I met a man in his early 40s on a BDSM website. He’d gone to a lot of effort with his profile and came across as intelligent, worldly, liberal minded and kind-hearted, working in wildlife conservation. Definitely someone who was serious about finding a long-term partner - or so I thought. He stated he was a dominant, into bondage amongst other things too so I made clear to him that I was only into the bondage part of BDSM and, even then, would only consider having more than “vanilla” sex with someone I was in a long-term relationship with (i.e trust developed over a period of time). He’d agreed this was crucial too. After a rocky first month of dating where he threw in the towel twice when I said something in conversation he didn’t like, we finally ended up having sex. It was one of the worst sexual experiences of my life. I hadn’t been sexually activity for a while after a bad breakup so muscles were understandably tight which I warned him about the need to be gentle. But, rather than show patience and care he just got frustrated, ordered me to change position and told me to relax whilst he kept trying to push inside of me. He choked me 3 times too, usually when he spotted I was starting to enjoy myself more, which I was really shocked by and uncomfortable with but didn’t want him to get angry and leave if I asked him to stop so just pretended to like it. He bit my nipples so hard though that I eventually screamed and told him again that I don’t do the pain part of BDSM. He stopped and apologised but still continued to apply excessive force to my shoulders, arms and breasts repeatedly any time he spotted I was enjoying myself. Whilst I’m pretty strong compared to your average women, I’m still only 8st 7 and 5ft 5 whilst he was nearly 18st and 6ft 6 so you can imagine how sore I was for days following. Afterwards he left almost immediately and, messaging later, said he found it off-putting that I voiced what I wanted less or more of. He also complained that I was the only person never to give him oral sex first time. He made me feel guilty for not performing better for him initially! I should have ended it then but, I felt so awful that I tried to kid myself on that it was just bad first sex and it was definitely worth trying another few times before ending things. So I arranged to see him again. I also suggested we communicate boundaries in advance if during was too off-putting for him. He messaged the next morning though to say we “he knew we just weren’t destined for each other” and should just be friends. I deleted his number immediately and haven’t messaged again but he already mentioned having sex with 15 other women in the last 9 months off of dating sites...how many of them found themselves in the same position? How many more will he get away doing this to? I’m usually really confident re what I need and want when it comes to most things in life but even I found myself vulnerable. What is really concerning is that he genuinely believed he is “tender” lover and “not like most other men” as he always puts women’s pleasure first! That certainly couldn’t have been further from the truth - it felt like a porn film! Now I’ve been left feeling so angry that, despite working for services assisting those experiencing domestic abuse, I couldn’t even acknowledge that I was suffering a form of both emotional and physical abuse myself whilst with this man.

7 years ago I had my last one night stand. After many years in an abusive relationship, I finally got out but was surviving by meeting men in clubs and trying to claw back some of my power as an individual by having one night stands.

One one night after meeting a guy, some point later I was having consensual sex with him and he started to choke me without warning. I was shocked but as I was drunk, I had the confidence to push him off me and punch him in the face, allbeit fairly pathetically as it’s not something id ever done before. He was then really shocked that I had tried to hit him and said that he thought I would like it as I was an older, more experienced woman that I would enjoy it. For context he was in his early 20’s and I was in my late 20’s. I explained that I took it as an attack and not a pleasurable thing. I was really confused by this and still in shock as I thought he was trying to kill me but he thought it would turn me on, or at least said that.

I ended up speaking to the police who picked me up and took me home. They were two young male officers who when I spoke to them told me to sleep on it as I was drunk, that I had no marks or bruising so they couldn’t really do anything but that if I was really serious about reporting him then I should go to the police station in the morning to report what happened. Despite the fact that I was in their car and had told them what happened.

The next day I weighed this up and actually felt like my sex life and personal business would be dragged through court / press and I had no evidence of what had happened so I felt unable to pursue this further at the time. I never told anyone then and I stopped drinking and going out to pubs or bars or clubs. The reaction of the police made me feel like I wouldn’t be taken seriously.

Eventually I told a friend who was supportive and I reached out to the club I had been in that night to ask if anything like this had happened before. They said that the police had an open log of similar reports where women had had violence against them by one or two men who went there regularly that the club had told them about but they couldn’t do anything without the women coming forward. There was no publicity about this, no warnings or information shared that would make women aware that this was happening.

