Romania’s Eurovision song criticized for “glamourizing sexual suffocation” | Eurovision

Romania’s participation in Eurovision Choke Me has been described as “dangerous” and “reckless” because it appears to glamorize sexual choking, an unsafe practice that can lead to brain injury and death.

Activists against sexual violence said the clip, in which the phrase “choking me” was repeated 30 times during the three-minute song, was “manipulating quickly and with the lives of young women.”

The song by former winner of the Romanian version of The Voice, Alexandra Căpitănescu, also contains the lyrics “It’s hard to breathe”, “I want you to choke me” and “Make my lungs explode”.

Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University and author of Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Resist, said the repeated sexualized message “choke me” “demonstrates a worrying disregard for the health and wellbeing of young women”.

“The song – and its selection by Romania/Eurovision, and its promotion by those organisations – represents a reckless normalization of a dangerous practice,” she said. “It’s a fast and loose game with young women’s lives. The emerging medical evidence is that repeated sexual strangulation results in young women’s brain damage.”

Backlash against the track spread online, with many Eurovision fans calling for the entry to be disqualified or for the lyrics to be modified.

Last year, a complaint by the BBC to the European Broadcasting Union, which runs the song contest, led to a ruling against the title and lyrics of the Maltese song, which contains a play on words where the word “kant” (which means “to sing” in Maltese) sounds like “vagina”.

In previous years, the European Broadcasting Union ordered entries to remove words such as “shit” and “pussy” from their songs.

The Guardian has learned that the BBC did not file a complaint about the entry of the Romanian song this year, and a video clip of the song can be viewed on the European Broadcasting Union website. Both the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union have been contacted for comment.

In defense of the song, Căpitănescu said the metaphor behind the vivid images was about feeling overwhelmed by strong emotions and suffocated by self-doubt.

Norwegian YouTuber Eurovision ESC Norway, a trained psychologist, said the Romanian entry was using the practice, which is banned in pornography in the UK, to “stir up controversy”. “They know what they are doing and they are using a topic that is now popular and has been normalized by porn culture, which is really dangerous,” she said.

“They know that this is a trend and that what is happening is very scary.”

Research last year showed that more than half of people under the age of 35 had experienced choking, with almost a third incorrectly believing there were safe ways to strangle someone.

Several studies have shown brain changes in women who repeatedly “choked” during sex, including signs of brain damage and disturbances in the cerebral hemispheres associated with depression and anxiety.

Nearly half said they experienced anxiety during or after being strangled, and even a fleeting moment of strangulation could lead to lifelong health problems.

McGlynn added: “What this shows is the desperate need for better education and increased awareness of the harms to women.

“But what also bothers me a lot is that many young women don’t want to engage in choking, but its normalization makes them feel they have to do it despite their internal sense that it’s not right and, for some, their knowledge of the harms. But promoting it in this way makes it difficult for young women to resist. Not resisting puts their health and lives at risk.”

“Why do we seem to care so little about the health and well-being of young women?” She added.

Meanwhile, Eurovision faces a partial boycott of this year’s event due to the inclusion of Israel, which is accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. She was accused of using the competition for propaganda in 2025, with the Israeli government running paid ads on social media to encourage people to vote for her entry, which came in second place.

Broadcasters across Europe, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Iceland and Finland, requested a review of the voting system following the shock result, amid allegations that Israelis used European credit cards to vote dozens or even hundreds of times.

Some fans speculated that this was responsible for the gap between the maximum 12 points awarded to the Israeli entry from the UK public vote and the zero points awarded by the judging panel.