{"id":9299,"date":"2026-03-13T14:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:00:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:00:48","slug":"romanias-eurovision-2026-entry-under-fire-for-glamorizing-sexual-strangulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=9299","title":{"rendered":"Romania\u2019s Eurovision 2026 entry under fire for \u201cglamorizing sexual strangulation\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romania\u2019s entry for this year\u2019s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, \u201cChoke Me<\/a>,\u201d came under fire in recent days for lyrics that allegedly idealize sexual strangulation, The Guardian<\/a> reported. Critics of the song say it promotes a practice that can lead to brain injury and death, and that the entry should be banned from competing.<\/p>\n

Campaigners against sexual violence argue the song sung by The Voice Romania winner Alexandra C\u0103pit\u0103nescu mentions \u201cchoke me\u201d 30 times in 3 minutes.\u00a0Other lyrics mention that \u201cit\u2019s hard to breathe in,\u201d or \u201cI want you to choke me,\u201d and \u201cmake my lungs explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, told The Guardian that the sexualized messaging \u201cshows an alarming disregard for young women\u2019s health and wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, a complaint by the BBC to the European Broadcasting Union, which runs the song contest, led it to rule against the title and lyrics of the Maltese entry, which contained a play on words where \u201ckant\u201d (meaning \u201csing\u201d in Maltese) sounded like \u201ccunt.\u201d In previous years, the EBU has ordered entries to remove other words from songs.<\/p>\n

In reply, the Romanian singer said the metaphor behind the vivid imagery was about the feeling of being overwhelmed by strong emotions and being suffocated by self-doubt.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

This year\u2019s edition of Eurovision is also facing calls for a boycott over the inclusion of Israel, which is accused of genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

radu@romania-insider.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

(Photo source:\u00a0Alexandra C\u0103pit\u0103nescu<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romania\u2019s entry for this year\u2019s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, \u201cChoke Me,\u201d came under fire in recent days for lyrics that allegedly idealize sexual strangulation, The Guardian reported. Critics of the song say it promotes a practice that can lead to brain injury and death, and that the entry should be banned from competing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}