I have revisited this night more and more recently and have been able to begin to deal with what happened. I contacted the police with a freedom of information request and they had no record of the incident logged.

I have now realised that there have been other incidents where I had not given consent for sex, not given consent for particular acts during sex and have had violence perpetrated against me during sex, have been sexually assaulted and I have also had non-sexual violence, including strangulation during the abusive relationship. None of these men have had any repercussions from what happened which makes me angry sometimes. And many times I just put this down to bad sexual experiences and even continued relationships and sexual encounters with these men.

One of the biggest things for me was being able to frame this myself. It felt like such a grey area, it didn’t feel like rape, it didn’t feel like a sexual assault and when I described it as sexual assault people wouldn’t understand what I meant. Understanding that it was sexual violence has helped me heal in a way and hearing people have gone through similar things, whilst upsetting and it’s not ok, it truly has helped so much to understand my story and the things that have happened to me.

Thank you for this space and for the others who have shared. I stand with you all x

It was a 'friends with benefits' situation (his decision, not mine). We'd been casually sleeping together for a month or two. One night, during sober, consensual sex, he asked me if he could choke me. I said no, which he seemed ok with. But a few minutes later he did it anyway. This stocky 6ft man looming over me pressed hard on my throat with the palm of his hand so that I couldn't breath. It came out of nowhere and it was terrifying. It lasted a few seconds, and then I managed to push him off. I sat up and turned away from him, bursting into tears in shock. He looked embarrassed, and apologised, but I felt violated.

I laughed it off with friends in the pub later. I didn't want to admit to myself or anyone else how serious an incident it was. I also felt embarrassed and shameful, as if I was 'vanilla' and boring for not wanting it.

The experience stayed with me a for a long time afterward, and I sought therapy to come to terms with the trauma it inflicted. In that moment he didn't see me for me, he didn't think about my feelings or wishes. He saw my body as his play thing, an empty shell for him to do with as he liked. Ultimately, I said no. And he did it anyway.

It’s usually only once an incident is over or a relationship finished that you realise what happened was wrong. The last man I dated thought of himself as attentive and great during sex. However, I now realise there were red flags. Some times he would try and initiate sex and, if I was not in the mood for it, I would make it clear to him that I did not want to have sex. He would stop, but then try to initiate again. And again. And again. Eventually, after saying no 4 or 5 times, I would give up and just lay there, let him do what he wanted to do and then at least he would leave me alone. This happened about 5 or 6 times in a year long relationship. The same man would also try to initiate anal when I said no. If I said no he would say okay, but then still try to use a finger or ‘accidentally’ try to put his penis in my anus. He would do this at least 3 times during most times we had sex and would laugh at me when I told him that it was still no. It made me worry about boundaries and would upset and embarrass me as he did not seem to understand what was wrong with doing that. I did not understand why he would not accept ‘no’ and would also feel like I let myself down when I just gave in. I still feel like that a year since the split. Once, he got drunk and grabbed me around my throat in a rage and applied pressure. He did not stop until he wanted to stop. I never reported this and I have only told one friend since. I think the porn industry has a role to play but also that these men never face repercussions as the lines of consent seem to be so blurred in law and used against the victims. I feel humiliated that I let him use me in the way he did, but I just want to move on from that part of my life. It has put me on edge with regards to dating and taking things to the next level and trusting people in a sexual way.

I had only had sex with about 4 people prior to this one. Always hookups and I was pretty inexperienced. This guy from my university came over and was self aggrandizing from the start, which was a red flag. We started kissing on my couch and moved further. I asked him if he had a condom and he responded "No, because I didn't know we would be doing this" ...which was a complete lie. I told him I had some next to my bed and kept asking him if we could go there, but he refused. At this point, I was getting uncomfortable but reached a point where I was going through the motions. All of a sudden, he penetrated me with no condom. I dissociated and again, kept going through the motions. At one point he also put his hands around my neck. As an adult with a past of witnessing domestic violence as a child, this was not something I will ever agree to. I felt paralyzed and he seemed to tell by my face that I was shocked and said "Oh are you not into that." I shook my head and he removed his hands, continuing on without a condom. He stopped once he thought he was about to climax and proceeded to say goodbye and left.

