‘I like a bit of choking - but that went too far’: police warn rough sex culture is reaching 12-year-olds

Tuesday, 16 December 2025

From choking to blurred consent, police warn rough sex culture is making sexual assault complaints, including those involving children, more complex and harder to prosecute. Amelia Wade reports.

Warning: this story contains graphic content and discusses sexual violence.

Police say they’re now hearing sexual assault complaints from children as young as 12 that involve choking.

One detective described a recent case involving a 14-year-old who told him : “I like a bit of choking, but that one went a bit too far.”

Detectives say it reflects a wider shift in sexual norms. In their casework, they told The Post that up to a third of sexual assault complaints from people under 30 in the past two years involved an element of rough sex or choking.

Both detectives and a researcher say the trend is causing harm and making prosecutions harder because it further blurs an already fraught legal and social question: consent.

“Consent is already often a blurry space, further blurred by all of this,” said Dr Samantha Keene, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute of Criminology.

Keene taught a session on the issue to senior detectives attending the advanced adult sexual assault course at the Police College in Porirua last month. The Post was given exclusive access to three days of the week-long programme so, in the wake of the Jevon McSkimming scandal, the public could see how frontline detectives are trained.

Read more:

• Inside the room where police are forced to face up to their biggest mistakes investigating sex crimes

• The three words a Mama Hooch drugging survivor warned police never to use

• Pass the blame, protect the badge: what the McSkimming finger pointing says about our institutions

Keene opened by acknowledging “the elephant in the room”: the Independent Police Conduct Authority investigation, which found police leadership failed to properly investigate serious sexual assault complaints made against the former deputy commissioner.

“I know that will be a huge distraction from the incredible work that all of you in this room do and the tireless effort you have for the victims of sexual violence.”

Then she asked how many of the 24 detectives present were encountering porn, rough sex and sexual choking in their work. A large number raised their hands.

Her research, she told them, focuses on “the new sexual landscape that we’re operating in with changing sexual norms and practices” and the way those changes can make consent harder to identify, explain and prove.

“If choking during sex, irrespective of consent, can result in miscarriage, stroke, traumatic brain injury, death - why are we normalising this? Why are we suggesting that this is okay?” Keene said.

“Because underlying all of this is a culture that still tolerates sexual violence.”

From niche to normalised

Keene argues the rise in rough sex has been propelled by mainstream culture and pornography, with choking increasingly becoming ordinary, even expected, rather than negotiated.

She pointed to the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, which brought BDSM into the mainstream and popularised a dynamic of male dominance and female submission.

She also cited Netflix’s 2020 film 365 Days, which sparked a social media trend where young people posted bruising injuries and framed that as sexually desirable, and HBO’s 2023 series The Idol, which depicted choking and sexual suffocation.

Keene said she began thinking differently about the cultural “backdrop” when a song from The Idol was circulating so widely her young niece came home singing it.

Lyrics from the song include: “push me and choke me 'til I pass out … Spit in my mouth while you turn me on. I wanna take your light inside. Dim me down, snuff me out.”

“When my 6-year-old niece came home singing it, I started to wonder about the influence that all of this has… particularly for young people,” said Keene.

Young people are often exposed to pornography early, and not always by choice. Keene cited findings that a significant proportion of children encounter porn by around intermediate school age, and argued that much mainstream online pornography depicts aggression and coercion as erotic.

“Yesteryear’s Playboy is not today’s PornHub,” she said.

Keene said she was concerned that young people were navigating increasingly violent content at a time formal sex education was being pared back and families were expected to fill the gap.

Rough sex, Keene argued, was now a normal part of sex for young people today.

Detective sergeants Hayley Adams and Michael Alexander agreed; this too is their experience on the frontline.

The officers, who are both stationed at the sexual assault and child abuse centre Koru House, in Petone near Wellington, said they were seeing more young complainants coming forward after sexual experiences that began consensually but escalated into choking or violence without discussion.

“We’re getting children… that come forward and say, I’ve had sex, it was consensual and there was choking but it’s gone a bit too far,” Alexander said.

“We’re getting these complaints from 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds.”

Adams said choking could now be “almost just part of a sexual encounter these days”.

