Latest news with #sexualencounters
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Yahoo
Lurid tale of China's cross-dressing 'red uncle' goes viral online
BEIJING (Reuters) -The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or "uncle", who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men, shook China's social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hash tag "red uncle" was the top trending item on China's popular micro-blog Weibo on Tuesday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The video-sharing was confirmed by district police in Nanjing in a statement on Tuesday. They said the cross-dressing man, surnamed Jiao, had been detained on Sunday on suspicion of spreading obscene material. But police said Jiao was aged 38, not 60, as social media posts had stated. They also denied that he had intimate meetings with more than 1,000 men, but did not give a figure. Jiao could not be immediately reached for comment. Same-sex relations are not illegal in China, but dissemination of images of sexual acts is punishable by law. Taking pictures of sexual activities in a private setting and sharing them also violates privacy rights and could be deemed a criminal offence. Social media users also circulated a montage of headshots of nearly 100 men supposed to have met the "red uncle", prompting mock advice from some, urging women to check if their fiances or husbands featured. Many social media users expressed concerns over the risk of sexually transmitted disease, with one warning the incident present "a big headache" for epidemic prevention authorities. A city health official told the state-backed Jimu News that appropriate measures would be taken. "If you are a close contact and worried about your health, you can come to us for testing any time."
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- The Guardian
‘There is no safe way to do it': the rapid rise and horrifying risks of choking during sex
Now that Lucy has been in a steady relationship for a year, she finds herself looking back at previous sexual encounters through a new lens. The slaps to her face. Hands round her neck. The multiple late-night messages from one partner – nine years older and, in her words, 'a Tinder situation': 'Can I come over and rape you?' 'I like to think I enjoyed my single 20s,' says Lucy, now 24. 'I was an avid Hinge and Tinder user and I liked to think of myself as the 'cool girl'. But I've been thinking about it so much – I'm not sure why. There was the friend of a friend who slapped me so hard in the middle of us having sex – no warning, just from nowhere. It actually made my teeth rattle. There was another guy I met at a bar. We got together that night and he started choking me so hard, I felt this sharp pressure, this pain I'd never experienced before. I was drunk but it sobered me up in one second. I still wonder what he did to me to cause that pain.' Never was 'rough sex' discussed before, during or after. 'Among my friends, there's this competitiveness about not being boring, not being 'vanilla'. I think it's very prevalent for women my age, and no one wants to kink-shame anyone,' says Lucy (not her real name). 'There's a lot of talk about online porn and what that has done to men's brains and expectations, but I also saw a lot of very violent porn when I was a teenager. I don't know why or how I found it. The women in porn never push back or say, 'Don't do that' when they're choked. I think I became quite performative. I like to think I'm a strong woman but … I don't know if it's about male validation.' Growing concern around the normalisation of 'choking' – ie strangulation – during sex has led to the recent announcement that pornography depicting it will be criminalised in an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. It has become so standard among young people that one recent council-funded sex education presentation for Welsh secondary schoolchildren included 'safe' choking advice such as: 'It is never OK to start choking someone without asking them first …' and: 'Consent should also happen every time sexual choking is an option, not just the first time.' When the presentation was made public, Fiona Mackenzie, the founder of campaigning group We Can't Consent to This (WCCTT), was 'absolutely furious but not at all surprised'. Mackenzie formed WCCTT at the end of 2018 in response to the growing number of women and girls killed or injured in violence claimed to be consensual. How has the landscape changed in the years since? 'When we began, we were focusing on two aspects,' says Mackenzie. 'The first was the men who were successfully using the 'rough sex defence' to murder women, claiming it was consensual and therefore getting away with it or getting ludicrously short sentences. The other part, which is the part I didn't realise was an issue until a month or two in, was that so many young women were being strangled by their sexual partners.' Almost seven years on, there's been progress on the first part. The Domestic Abuse Act of 2021 clarified that a person cannot consent to being harmed for the purpose of sexual gratification and also made non-fatal strangulation a specific criminal offence. Before that, it fell under general offences such as battery, the mildest assault possible. 'The major win for us is that [when women are] subjected to a non-fatal or a fatal assault during sex, there will be a much better response from the criminal justice system,' says Mackenzie. 'There have been several cases since where the men have been prosecuted and convicted for murder by juries and given long sentences.' On the second aspect, though – the normalisation of strangulation during sex – Mackenzie believes the situation has only worsened. 