Reality Check: Breathplay and Choking

As part of presenting taboo erotic fiction in a responsible fashion, I try to occasionally check in with the reality of real-world safe, consensual, respectful and ethical sexuality, kink and BDSM.

I’ve been a while since I’ve written a Reality Check article, due to a range of factors, but I’m making an effort to get back into delivering them in a semi-regular way. So please enjoy this one.

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Let’s talk about breathplay and choking.

Breathplay

When we talk about breathplay, what we mean is erotic asphyxiation – interfering with our own breathing, or that of a partner. We may do this for several reasons:

• It can create feelings of power and control, or submission and helplessness, in a D/s context.
• It can be associated with past erotic experiences in our lives.
• Reduced oxygen flows can make us feel lightheaded and dizzy, which may be pleasurable for some people.
• The restoration of oxygen after interruption can release dopamine, serotonin, and/or endorphins that produce a feeling of exhilaration.

Any of these factors can be sexually arousing, or heighten or enhance other sexual activity.

Before going on, I need to say something very important:

THERE IS NO SAFE WAY TO DO BREATHPLAY.

In fact, I’m going to say it again.

THERE IS NO SAFE WAY TO DO BREATHPLAY.

I don’t mean it’s not safe in the general sense of there always being a small risk. I mean that it’s not even *tolerably* safe. It’s inherently an extremely risky activity. No matter how you do it, or how long you do it, interrupting a person’s oxygen carries very serious risks including:

• physical damage to airways or the throat;
• cardiac arrest;
• brain damage from lack of oxygen; and
• death.

It is my very strongest recommendation that, if at all possible, you simply DO NOT DO BREATHPLAY. And I say this as someone who is quite prepared to take part in a range of other potentially dangerous kinks when the risks are appropriately managed.

However, the reality is that some of you idiots are going to go out and do breathplay anyway. So here are some further tips. Once again, none of these will make breathplay safe.

1) If at all possible, don’t play solo.

Doing breathplay on yourself, by yourself, is just about the riskiest possible way of doing this. Many people die each year from misadventure involving autoerotic asphyxiation. Others survive, but have severe brain damage.

2) If you must play solo, it helps to have a buddy, and have housemates be aware of your kink.

If you’re not able to have a consenting partner present with you while you’re doing breathplay on yourself, the next best thing is to have a housemate or buddy who’s aware of your kink, aware that you’re going to have some “solo time”, and who is briefed to actually enter your room and check on you at a given time or if they hear anything strange. That’s not a great safeguard, but it’s better than none.

That may be confronting to many people, so I’m just going to say again that being 100% secretive about your sexuality, in many, many cases, is more dangerous to your life than being open about it – and particularly so if you have dangerous kinks. If at all possible, surround yourself with sex-positive people that you can be honest with.

3) Learn the anatomy of the neck and chest.

I’m not going to cover the entirety of this topic here, although I look at a little of it further down under discussion of choking. You want to learn how the bones, trachea (windpipe), muscles and arteries interact. You want to minimise pressure on the windpipe and Adam’s apple, to avoid permanent damage to the physical structure of the throat and airway, and avoid breaking any bones. You want to avoid any more than minimal pressure on the carotid artery.

4) Do not play under the influence!

Seriously, don’t do this kind of play if you’re even a little bit tipsy or high, especially if its a drug that interferes with or constricts the lungs or airways. That includes prescription and over-the-counter medications. Don’t play with painkillers or cold and flu meds in your system. Save it for another day.

If you’re playing with a partner, that goes for both participants. You shouldn’t be topping for a D/s scene if you’re under the influence anyway, but particularly so for a high risk activity.