I was left feeling uncomfortable and broke down crying but chocked it up to insecurity or something. I have immense anxiety and OCD and spent the next week buying numerous pregnancy tests even though I was on birth control. One part of this story that is perhaps the hardest to hear is that I told a female friend at the time what had happened without calling it rape, instead saying that he was just a rude, entitled boy. She laughed and stated that men are like that and continued to make fun of me for my fear of pregnancy.

A couple days later, the man (or should I say boy) texted me asking when we could meet up again. It took a lot of courage because I feared retaliation, but I told him I didn't want to see him again. He asked why. and I told him "I said I wanted you to wear a condom and you didn't". He apologized profusely and said that if I ever wanted to meet up for coffee to talk about our general work, to let him know. I was stunned by that.

It has taken almost a year for me to finally accept that that experience was rape. I still feel so uncomfortable saying that as I know there are thousands of women who have gone through much worse. I am lucky to have other friends with which I shared this story over time who were extremely considered about my mental well being. In fact, I didn't consider this rape and just laughed about it until I confided in a close friend and she asked, very concerned "Are you ok?" That was when I realized I wasn't.

I haven't had sex since then and am angry that this has added to my distrust of men. I want to be in a stable relationship at last at this point in my life, and I do feel like this being added another layer I now have to unpack. It makes me mad and sad and tired.

I started seeing a man I met via a dating site. One night we were out and decided to go back to his together. We had a few drinks down, and things started to turn sexual. I had mentioned over conversation prior that I’m somewhat into hair pulling, spanking, as I like to explicitly discuss likes and dislikes before it goes to the bedroom. I had stated wry clearly that choking is not for me. That I have a thyroid issue and that it actually hurts my throat. I told him I don’t judge anyone who’s into that if it’s done safely, but I don’t enjoy it, though I did down play just how much I don’t like it to not come across as too vanilla. Still- it was explicitly explained that I don’t want it. We get to his bed and start having sex. He pulls my hair a bit, harder than I expected but I enjoyed that. He could probably tell that I was surprised and also turned on by that. He began to get on top of me and penetrate me pretty hard, and put a hand on my neck. I immediately looked at him and said “I just told you I don’t like that!” He acted like he forgot because he had been drinking. We carried on and he didn’t try again that night. Over the course of the next few times we slept together, he would get excited and act like he forgot. A couple times it was when we were about to climax, and that made it hard for me to withdraw consent. I feel he knew this.

Each time I clearly reiterated I want him to stop trying to choke me. Each time he would gaslight me that it was an innocent mistake and most women liked it- and suggested that since I like other kinky things I should not mind being choked. I told him if it was something he really needed to incorporate we needed boundaries around it so I felt safe and heard. He didn’t like that, as I now clearly remember the smirk on his face when he would do it. He was grooming me to give in and seeing if he could control me. That’s what he was getting off on.

I went on 3 dates with a guy and on the 3rd date he came back to my flat. I agreed to consensual protected sex. Out of nowhere, he put his hands around my neck and started squeezing my neck. He didn't ask for consent. I was really scared. He then asked it if was ok, I was so scared and in shock I kind of mumbled yes. Then he squeezed again so hard that I couldn't breathe at all. I gasped for air, he released his hands and said sorry.

I had been dating a guy who came across as very morally aware, and we had discussed rape and consent.

About a month in we were having consensual sex for the first time and without any discussion or warning he put his hands around my throat and started choking me, I shook him off and told him that I was not ok with that. I felt quite uncomfortable and flustered but continued to have sex with him.

Once I was removed from the situation I saw it with clarity and wished I had not continued to have sex and instead asked him to leave.

I was in a long distance relationship for 6 months, we met abroad whilst I was working for him and there was a 10 year age gap. He would often slap me in my face, choke me, spit in my face and call me degrading names whilst we had sex. However, one night he overstepped the mark. He repeatedly slapped me across the face very hard. Dragged me around by my hair and called me racist names in the lead up to sex. I was crying hysterically and begging him to stop. I told him that he was really hurting me and asked him to stop several times until I had nothing left in me and gave up. In those moments, I did not want to have sex with him, I wanted nothing other than for him to stop hurting me and realize that I was scared of him. The next morning he joked and said it turned him on to know how frightened I was. If there was something I was uncomfortable trying, he would bribe me with a new dress. I have since blocked him following that awful night and will not see him again.