'I'd hoped that lots of other charities and sex educators, the government and academics would get behind it, but instead what we've got is this completely mad idea that we can somehow help women to keep having violent sex but in a safer way. Maybe in a hi-vis jacket?' Hannah Bows, a professor of criminal law at Durham Law School, believes strangulation is one of a few crimes where public awareness has dramatically regressed. 'I think it's a really troubling sign that 50 years ago most people would probably know strangulation was an offence – just like we all know that stealing is illegal,' she says. 'We're nowhere near that now, especially among young people. There's actually less acknowledgment and understanding, even though we have more laws criminalising it.' There's good reason for these laws. Necks are alarmingly fragile. Blocking the jugular vein requires less pressure than opening a can of Coke. Evidence suggests that strangulation is now the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. According to one piece of sobering research, it's more dangerous than the torture known as waterboarding, because strangulation affects blood flow as well as airflow. Though some cases can cause loss of consciousness in seconds and death in minutes, in others consequences can be delayed by weeks. It can cause a change in voice, difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, problems with memory, decision-making and concentration, depression, anxiety, miscarriage. In a paper published in May, 32 young women were recruited from a large midwestern university in the US and separated into two groups – those who'd been strangled at least four times during sex in the last 30 days and those with no history of strangulation. (There were 15 from the former group and 17 in the second.) Blood was taken from all recruits. The samples from the women who'd been strangled showed elevated levels of S100B, a marker of brain damage. 'There's no safe way to do it, no safe quantity of blood or oxygen you can cut off from her brain for fun,' says Jane Meyrick, a chartered health psychologist who leads work on sexual health at the University of the West of England. She describes being at a sexual health conference last year where data was presented on sexual strangulation – the prevalence and harms. 'Usually, at those conferences, people will be talking about the extremes of what everyone is getting up to in a very sex-positive way,' she says. 'When this was presented, you could feel the tension, the internal conflict, in the room, with professionals being unable to reconcile the gap between what they were hearing and their usual sex-positivity.' When it comes to prevalence, UK data is patchy. A survey by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, established with Home Office funding in 2022, after strangulation became a standalone offence, found over a third of 16 to 34-year-olds had experienced this, compared with 16% of 35 to 54-year-olds and 3% of those 55 and above. 'Larger academic studies of college students in the US and Australia put it at much higher,' says Meyrick. US research found that 64% of female college students had been choked during sex. In contrast, data on previous generations, collected between 2006 and 2015, found that most college students didn't include choking when listing rough sexual behaviour (slapping, being pinned down or tied up were all cited) and, overall, choking/strangulation was reported as occurring infrequently. 'It has become normalised practice among younger people and not viewed as problematic,' says Meyrick, 'and most older people have no idea.' In 2021, a research team led by Debby Herbenick, provost professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health, interviewed 24 women aged 18 to 33 in depth about their experiences of strangulation during sex. Although, for most, their first experience had involved no prior discussion – including one who was having sex for the first time – the majority now viewed it as 'routine and regular'. All believed it was safe, despite experiencing many physical reactions, including coughing, gasping, difficulty swallowing and breathing and vision changes. Some said they accepted being choked for their partner's pleasure, even though they didn't personally find it arousing. Others did enjoy it and sought it out as 'adventurous' and 'exciting'. The paper notes that historically, autoerotic asphyxiation is rare among women and adds, 'It is curious how sexual asphyxiation, which has long been described as predominantly engaged in by/for men's arousal, has become so frequently enacted by men on women partners.' Bows makes the same point. 'What's not being talked about is that this is happening overwhelmingly to women by men. If you accept what people will argue – that this is an activity that's enjoyed because it's 'sensual' – then why aren't men the recipients more often? To me, it's just another way we've culturally legitimised men harming women.' Few doubt its origins. 'It's about porn and the mainstreaming of illegal and violent tropes in porn practices,' says Meyrick. It's not just dedicated porn sites, she says. 