Beyond the physical and mental effects of the drugs, it’s important that all participants are able to enthusiastically consent in advance, and maintain that consent at all times during the scene, and that needs to be an intelligent consent because it involves weighing up serious risks. You cannot consent when you’re drunk or high. And that brings us to…

5) Have a serious consent discussion

You should always have an explicit consent discussion in advance of any sexual activity, and particularly so for kink, and *particularly* so for breathplay. A good consent talk for breathplay should include:

• The experience (or lack of experience) of all participants, including whether participants are trained in performing CPR;
• Any relevant medical history (including mental health) for all participants (including the top) that may:
  • impair their breathing;
  • cause them to panic during the scene;
  • impact their ability to communicate in an agreed manner at all times;
  • impact their ability to swiftly release restraints, gags or other choking or bondage devices in the event of a problem;
  • cause a risk of fainting or other incapacitation during the scene; or
  • (in the case of the top, if any suspension is involved) impact their ability to fully support the body weight of the person whose breathing is restricted.
• Emergency contacts for all participants – and and emergency contact should never be someone else who is involved in the scene;
• An explicit description of what play is going to occur, how it will be performed, and what safeguards are in place for if something goes wrong;
• Methods for signalling ongoing consent (or withdrawal of consent) at all times. If a participant is not going to be able to talk (or breathe) there should be some other physical cue for them to signal if they need to abort the scene.
• Plans and expectations for aftercare.

Do not ever do breathplay with someone who tells you that it’s safe, or they can make it safe, because that person is either lying to you, or they don’t know what they’re talking about.

As with all consent talks, this doesn’t have to be a chore. Good consent talks are sexy. They build anticipation for the fun thing you’re going to do. They’re a good chance for doms to demonstrate that they’re safe, experienced, and confident – which will be hot for the sub. They’re a good chance for the sub to communicate to the dom how to interact with them for maximum mutual pleasure, and for the sub to begin to get in the headspace for the scene.

6) Make a plan for recovery

Breathplay can leave you lightheaded, or suffering from uncoordination, muscle weakness, vision difficulties, numbness, and coughing. Make sure you have set aside adequate time to recover after breathplay. Do not drive or operate heavy or dangerous machinery immediately after breathplay.

7) Be ready to call for help, and be proactive in doing so.

If you are not comfortable telling a doctor that you performed erotic asphyxiation and are suffering complications, then do not do breathplay, and particularly do not do it with a partner, because you will be risking their safety as well as your own).

If you experience any unexpected symptoms after breathplay, or any symptoms that do not quickly resolve themselves, seek medical help immediately. Better to be safe than sorry.

Be honest with doctors! They’ve heard it all before. If they judge you, that’s about them, not you, but probably they won’t. But your health (and that of any partner) is more important than your feelings and you need to be able to discuss your kink with doctors in order to minimise your risk.

8) Educate yourself

This Reality Check isn’t a guide to doing breathplay. It’s just an attempt to reduce your risk.

You can do this better – and with less risk (although, still, a lot of risk) by making an effort to learn more about the subject. Read about it online from professional sex educators. If you’re in a city of any size, you can almost certainly connect with your local kink scene and learn from other practitioners. It may be the case that workshops are held in your area where you can learn and practice your skills.

Homework isn’t always sexy, but being the person who’s done the homework and can bring that confidence to your partners absolutely IS sexy. And, of course, it’s a hell of a lot sexier than brain damage or death.

Choking

I’m covering choking separately, because choking doesn’t have to mean breathplay.

There are a number of reasons that a person might want to be choked. These include:

• Wanting to engage in breathplay and have their oxygen restricted;
• Wanting the feeling of being controlled by the neck;
• Wanting the intimacy and vulnerability of having a partner’s hand on the neck;
• Wanting to evoke or roleplay violent or forced sex.

And likewise, these are the legitimate reasons why someone might want to engage in (consensually) choking a partner.

In only one of those scenarios is it necessary (or desirable) to actually interrupt a person’s breathing.

As with all things, choking requires enthusiastic consent. You shouldn’t be doing it unless both participants are not just willing to do it, but eager to do it. If that’s not the situation, either find something else to do with your partner, or find a different partner.

Once you have an eager partner, talk about what you both want out of it. What’s the experience you want to have? What’s important for it to feel hot for you?

Don’t do breathplay unless you both want it to be breathplay.

If you’re not going to do breathplay, that’s great. Here’s how to safely do choking play.

The person doing the choking wants to spread their hand as wide as possible. This is, unfortunately, going to be easier for doms with larger hands and subs with thinner necks, although you can still manage this if your hand isn’t big enough, as long as you’re careful not to use too much pressure.

