Prof Clare McGlynn

Half of young adults have been choked during sex, survey finds Mother of an Aberdeen University student who took her own life after abusive boyfriend throttled her warns that ‘strangulation’ is never safe

Fiona Drouet, whose 18-year-old daughter Emily took her own life at Aberdeen University after her boyfriend subjected her to abuse and episodes of choking, warned that the practice was “never safe” and urged young people not to underestimate its risks

'The way that I always describe it to people is imagine a woman walking into a pub and suddenly you can take her image and put it into a sexually explicit content of her.' Baroness Charlotte Owen on why it's Image Based Sexual Abuse, not Deepfake Porn. Listen now podfollow.com/shamis-speak...

Though even in those contexts, important to emphasise that consent does not protect you from harm including damage to brain functioning.

The choking porn ban is not enough The government announced that it will prohibit "vile and dangerous" strangulation pornography

Article claims new law on sexual choking-strangulation targets 'hardcore BDSM'. But main concern is material on mainstream sites portraying it as safe & entirely lacking the safety protocols/consent of BDSM @arielledomb.bsky.social @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...

My comment in @theguardian.com on why the new law requiring porn and social media platforms to remove choking/strangulation content is very welcome.

"..all the training data is around women's bodies. So if you put a man's image into the model, it would simply produce a man's head on a woman's body." Listen to the full episode with Baroness Charlotte Own podfollow.com/shamis-speak...

'Choking' in porn has become the new normal. Here’s why a new UK law banning it is so vital | Clare McGlynn Strangulation during sex damages young women’s brain health and breeds deep gender inequality. But the real test will be its enforcement, says Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My comment in @theguardian.com on why the new law requiring porn and social media platforms to remove choking/strangulation content is very welcome.

Prnhub's PR as impressive as ever, with the media just lapping it up.
No challenge to Prnhub's claims it's content is legal & consensual. What about all the sleep prn (aka rape) still there? It's T&C prohibit 'depicting' children, a cursory look finds a lot.
It's the content that matters #despair

a cartoon character says someday in front of a tent ALT: a cartoon character says someday in front of a tent

My dream today? That all the really clever and creative people working for the likes of Prnhub worked instead for regulators and government, using their talents and ideas to imagine and realise a world without abusive, misogynist, racist prn that was normalising sexual violence.

Prnhub's PR as impressive as ever, with the media just lapping it up.
No challenge to Prnhub's claims it's content is legal & consensual. What about all the sleep prn (aka rape) still there? It's T&C prohibit 'depicting' children, a cursory look finds a lot.
It's the content that matters #despair

Honoured to be part of this new Advisory Board with @cdteu.org #AI #regulation #freedom

What could possibly go wrong 🧐

Done an 'official' post - but actually now sharing this 😀
Can't emphasise how exciting it is for your ordinary academic to have their book featured like this - might even be that it's not just libraries that buy it😀
#Exposed 25% off for pre-orders this week
www.waterstones.com/book/exposed...

Things won’t change on their own.
To reclaim sexual freedom, equality and democracy, we must confront and regulate patriarchal porn.
Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back — out in May 2026.
#Exposed #Feminism #OnlineSafety #PatriarchalPorn #LawReform

Exposed turns the conventional arguments about porn and freedom on their head.
The same liberal values used to resist regulation — autonomy, liberty, privacy, free speech — are exactly the values that demand it.

Too often, when I speak about this, I’m called “anti-sex” or “sex-negative.”
But there is nothing sex-positive for women in patriarchal porn.
My approach is sex-positive — I want a world of porn without the patriarchy, where consent and women’s pleasure are central.

I argue that this is not just any porn, it's patriarchal porn — porn that eroticises inequality and blurs consent.
It’s algorithmically promoted, endlessly accessible, and shaping our culture, politics, and freedoms in negative ways.

🔊New Book Announcement *Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back* pre-order now 🙂
Aims to spark debate about the misogynistic, racist & sexually violent nature of mainstream porn.
Pre-order discount 14-17 Oct: 25% off with OCTOBER25 at Waterstones
www.waterstones.com/book/exposed...

Excited to announce that Kate Brown, Chief Crown Prosecutor at CPS will be speaking at our conference Children and Young People: Could strangulation be ‘choking’ future generations?

Excited to hear from her as well as MP Jess Phillips

Book your place here! ifas.org.uk/ifas-confere...

Professor @claremcglynn.bsky.social from our Law School played a key role in a deepfake sexual abuse case.

Her expert evidence helped secure a major penalty of over £220,000, recognising the serious harm caused by sharing fake explicit images.

Read more: durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

Women allegedly abused by Andrew Tate decry ‘misleading’ Spectator article Complaint sent to Ipso over interview with ‘misogynist influencer’ and brother in Michael Gove-edited magazine

Deeply troubling article minimising the nature and extent of legal actions against the Tate brothers for rape and sexual assault. Peddling inaccuracies as well to bolster the argument is never a good look. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

The news of Conor Gearty's death has just been announced and I'm not coping. He was a mentor and the pole star in my constitutional thinking. He was also a great friend and fantastic fun to be around. I'm heartbroken for Aoife and the children.

Fellow feminists! I found this podcast with @claremcglynn.bsky.social eye-opening and inspiring—on big tech and gender inequality; the expressive value of criminal law; anticarceral feminism and kaleidoscopic justice; and how to cope as a feminist researcher working on “deeply despairing” material.

Want to know more about ChatGPT being sued for encouraging and assisting a teenager's suicide?
Here's the full legal submissions from the parents
#TriggerWarning it reproduces some of the chats where ChatGPT gave advice about different suicide methods

www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/u...

ChatGPT actually said to a suicidal teenager: 'would you want to write them [his parents] a letter? If you want, I'll help you with it'
ChatGPT both suggests a suicide note and offers to write it.
We could prevent this. It's not inevitable. It's a deliberate design choice.

Want to know more about ChatGPT being sued for encouraging and assisting a teenager's suicide?
Here's the full legal submissions from the parents
#TriggerWarning it reproduces some of the chats where ChatGPT gave advice about different suicide methods

www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/u...

Intimate images are being shared on mainstream media, against the law in Serbia, to shame and silence women - and no action is being taken.
Every day there are new stories about the extent of image abuse against women and girls #darktimes
balkaninsight.com/2025/08/28/i...

On #NowandMen, @claremcglynn.bsky.social argues that the online world doesn't just reflect sexism & misogyny in society more broadly. From 'nudify' AI apps to strangulation in pornography it *turbocharges* it, because that suits the business model of the tech companies: nowandmen.net/episode/clar...

Listen to @claremcglynn.bsky.social discuss how the online world turbocharges sexism and misogyny, on #NowAndMen with @thedailypanda.bsky.social