'It's a click away on TikTok, it's absolutely everywhere. I've had young people come to me in tears, young women saying, 'I don't want to be strangled' and young men saying, 'I don't want to do it' but both watch porn where it's handed to them in an uncritical way and there's an assumption that that's what has to happen.' Much research shows the impact of porn consumption on sexual behaviour and beliefs. Another study by Herbenick that looked at behaviours such as choking and spanking found that those who engaged in it viewed porn at a younger age and had a higher lifetime use than those who didn't. The recent proposals to criminalise 'choking' in porn follow the recommendations of a review by Baroness Bertin, commissioned by the previous government and published in February. It noted that strangulation was 'rife' online, with 'competition for clicks' driving the production of increasingly disturbing content. According to the review, 'Non-fatal strangulation or 'choking' sex is perhaps the starkest example of where online violent pornography has changed 'offline behaviour'.' When it comes to criminalisation, Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, who worked on the proposals with Baroness Bertin, says the specifics will be key. 'The provision must be comprehensive and cover all depictions of strangulation and not be based on non-consent,' she says. 'If it requires proof of non-consent, or any other such qualifications … it will make no difference.' Mackenzie is not optimistic and points out that this is the third such 'ban', given that we already have the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (which was introduced after the strangulation of Jane Longhurst and supposedly criminalised the possession of 'extreme pornography'). 'The problem has always been that not one of the millions of people employed by the state will feel it is their job to enforce such a ban,' says Mackenzie. 'If it wanted, the government could start tomorrow to make it uncommon for kids to see strangulation porn, building on existing law – but instead it will ban this content yet again, and hope that state bodies and tech companies will this time take account of the 'vibe shift'. Not a single site will fear prosecution. They will have seen from decades of experience that no one from the state will knock on their door.' McGlynn says that previous legislation was problematic – the Obscene Publications Act covers 'obscene' material, which, she says, is a 'vague concept'. The 2008 legislation covers 'life-threatening injury', which will apply to some forms of strangulation but not all. 'While there are serious harms and risks, such as stroke, they are not evident on the face of a depiction and not therefore within the existing law on extreme pornography.' However, she does agree that enforcement will be everything. 'The platforms will only act if they think Ofcom will challenge them,' she says. 'I hope this will be the case. It should be and I think it could be – but it might require considerable public and political pressure.' For Lucy, strangulation during sex has become something she hopes she'll never return to, something she has almost 'grown out' of. 'I've been with my current boyfriend for over a year and at some point, we had a conversation where I asked, 'Why don't you choke me?' He said he had no desire to. I asked if he watched porn and he said the kinkiest porn he'd watch would be massage. This might be too much information, but he's the only man I've been with where I've had constant orgasms. With other men, the sex was always about them. Now it's about us.' In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women's Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- The Guardian
‘There is no safe way to do it': the rapid rise and horrifying risks of choking during sex
Now that Lucy has been in a steady relationship for a year, she finds herself looking back at previous sexual encounters through a new lens. The slaps to her face. Hands round her neck. The multiple late-night messages from one partner – nine years older and, in her words, 'a Tinder situation': 'Can I come over and rape you?' 'I like to think I enjoyed my single 20s,' says Lucy, now 24. 'I was an avid Hinge and Tinder user and I liked to think of myself as the 'cool girl'. But I've been thinking about it so much – I'm not sure why. There was the friend of a friend who slapped me so hard in the middle of us having sex – no warning, just from nowhere. It actually made my teeth rattle. There was another guy I met at a bar. We got together that night and he started choking me so hard, I felt this sharp pressure, this pain I'd never experienced before. I was drunk but it sobered me up in one second. I still wonder what he did to me to cause that pain.' Never was 'rough sex' discussed before, during or after. 'Among my friends, there's this competitiveness about not being boring, not being 'vanilla'. I think it's very prevalent for women my age, and no one wants to kink-shame anyone,' says Lucy (not her real name). 'There's a lot of talk about online porn and what that has done to men's brains and expectations, but I also saw a lot of very violent porn when I was a teenager. I don't know why or how I found it. The women in porn never push back or say, 'Don't do that' when they're choked. I think I became quite performative. I like to think I'm a strong woman but … I don't know if it's about male validation.' Growing concern around the normalisation of 'choking' – ie strangulation – during sex has led to the recent announcement that pornography depicting it will be criminalised in an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. It has become so standard among young people that one recent council-funded sex education presentation for Welsh secondary schoolchildren included 'safe' choking advice such as: 'It is never OK to start choking someone without asking them first …' and: 'Consent should also happen every time sexual choking is an option, not just the first time.' When the presentation was made public, Fiona Mackenzie, the founder of campaigning group We Can't Consent to This (WCCTT), was 'absolutely furious but not at all surprised'. Mackenzie formed WCCTT at the end of 2018 in response to the growing number of women and girls killed or injured in violence claimed to be consensual. How has the landscape changed in the years since? 