“Often it’ll happen without any prior conversations around it.”

She said that was particularly confronting when it occurred in a one-night stand or unfamiliar environment.

“They don’t know this person well, they don’t know where they are but it’s just such a commonplace now that it’s a really terrifying factor, I think, of a lot of these sexual engagements.”

The blurring of consent

Keene told the detectives that, internationally, some surveys of university students have found a high proportion have tried rough sex, even if infrequently.

She has also conducted her own research in New Zealand, which is yet to be published. Based on 18 interviews, she said one recurring theme was that choking often occurred for the first time without a partner asking.

She described one interviewee whose partner choked her repeatedly until she lost consciousness.

It got to the point where the woman said he was “potentially trying to kill me”, Keene told the class. That woman has since reported her experience to police.

Another interviewee, Keene said, described rough sex escalating into choking and anal rape, leaving her believing she might die. The complainant reported the experience and found the initial police response validating, Keene said - but the court process did not deliver the outcome she had hoped for.

Keene said detectives were increasingly working in a space where young complainants might describe violence as “normal” or “part of it”, even while also describing fear, pain and loss of control.

That creates both practical and legal difficulty.

In New Zealand, a sexual assault prosecution can turn on whether a jury accepts that a defendant reasonably believed the other person consented - a threshold detectives in the room acknowledged is hard to meet, particularly when consent is disputed and events happened behind closed doors.

Keene said the problem is not just legal tests but persistent myths about rape and false allegations that can shape how complaints are received and how juries interpret evidence.

She cited findings from the Gender Attitudes Survey: around a third of New Zealanders believe false accusations are common, and the proportion who agree with the statement “rape happens when a man’s sex drive is out of control” has increased in recent years.

“If we’ve still got a third of people thinking that false rape allegations are common, we’ve still got an awful lot of work to do,” Keene said.

She also pointed to results showing a minority of New Zealanders still think a person is partly responsible if they are raped while intoxicated, and that some still believe it cannot be rape if someone does not fight back.

In the classroom, detectives discussed the effect that shifting norms can have on real cases.

“Because juries represent society, how do you get a conviction when everyone thinks that’s normal - what do you do?” one asked.

Another said rough sex can make “it extremely difficult to either proceed with the charge or get it over the line”.

The rough sex defence

Keene also discussed what has become known as the “rough sex” defence - where an accused person argues injuries or death occurred during consensual violent sex, rather than through assault or intentional harm. It has been banned in the UK, but can still be used here.

The most famous New Zealand example was the prosecution of Jesse Kempson for the murder of Grace Millane. At trial, the defence argued Millane died accidentally during consensual sado-masochistic sex.

Detective Inspector Scott Beard, who presented to the same training course on the Millane investigation, told detectives he strongly disagreed with the defence and believed it revictimised both Millane and her family.

Beard said he sat beside Millane’s mother, Gillian, during the three-week trial as she heard details “mothers should never hear about their daughters”.

“Most of those days she was shaking, sobbing, crying, hearing particularly the defence.”

Keene told the class that the courtroom use of the “rough sex” narrative made her apprehensive about publishing research that includes pleasurable accounts of choking because of concern it could be used to minimise harm in court.

“I’m being cautious with publishing the choking during sex research for fear that academic research might be weaponised,” she said.

‘Please come to police’

Detective Sergeants Adams and Alexander said they found the course useful for the refresher of key skills and for the professional contacts they made - and that Keene’s class helped contextualise what they were seeing on the frontline.

Both urged anyone who had a sexual experience they felt unsure about to report it, even if they did not want to take it further, because reporting can be a way to get information and understand options.

It can also help police build a wider picture over time. Adams said reports are retained and can become important later if other complaints are made about the same person.

“I think a lot of people worry that in reporting all of a sudden, it’s going to turn into this ball that’s rolling away and they can’t control it,” she said.

“But coming and talking to us, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be on this journey that you can’t stop. There’s going to be stops along the way where you can make decisions about what is best — and it looks different for everyone.”

Where to get help for sexual violence:

• Rape Prevention Education click here for local sexual assault support services.

• Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.

• The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.

• Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843 (females only)

• Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, click to find out more (males only)

• If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.