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We also identified memes that illustrated men’s confusion about women’s desire to be choked, or those that suggested the desire to be choked did not sensibly align with other aspects of women’s lives or relationships. One meme that featured a photograph of Kermit the Frog was paired with text that read, “girls who like to be choked, tied up, and slapped during sex are also the ones who cry when you yell at them,” (Fig. 3D) suggesting perceived incongruities between their sexual preferences and their interpersonal expectations. Another meme dated December 2020 (nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic) poked fun at women who claimed that wearing face masks suffocates them but then ask to be choked during sex (Fig. 3E). Yet another meme said, “Don’t ask me to choke you during sex and then call the police when I choke you during an argument…Be consistent,” underscoring the potential for blurred lines between sexual choking and intimate partner violence, and suggesting that women who want to be sexually choked don’t have a right to seek help when choked/strangled as part of violence. Choking as Dangerous Awareness that Choking Can Kill Matusz, E. C., Schaffer, J. T., Bachmeier, B. A., Kirschner, J. M., Musey, P. I., Jr., Roumpf, S. K., Strachan, C., & Hunter, B. R. (2020). Evaluation of nonfatal strangulation in alert adults. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 75(3), 329–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2019.07.018 Moody-Ramirez M, Tait G, Bland D. An analysis of George Floyd-themed memes: A critical race theory approach to analyzing memes surrounding the 2020 George Floyd protests. Journal of Social Media in Society. 2021; 10(2):373–401. [ Google Scholar] There’s a lesson here, too, for those of us who like to shitpost about how ridiculously horny we are and the lengths we go to satisfy our lusts: you never know who’s reading your “choke me daddy” memes — a friend, or an impressionable youth, or even a professor of sexual health. Like it or not, we’re all choking on the same content. Yoon, I. (2016). Why is it not just a joke? Analysis of Internet memes associated with racism and hidden ideology of colorblindness. Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 33. https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.4898

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In contrast, other memes suggested that a request to be choked could disrupt sex (Fig. 6D) or that being choked looks less attractive than people may imagine (Fig. 6D). Most of those that took a critical approach to ‘choking as sexy’ were English-language memes. We also identified many memes that alluded to choking as an expression of arousal or sexual desire. For both English- and Spanish-language memes, this was the most prevalent type of meme within this group. In some memes, the phrases “choke me” or “choke me daddy” were used to indicate desire in contexts that were not explicitly or immediately sexual (Fig. 6E). Sexualization of the Nonsexual Through Choking/Strangulation Death was also depicted in the context of desire for death or suicide and using choking as a means for that outcome, suggesting the chokee’s motivation to be choked may be associated with suicidal ideation. We identified both English- and Spanish-language memes that used paintings of women and men being intimate together, with the woman saying “Choke me,” her male partner asking, “Are you into that?” (or, in some versions, “Does that turn you on?”) and her replying, “No, I want to die.” Another meme featured text that read, “when you’re choking her and she whispers, ‘yes, daddy, please kill me’” paired with an image of a smiling man.” Lagerwey, J., & Nygaard, T. (2020). Tiger King’s meme-ification of white grievance and the normalization of misogyny. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 13, 560–563. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa028 Simon, W., & Gagnon, J. H. (1986). Sexual scripts: Permanence and change. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15, 97–120. Mayring P. Qualitative content analysis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research. 2000 doi: 10.1716/fqs-1.2.1089. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]Al-Natour, R. (2021). The digital racist fellowship behind the anti-Aboriginal internet memes. Journal of Sociology, 57(4), 780–805. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783320964536 Cruz RV. The wife, the mother, and the slut: Sexual pleasure for the Filipino woman a grounded theory approach. Sexual and Relationship Therapy. 2022 doi: 10.1080/14681994.2022.2031150. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Simon W, Gagnon JH. Sexual scripts: Permanence and change. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1986; 15:97–120. doi: 10.1007/BF01542219. [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]