxious all the time” go to a doctor. etc
If I ask nicely will people reblog this and tell me what their most common breakfast is? Not your favorite necessarily, just what you have for breakfast most frequently? 🙏🏽