'When we began, we were focusing on two aspects,' says Mackenzie. 'The first was the men who were successfully using the 'rough sex defence' to murder women, claiming it was consensual and therefore getting away with it or getting ludicrously short sentences. The other part, which is the part I didn't realise was an issue until a month or two in, was that so many young women were being strangled by their sexual partners.' Almost seven years on, there's been progress on the first part. The Domestic Abuse Act of 2021 clarified that a person cannot consent to being harmed for the purpose of sexual gratification and also made non-fatal strangulation a specific criminal offence. Before that, it fell under general offences such as battery, the mildest assault possible. 'The major win for us is that [when women are] subjected to a non-fatal or a fatal assault during sex, there will be a much better response from the criminal justice system,' says Mackenzie. 'There have been several cases since where the men have been prosecuted and convicted for murder by juries and given long sentences.' On the second aspect, though – the normalisation of strangulation during sex – Mackenzie believes the situation has only worsened. 'I'd hoped that lots of other charities and sex educators, the government and academics would get behind it, but instead what we've got is this completely mad idea that we can somehow help women to keep having violent sex but in a safer way. Maybe in a hi-vis jacket?' Hannah Bows, a professor of criminal law at Durham Law School, believes strangulation is one of a few crimes where public awareness has dramatically regressed. 'I think it's a really troubling sign that 50 years ago most people would probably know strangulation was an offence – just like we all know that stealing is illegal,' she says. 'We're nowhere near that now, especially among young people. There's actually less acknowledgment and understanding, even though we have more laws criminalising it.' There's good reason for these laws. Necks are alarmingly fragile. Blocking the jugular vein requires less pressure than opening a can of Coke. Evidence suggests that strangulation is now the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. According to one piece of sobering research, it's more dangerous than the torture known as waterboarding, because strangulation affects blood flow as well as airflow. Though some cases can cause loss of consciousness in seconds and death in minutes, in others consequences can be delayed by weeks. It can cause a change in voice, difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, problems with memory, decision-making and concentration, depression, anxiety, miscarriage. In a paper published in May, 32 young women were recruited from a large midwestern university in the US and separated into two groups – those who'd been strangled at least four times during sex in the last 30 days and those with no history of strangulation. (There were 15 from the former group and 17 in the second.) Blood was taken from all recruits. The samples from the women who'd been strangled showed elevated levels of S100B, a marker of brain damage. 'There's no safe way to do it, no safe quantity of blood or oxygen you can cut off from her brain for fun,' says Jane Meyrick, a chartered health psychologist who leads work on sexual health at the University of the West of England. She describes being at a sexual health conference last year where data was presented on sexual strangulation – the prevalence and harms. 'Usually, at those conferences, people will be talking about the extremes of what everyone is getting up to in a very sex-positive way,' she says. 'When this was presented, you could feel the tension, the internal conflict, in the room, with professionals being unable to reconcile the gap between what they were hearing and their usual sex-positivity.' When it comes to prevalence, UK data is patchy. A survey by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, established with Home Office funding in 2022, after strangulation became a standalone offence, found over a third of 16 to 34-year-olds had experienced this, compared with 16% of 35 to 54-year-olds and 3% of those 55 and above. 'Larger academic studies of college students in the US and Australia put it at much higher,' says Meyrick. US research found that 64% of female college students had been choked during sex. In contrast, data on previous generations, collected between 2006 and 2015, found that most college students didn't include choking when listing rough sexual behaviour (slapping, being pinned down or tied up were all cited) and, overall, choking/strangulation was reported as occurring infrequently. 'It has become normalised practice among younger people and not viewed as problematic,' says Meyrick, 'and most older people have no idea.' In 2021, a research team led by Debby Herbenick, provost professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health, interviewed 24 women aged 18 to 33 in depth about their experiences of strangulation during sex. Although, for most, their first experience had involved no prior discussion – including one who was having sex for the first time – the majority now viewed it as 'routine and regular'. All believed it was safe, despite experiencing many physical reactions, including coughing, gasping, difficulty swallowing and breathing and vision changes. Some said they accepted being choked for their partner's pleasure, even though they didn't personally find it arousing. Others did enjoy it and sought it out as 'adventurous' and 'exciting'. The paper notes that historically, autoerotic asphyxiation is rare among women and adds, 'It is curious how sexual asphyxiation, which has long been described as predominantly engaged in by/for men's arousal, has become so frequently enacted by men on women partners.' Bows makes the same point. 