I met a man at a wedding. We got on well, and talked most of the day and evening. We went out clubbing together after the wedding was over, kissed a few times, and then I went back to his flat. We were in bed, kissing, etc. He put his hand to my throat, fairly lightly. I immediately grabbed his hands away and said "I'm not into that sort of thing". Fine. Carried on kissing. His hands came back to my throat, with some pressure this time. I tried to pull his hands away and sort of sat up and turned away from him, and said again "I'm really not into that. Don't do it". He apologised, and said he wouldn't.

We went back to kissing and he suddenly grabbed me tight around the throat with both hands. I tried to fight him off, and he slapped me a few times on my body. He sort of pinched me really hard too - all over. I've never experienced or heard of anything like that. All the while he was squeezing my throat. I was trying to fight him off, kicking, grabbing. I don't know if he stopped himself, or if one of my attempts to kick and hit him hurt, but he just stopped, and got off the bed. I grabbed my things, and was getting ready to leave. He came in with a cup of tea and started talking about how beautiful I was. I drank the tea. He fell asleep on the sofa. Then I left. I had bruises and red patches all over my body, and bruises in the shape of hand prints around my neck for over a week afterwards. We didn't even have sex. It was so weird. He didn't orgasm or anything. What was the point of it all for him?

I want to share this story, because I had previously had men try to strangle me during sex, and had frozen and always thought if I had just made it clear from the beginning then I wouldn't have had it happen. But this experience showed me that I couldn't have done anything differently. These men still try to choke you.

I was married. We had two children. My ex-husband had been abusive for some years. He regularly pursued me for sex even though I did not want to. Many nights I just lay there and let him do it. Please don’t ask why we were still together, I really don’t have an answer for you.

We had been to a party, we had both had a few drinks. We came home and consensual sex was initiated in the living room. Part way through I said I did not want to carry on. I got up and went upstairs to our bedroom. Our children were asleep in neighbouring rooms. My ex-husband followed me into the bedroom and began to attack and rape me. I was trying to stop him but then he started to strangle me. He continued to try to penetrate me, then lost his erection. This made him more angry and violent. At this point I thought I was going to die and all I could think was that my eight-year-old son would find me the next morning. I am not sure whether I fought my ex-husband off or he realised how close he was to killing me, but he stopped attacking me and fled. I got up, locked all the doors and knew it was over. That was the day it ended.

Even now, I believe people will judge me and suggest it was probably my fault for not wanting to continue having sex once we had started.

Reading about the Grace Millane case, the ‘rough sex gone wrong’ defence and the We Can’t Consent to This campaign, I have revisited that night from 18 years ago and know that if he had killed me, he would have defended himself with that exact defence, and he would have made the world believe that in some way it had been my fault.

Troublingly, I now am now feeling survivor guilt and some strange misplaced gratitude toward my ex-husband for not killing me. I am finding this very difficult to handle.

Even if a man and a woman are not engaging in rough sex (we didn’t have a habit of that) once the woman is dead all the man has to say is that the intercourse was rough and it had gone wrong. Sadly if a woman says no but the man won’t stop he generally has the strength to do what he wants. In my situation, having been married for years and with very few people suspecting that my ex-husband was abusive, I’m sure my death would have been treated as a tragic accident.

My thoughts go out to the families of all those women on the website who lost their lives.

I broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years just before starting university. He had been violent towards me and I was in a dark place. I got into the habit of bringing boys home from clubs so that I didn’t have to sleep alone. I never really liked the sex, it was often rough and I often allowed things that I shouldn’t have, but I was young and thought that the company was worth it. It never occurred to me that I didn’t have to do what they said and could have the company without being violated.

When I got to second year things culminated when I started seeing a guy. He liked rough sex but it never crossed a line and I felt comfortable telling him when he was strangling me - which in hind sight I’m angry that I ever had to. One night he came to my house when I was asleep, he was out of his mind on drugs and started to have really aggressive sex with me. He pushed my face onto the carpet, bending my neck at a rough angle and grazing my face. He then forced my face into the bed so I couldn’t breathe. I had to claw into him to get him off as my screams were muffled. I ran downstairs and he passed out on my floor.

In the morning he hadn’t remembered anything. He asked me to go for breakfast and I honestly can’t believe that I was too humiliated to tell him what happened. I was so embarrassed and confused that I said yes. At the cafe I just kept thinking what the hell am I doing here?

