The Choking Survey (2026), conducted by the NCSF in collaboration with the UNC Charlotte Violence Prevention Center, presents findings from an anonymous online survey of 1,700 alt‑sex practitioners.
Nearly half of respondents reported that they hadn’t gotten any safety or consent information before choking or being choked the first time. Although participants demonstrated awareness of serious health risks, many perceived these risks as manageable or less likely to occur in their own practices. Over one‑third reported no plan if something goes wrong.
A majority of participants (60%) had not attended any community events before their first choking experience, indicating that exposure typically comes from intimate partners rather than formal education. Participants first learned about choking from online and in-person sex educators (30.3%), partners (14.6%), and kink educational presentation 13.8%.
There is very often societal power dynamics involved in who is choking vs being choked. This is seen with almost 75% of men reporting doing the choking, and 68% of women reporting being choked. Additionally, those who do the choking were more
often neurotypical, but individuals who are choked were more often neurodivergent. People in queer relationships as well as genderqueer people reported engaging in both choking and being choked. This pattern of results suggests that individuals with
more social power and privilege are more likely to do the choking, and individuals with marginalized identities tend to be the ones being choked. When societal power dynamics seem to blend, participants appear to switch roles.