'What's not being talked about is that this is happening overwhelmingly to women by men. If you accept what people will argue – that this is an activity that's enjoyed because it's 'sensual' – then why aren't men the recipients more often? To me, it's just another way we've culturally legitimised men harming women.' Few doubt its origins. 'It's about porn and the mainstreaming of illegal and violent tropes in porn practices,' says Meyrick. It's not just dedicated porn sites, she says. 'It's a click away on TikTok, it's absolutely everywhere. I've had young people come to me in tears, young women saying, 'I don't want to be strangled' and young men saying, 'I don't want to do it' but both watch porn where it's handed to them in an uncritical way and there's an assumption that that's what has to happen.' Much research shows the impact of porn consumption on sexual behaviour and beliefs. Another study by Herbenick that looked at behaviours such as choking and spanking found that those who engaged in it viewed porn at a younger age and had a higher lifetime use than those who didn't. The recent proposals to criminalise 'choking' in porn follow the recommendations of a review by Baroness Bertin, commissioned by the previous government and published in February. It noted that strangulation was 'rife' online, with 'competition for clicks' driving the production of increasingly disturbing content. According to the review, 'Non-fatal strangulation or 'choking' sex is perhaps the starkest example of where online violent pornography has changed 'offline behaviour'.' When it comes to criminalisation, Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, who worked on the proposals with Baroness Bertin, says the specifics will be key. 'The provision must be comprehensive and cover all depictions of strangulation and not be based on non-consent,' she says. 'If it requires proof of non-consent, or any other such qualifications … it will make no difference.' Mackenzie is not optimistic and points out that this is the third such 'ban', given that we already have the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (which was introduced after the strangulation of Jane Longhurst and supposedly criminalised the possession of 'extreme pornography'). 'The problem has always been that not one of the millions of people employed by the state will feel it is their job to enforce such a ban,' says Mackenzie. 'If it wanted, the government could start tomorrow to make it uncommon for kids to see strangulation porn, building on existing law – but instead it will ban this content yet again, and hope that state bodies and tech companies will this time take account of the 'vibe shift'. Not a single site will fear prosecution. They will have seen from decades of experience that no one from the state will knock on their door.' McGlynn says that previous legislation was problematic – the Obscene Publications Act covers 'obscene' material, which, she says, is a 'vague concept'. The 2008 legislation covers 'life-threatening injury', which will apply to some forms of strangulation but not all. 'While there are serious harms and risks, such as stroke, they are not evident on the face of a depiction and not therefore within the existing law on extreme pornography.' However, she does agree that enforcement will be everything. 'The platforms will only act if they think Ofcom will challenge them,' she says. 'I hope this will be the case. It should be and I think it could be – but it might require considerable public and political pressure.' For Lucy, strangulation during sex has become something she hopes she'll never return to, something she has almost 'grown out' of. 'I've been with my current boyfriend for over a year and at some point, we had a conversation where I asked, 'Why don't you choke me?' He said he had no desire to. I asked if he watched porn and he said the kinkiest porn he'd watch would be massage. This might be too much information, but he's the only man I've been with where I've had constant orgasms. With other men, the sex was always about them. Now it's about us.' In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women's Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ex-escort: Cassie's ‘spirit changed' during sexual acts with Diddy
(NewsNation) — A former escort who participated in sexual encounters with Sean 'Diddy' Combs and Cassie Ventura said he witnessed a shift in the singer's demeanor over time, describing how what initially seemed like consensual adult play became increasingly 'performative.' Shawn Dearing, who worked under the name Skyler and says he participated in more than a dozen encounters with the couple, told NewsNation that Ventura's behavior evolved from 'jovial' to forced compliance as the relationship progressed. 'Initially, when I had in the early days of seeing them, it seemed it was very jovial, like, you know, two adults who wanted to explore further, but as the encounters grew, there was an energy about these situations that devolved,' Dearing said Tuesday on NewsNation's 'Banfield.' 