After that I never brought a guy home again.

I had a one night stand a while ago with someone pretty high profile in his field who choked me without asking or consent. He's still in touch and spent a while texting demanding nude photos/videos and calling me a bitch when I said no, and sent me videos of women masturbating. It's nowhere near the same level as other people experience, but as someone recently single after 10 years of being in relationships, the apparent increase in sexual violence does make me concerned about dating - I'm pretty open about my feminism and hatred of porn which I'd like to think weeds out some of the awful men.

From when I was around 12-16 years old I watched a lot of porn, mainly because I saw myself as 'one of the lads' and wanted to try and be a bit edgy, but also because it was the way everyone else seemed to be exploring their sexuality. Now I'm early 20s, with a radical feminist head on my shoulders, and I feel sickened when I think about the way I let myself be treated in relationships due to it's influence. I'm currently receiving ongoing therapy for body dysmorphia and I struggle to feel like I'm physically 'good enough' in any relationship, probably due to my past consumption of porn and my fears of how it has influenced the brains of the men I date.

I had my first proper sexual relationship when I was 15 years old. My boyfriend at the time was only a few years older than me and I stayed at his house most weekends. I was aware that he watched porn due to our discussions about it, I also found evidence on his laptop history pretty regularly. Since I'd never really had sex before I managed to convince myself that I liked it 'rough' based pretty much entirely on my porn usage, and also because I wanted to impress my boyfriend. He started to abuse benzodiazepines and I can recall a few times he'd been taking them when sex would get particularly rough and I'd have to stop because he'd taken it too far and upset me by hitting me too hard, as if he was in some fit of drug induced rage and was taking it out on my body. However, his actions would also upset me during sex when he was sober too - he'd often try to sneak anal sex in during vaginal sex, even though I'd told him that it hurt a lot and I wasn't prepared to try this yet. I knew that he had an anal sex fetish from his internet history, so I eventually gave in and let him do it to me, pretending that I enjoyed it the whole time. I think the main motivation for letting this happen was because I was feeling jealous about how he'd only look it up online and watch videos of it involving far more 'attractive' women if he didn't get to do it to me. I had invited acts like choking into the bedroom for similar reasons but again, it just felt like it was mainly for show. Oddly enough, he was always wary about choking me too hard incase anything went wrong, but was happy to bruise me elsewhere and yank me around by the hair as if I was made of rubber.

It wasn't until I was with someone else a few years later til I realised that rough sex was never my thing, and that sex is far greater when it's loving and passionate. It terrifies me that thanks to porn so many men think that violence against women is acceptable in the bedroom and I'm scared of meeting someone like that again in the future. Thankfully I'm in a long term relationship and don't have to worry about it happening to me, but I fear for the safety of my friends who go on one night stands.

I was in both a romantic and BDSM relationship with an older, very experienced dominant. It was my first experience as a submissive, and for the most part he was responsible and responsive when I used my safewords. We had multiple BDSM meets and the relationship lasted several months. Early on we established in writing my hard limits (sexual acts I would never give consent to), and top of the list was “breath play” (asphyxiation). I made it explicitly clear to him that breath play was my biggest fear and I would never consent to doing it.

In the midst of one of our regular BDSM sessions, my hands were tied together and I was lying down on the floor and the man sat on my face for an abnormally long period of time. I couldn’t use my hands to subtly push him off, and I obviously couldn’t use my mouth to say my safewords. I started to wriggle underneath him and make whatever loud, distorted noises I could with my mouth to get him to realise that I wasn’t okay. Eventually he stood up and as he walked away from me he actually laughed and said the words, “breath play”. As I was regaining my breath I was absolutely paralysed with fear on the floor. I felt as if my entire body had been violated. I wanted desperately to yell out my safeword and end the entire session, but all I could do was remain lying there terrified. In that moment it was my responsibility to say my safeword; he had crossed a very explicit boundary and I had to tell him. But in the moment all I could do was lie there, my head screaming “I did not consent to this”. He continued with the session, but my body was not as responsive as it usually was. I would simply remain in rigid positions, cowering with fear. For the first time, I started crying during our session. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t stop feeling as if I hadn’t consented to what had happened. Once he had said those two words, all trust and faith had disappeared. I did not consent to this.