What you’re trying to do is to bridge over the trachea (windpipe) so that your hand passes across it but does not put pressure on it. The single biggest danger of choking is putting too much pressure on the centre of throat, and damaging the trachea or larynx, or fracturing the hyroid bone (a bone in the neck that supports the tongue).

You want your fingers to rest on either side of the neck in way that you can exert pressure on the neck without impairing breathing. In doing so, you ideally want to avoid the carotid artery, which runs up the neck in line with your earlobe, just behind the base of the jaw.

The carotid is fine with slight pressure, but you absolutely do not want to be obstructing that bloodflow or pressing sharply against the artery. Have your fingers land just past it (if your hand is big enough) or just before it (which may slightly restrict their breathing, so go easy on that).

In most cases, the fingers on the side of the neck pressing down firmly but gently will be enough to impart a sense of control and vulnerability to most kinksters (whether giving or receiving).

1) Be constantly checking for maintained/withdrawn consent.

Keep your eyes on your partner’s face throughout choking, and release pressure at any sign of alarm or discomfort. Make sure you’ve negotiated a non-verbal signal in advance to abort the scene if the person being choked is uncomfortable.

2) Moving or pushing a person while choking them.

If you want to move a person via a choking hand – like pushing them against a wall or bed – again, be careful not to do it by pushing into the trachea or the carotid artery. One good way is to bring your whole arm up against their chest – so the arm is pointing straight up towards their throat – and then push their chest with the arm. You can use this to push them backwards – and it leaves your other arm free to e.g. hold the back of their head or otherwise control their impact and make it safe.

Another good way to apply mild pressure while choking is along the lower line of their jaw, using the arch of your hand. If you’re pressing into bone, you’re doing it right. Don’t go too hard – good choking is psychological, not physical. You want them to feel the pressure and feel helpless, and it doesn’t take a lot of pressure to achieve that.

You can also apply pressure during choking using the butt or heel of your hand, which should be resting near their collarbone. Again, don’t go too hard – collarbones *can* break, and the consequences can be nasty. Enough pressure to push them backwards should be fine. Putting your full weight on it is probably not.

3) Start soft!

With each new partner who you do this with, and in each scene with that partner, start at a minimum level of pressure, and go harder slowly while watching for their reaction and their continued active consent. As soon as you get a reaction, that’s hard enough – you don’t need to use any more pressure.

4) Sub’s hand on dom’s hand

While you’re first experimenting with choking with a partner – especially if you’re both inexperienced – a good communication tool can be to place the sub’s hand on the dom’s wrist during choking.

This allows the sub to give non-verbal feedback, by pulling the dom’s hand towards them if they want the dom to go harder, or pushing it away if it’s too much.

This is great because it can give the dom confidence that what they’re doing is wanted and appreciated.

5) Two-handed choke

Choking with two hands makes it much easier to avoid putting pressure in the wrong place. But if you are using this method, be careful to use less pressure overall.

Again, you want to make the sub feel controlled and helpless, which will be very easy to do with two hands – but you don’t want to actually crush their neck.

6) Choking isn’t for everyone!

Choking is a kink. It is not a normal or vanilla part of sex. Some people – in fact, many people – do not want to be choked. Nor is it a “normal sub thing”. Subs are not automatically into being choked. It’s not a default or mainstream desire.

Do not expect that a partner is going to be into this. You need to have explicit discussions with your partner in advance before doing any choking play of any kind, and only proceed with explicit enthusiastic consent.

Likewise, if you are a sub, you should not be expected to consent to choking unless that discussion has occurred in advance, and you have explicitly indicated that you, personally, would actively enjoy doing choking play.

And consent can be conditional! Maybe you want to do choking play – but not with men. Or not with people who aren’t experienced. Or only when you’re really, really horny.

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That’s all I’ve got to say on this subject today. I hope it’s helpful, and I hope it’s going to help you to make safer choices about your kinks!

I’m happy to take questions. As always, I defer to doctors and professional sex educators so if you ever anything from those sources which conflicts in any way with what you’ve read here, favour them over me.

– All These Roadworks
27 July 2025