He did eventually realise that my behaviour was uncharacteristic, and ended the session earlier than was normal for us. After it had ended I ran to his bathroom and locked the door. I broke down crying, unable to look at myself in the mirror or look at him to confront him.

For months I blamed myself. He had crossed the line but I was the one that did not immediately reprimand him for it. But now I realise that he was the one who was truly in the wrong. He had written and verbal confirmation of activities I would never consent to him doing and yet he did one anyway, and actually laughed as he did it.

My advice to anyone embarking on BDSM relationships is this: outline all of your hard limits to your partner and NEVER fear using your safe words. If you feel violated or abused in any non-consensual way then you need to tell them what is going on. You have the right to withdraw consent if your partner is doing something you have told them you do not want to do.

As a teenager, I considered myself into BDSM, and one night I went home drunk with somebody from a dating site and agreed to let him choke me at some point. During sex, he suddenly choked me really hard until I passed out, and I was too drunk and surprised to fight back. My throat and neck were extremely painful for over a week, and I could barely speak.

Now that I know more about oxygen deprivation, I realise I am lucky to not have been brain damaged or worse. I felt unable to report his violence against me because I had supposedly consented to it. I now feel that the kind of person able to do this to a woman is dangerous and hateful.

I have noticed a huge increase in the number of women and girls reporting to me that they are (at best) persuaded and (at worst) forced by men into degrading sex acts that they don’t enjoy (spitting, choking, smacking, filthy language etc.).

It’s horrible to listen to but a million times worse for them to experience.

I was strangled during sex by a man I had been going out with - I guess he was my boyfriend. He was a lot older and he was a big bloke - I was in my early 20s then. I was terrified. He stopped, before I passed out. Earlier that day we'd discussed a woman killed in a “sex game gone wrong” killing. “Who'd want to do that?” I asked.

I’ve had between ten and fifteen partners. Five of those have at some point put their hands around my throat, and anal has been raised, whether ‘undertaken’ or not, with three of them. Slapping, either on my body or my face, eight of them, and not one checked first.

Had one boyfriend that wanted to trash talk me during sex and slap me. The worst thing was that there was no discussion about it or even an inkling that he was into that. He just randomly started one day during sex. It didn't last.

My best friend used to work as a cam girl, the things that men want to see and get off on women doing and saying is chilling, as was the escalation of some of the request getting more and more violent and demeaning as time went on, and other requests were fulfilled.

About ten years ago, after the break-up of my marriage, I went to a club, got very drunk, met a guy and brought him back home. Whilst we were having sex, he suddenly put his hand on my throat and started to squeeze. There had been no discussion about this, there was no warning. I started fighting, trying to get him off me. I think he thought I was enjoying it and squeezed harder. In the end, I hit him with a lamp. He was really upset - had thought we were having "great sex". I put him straight and kicked him out. That was the last man I ever slept with. I have a girlfriend now, but I went about six years not letting anyone near me. And I never will let a man near me again.

I went on a date with a guy from college. When I get back to his and we got into bed, he tied me up and gagged me. I didn’t feel like I could say no as I was scared of his reaction. He also strangled me and as we hadn’t agreed on a safe word I was scared as to whether he would stop. It was irresponsible on my behalf to not demand a safe word or have a conversation about consent beforehand, but for this guy to choke me, tie me up and gag me without even thinking about consent is really messed up.

I once was dating a guy who slapped me the first time we had sex. We talked about consent, and everything we wanted to do and he never mentioned it. He slapped me so hard he left me bright red, and was totally shocked when I stopped sex and told him he couldn't do that.

I have also had more than one partner tried to choke me during sex, without asking. One was a long-term boyfriend and the other was someone I had just started seeing. They both considered choking to be completely normal and not worth asking my consent for. I now get really panicky when anything is around my throat, there are some outfits I even had to stop wearing because they had tighter collars.

The only thread I can think of that links them all is how normal violent pornography has become. I have talked to lots of my friends who have sex with men and they agree this is becoming common, and it's very frightening.

My experiences of unbidden sexual violence have been confusing to me. I understand now the importance of consent and responsibility. I also recognise now that previous situations where I didn’t fully consent and simply accepted what was happening because I am submissive were in fact abusive situations. One involved meeting a man who I’d spoken to on a BDSM dating website. I sat in his car and he told me how I ought to be sat, with my legs open, so I obeyed without question. I thought, he is a Dom so this is how things work, he gives orders and I obey. So I followed what he said and went with him to a hotel room. He beat my chest very badly to the point where I had puss weeping out of by breasts. Tape was also put around my mouth and a pillow put over my face. We had no previous conversation about what we were going to be doing and what would be involved. There was no outline of boundaries or concerns. I very naively had just gone about the whole thing as a submissive wanting to please. At the time I thought because I am submissive it doesn’t matter what the Dom wants, I should be a good submissive and do as he likes. This was an incredibly dangerous and reckless attitude for me to have and the man basically did whatever he liked to me and I thought that was acceptable because of the dynamic involved. I didn’t like the fact I had severe bruising to my chest and groin area but at the same time words like abuse or assault never crossed my mind. I accepted the whole abusive situation as something that just happens when you are submissive. I understand now that being submissive isn’t a green light for someone to abuse you and that it also isn’t a green light to let people abuse you either. You have to be responsible with your sexuality. There are a lot of guys who say they are Doms who in fact want to use the title to abuse women. What happened in that hotel room to me was sexual assault. I am sure there will be people who point at my behaviour and I will say yes I should have been much more responsible. I was very young 18 years old and very impressionable. There was another person involved who wasn’t so young and impressionable and clearly did take advantage of my wanting to please and that I’d mentioned being turned on by pain. I appreciate you are probably looking for people not in the kink scene who aren’t openly seeking a situation with dynamics that could justify harm but I would argue that no situation justifies harm. Consent and responsibility should be a part of all sexual situations even if Submissive and Dominant dynamics are a part of that.

When I was 49 I met the dream man I had waited for all my life. He was a professional gent: educated, suave, well-spoken, gentle, kind, funny. He told me that he had been living for 20 years with a wife who did not want sex for the last 10 and he had resorted to masturbation, using porn to help things along. He had such a charming way about him and was so sweet that I did not take issue even though I don't like porn. I felt sorry for him for being trapped in a sexless relationship for so long.

After we'd had sex a few times and I was 100% madly in love with him, he put his hands around my throat during penetration. I stopped dead and asked him what the hell he was doing. He just apologised, took his hands off my neck and carried on, but each time he got close to orgasm one of his hands crept back to my throat. I was quite concerned about this but because I was so crazy about him.I felt frozen. I just hoped he would stop wanting it. But he carried on. Every time we had sex, at some point one or both hands would end up around my throat area. When I tackled him about it outside of the bedroom he gaslighted me: first he denied it, then he admitted that he like to touch me there and eventually he told me he got a kick out of it. I told him not to do it again and he agreed. However, again and again when he lost himself during sex a hand or two would end up on my neck again. When I told him again that I did not like it he told me that lots of women did and I should just relax and "go with it" and I might surprise myself by enjoying it. I just had to "trust" him. I am ashamed to say that I did let him put his hands LOOSELY around my throat so long as he did not press or squeeze in any way. I realised that he could not orgasm without doing it. However, I hated it and could not relax whilst his hands were on my throat.

Looking back he was clearly trying to "groom" me into accepting it, using emotional blackmail, gaslighting, making me feel guilty when he did not come. At the time I wanted him so badly as a life partner that I didn't want to make too big a deal of it all. I did not want to face up to the fact that he had learned this in porn and then become dependent on it for his orgasm.

I regarded him as a good man who had been ruined by his porn addiction. I am certain that he would never have thought of putting his hands round a woman's throat if he had not seen it in porn.

I came out of a loveless long-term relationship a couple of years ago. I felt unappealing and unwanted. I then met a man 5 years older than me, through a friend. We had fantastic sex, he was a great lover and I was having a great time with him. Then slowly he started to get a little rough with me. It began whilst clasping my head whilst kissing. I wasn't used to it - I joked about him having me in a head-lock. But it got worse and worse, in bed he would be rough, talk roughly to me, he made me bleed. At the time I was in two minds - on the one hand I thought it was a little exciting, new, but on the other hand I was becoming more and more disturbed. It wasn't enough to just have normal sex anymore. He started to pin me down whilst having sex, just a little at first, almost as if he was just testing the water. I didn't stop him. It all ended when he was on top of me whilst having sex and he squeezed both hands around my throat, very tight and his full body weight was on top of me. I couldn't scream or kick, but I just sort of fainted and started choking. I managed to croak out the very words I knew would make him stop, which was, "I will tell <insert his boss' name, who is a friend>" and he finally stopped.

I think I let it go on for so long (3 - 4 months) because my self-esteem was so low and I was craving affection. I think about it and I shudder with self-hatred.

Was this my fault for letting it carry on for so long? Would he have not stopped if I didn't know his boss?

With two separate younger men I have experienced having my head forced so I was forced to swallow, and have been slapped violently and completely unexpectedly across the face.

It was assault. I froze in shock. I only processed what had happened later.

With the first guy I was covered in bruises for a week after how rough he was. Another guy who was being rough I told him to stop what he was doing but he said 'you want it'.

The idea of 'sex positivity' and women owning their own sexuality is all wishful thinking if sexual violence is normalised - choosing casual sex isn't much of a liberating experience if all that's on offer is abuse. It gaslights women into thinking they need to be the 'cool girl' who's OK with being assaulted.

Casual sex is honestly not worth the gamble for me any more, nor is it satisfying.

I met a guy through Fetlife and consented to mild SM. He was 50, a prison officer and seemed like a nice guy. We'd met for drinks previously then messaged to discuss a sexual encounter. I consented to a mild spanking but once over his knee he began hitting my buttocks so hard I began screaming. But he'd put his hand over my mouth, which I'd explicitly said I did not want, so he couldn't hear me (so he claimed after). He did eventually stop, at which point I asked him to leave. Thankfully he did, because I feared him now. My buttocks turned purple with bruising that took more than a week to go, during which time I could barely sit.

Thank you for this page. I shared this with a friend who recently had an unwanted violent experience. The man had not asked for consent. The sex itself was consensual, but then he started to choke her without any prior discussion or consent for that. He is much larger than her, and she was terrified and pushed him off and her throat hurt for days. She was questioning herself if she was overreacting for feeling so terrified, and I shared your website with her. It helped her realize she was not overreacting, and it helped her remove herself from a potentially dangerous situation.

Thank you for helping to create awareness. It is crazy that a man saying after he kills a woman that she wanted it can get him off the hook.

I met him when I was 18 and stayed with him for 4 years. The abuse started as psychological but turned physical and sexual around a 8 months into our relationship. He began grabbing my neck and face during arguments, and holding my wrists forcefully. He then began choking me during sex without my consent. On more than one occasion, I hadn’t even consented to having sex. He was always extremely violent and I bled almost every time. He would pull my hair so hard it would actually come out, choke me to the point of almost passing out, hit me so hard he left marks and bruises, and tying me up so tightly it would cut off the circulation. I would cry and bleed after every sexual encounter with him, and suffered multiple tears.

On one occasion he choked me so hard I was kicking, struggling and hitting him to stop, I could feel myself about to pass out. He continued until I passed out and I blacked out for a good few minutes. When I came around, he had me pinned down by my wrists and was raping my barely conscious body. At that moment I felt myself leave my body and go into survival mode. I did this every time I had sex from that point onwards. Three years on and I still feel vulnerable. I make myself deliberately unattractive, I tolerate very little and I have my guard up all of the time.

My current partner is kind, patient and gentle. I told him very early on about what had happened to me. It makes me angry that that part of my life has to come into new relationships but it’s incredibly important to share my experience, set boundaries, and build up trust. I genuinely believe if I had of stayed with him, he would have killed me. I’m waiting for the day I see my abuser on the news, where I’ll learn he did the same to other girls.

The rise of hate porn, male dominant porn, and degrading porn it obscene. It is where boys first experience sex, and it is where they initially learn. Despite what porn depicts, BDSM practices like choking, restraining, hitting, spitting and verbal abuse, are all extremely niche. They should be practiced between two consenting adults in a loving relationship.

Looking at the majority of porn available, it would be safe to say that boys would see all of the above as normal ways to have sex. They would wrongly learn that all women enjoy what is being depicted in porn, and that is where the problem lies. Boys then grow into men, and they seldom learn anything different. Their sexual behaviour stays with them into adulthood, without them knowing/learning anything different. The common misconception being that women are for men's experiment and are there for men to dominate is all wrong. Consent needs to be clear, mutual, consistent and prominent. Open the dialogue, ask for consent, have the conversation and never ever assume. You can do irreparable damage to someone.