'I can definitely say there's a spirit that had changed through time. I don't know what happened behind closed doors with them, but there were signs,' Dearing said. Diddy paid to make hotel video go away: Hotel security guard Dearing described witnessing a moment when Combs left the room during one of their encounters. When Dearing attempted to speak with Ventura, she quickly silenced him. 'There was a moment where I kind of had a realization of the depths of the situation,' Dearing said. 'You could tell there was something that had come over her in a sense that she knew it may cause jealousy or something of the nature if her and I interacted in some way with him not there.' Dearing characterized Ventura's later behavior as going through the motions rather than genuine participation, describing how 'she would put on the smile and then continue in her role, put on the smile, put the head down, and then just continue in the role.' When pressed about whether Ventura appeared frightened, Dearing was careful in his language, saying he wouldn't characterize her demeanor as fear but rather as understanding 'her role' in the situation. Here are the celebrities named in Diddy's trial so far 'I wouldn't say frightened. I say she just understood the situation to the extent that she needed to,' Dearing said, calling Ventura 'a badass lady' who maintained her composure despite the circumstances. The prosecution in Combs' trial claims that Ventura was coerced into participating in sexual encounters that Combs called 'Freak Offs.' Defense attorneys argue the encounters were consensual between adults. 'I've received guidance from individuals,' Dearing said. 'I'm here speaking with you, attempting to just have my side heard, and ultimately, I just want Cassie respected.' Combs faces federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and other crimes. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and remains in federal custody. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sky News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Diddy trial live updates: Text messages between rapper and Cassie before 'freak offs' read out in court
Cassie expressed conflicting feelings about 'freak offs' in email, court hears In one message, the court hears, Ms Ventura told Combs she "just deleted our little vid" off her camera, calling it "dope". She has previously alleged in court that the rapper used videos off her sexual encounters with male escorts to blackmail. Jurors now hear about an email sent in 2009, in which Ms Ventura seems to be expressing conflicting feelings about taking part in the freak off sex sessions with escorts. In the email, she told Combs she needed to trust him "beyond it just being sexual" - that in order to be more open sexually, "I need to feel safe, like home". She told him "the last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty, and grimy as opposed to sexual and spontaneous". This was the reason she was going "back and forth in my mind with wanting and not wanting to do it", she wrote. At first, when they were "so in love... there were no questions asked, it felt right". She told him: "I get nervous that I'm just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with." Defence lawyer Anna Estevao asks her in court if this was an important part of their relationship. Ms Ventura says it was "an integral part". Text messages between Cassie and Diddy before freak offs read in court Back on the witness stand, Cassie Ventura is being asked about sexually explicit messages exchanged with Sean Combs. We are not including all the content of these messages here. "Can't wait," Ms Ventura said in one message, talking about taking part in a freak off, the court hears. In another message, Combs told her he was "horny" and she replied: "Omg I was just about to text you the same thing." In one, she told him: "I'm sorry, I'm nervous, I feel like I wanna f***". In pictures: Diddy's family and Cassie's husband arrive at court As on every other day of the trial this week, Sean Combs's family are at court to support the rapper. We've just had these pictures through from news agencies showing his mother Janice Combs, 85, and three of his seven children arriving earlier today outside the court in Manhattan. Cassie's husband Alex Fine is also back at court today. They married in 2010 and have two children, and Cassie is eight months pregnant with their third. Graphic message from Cassie to Combs draws objections Cassie Ventura could be seen whispering to Judge Arun Subramanian before the break was called just an hour into today's hearing, write Adam Reiss and Matt Lavietes, reporting for our US partner NBC. The sudden break came just as attorneys for Sean Combs were showing the court explicit emails between the former couple, from 2009. A graphic message from Ms Ventura to Combs drew an objection from prosecutors, which the judge sustained. The email appears to be an effort on behalf of Combs's lawyers to undermine Ms Ventura's repeated claims that she did not want to participate in the freak offs. The hearing has now resumed. And we've also had the first court sketch of the day through, with artist Jane Rosenberg depicting Combs taking notes as Cassie gives evidence. Break called as 'freak off' messages introduced Judge Arun Subramanian has called a quick break. This comes after the discussion turned to messages about the "freak off" sex sessions. In one, Cassie Ventura told Sean Combs she was "always ready to freak off". She has told the court that she never wanted to take part in these sex sessions with escorts but did so to please Combs at first, and later because she was scared of the repercussions of not doing so. Diddy's defence lawyers question Cassie about 'freak offs' Defence lawyer Anna Estevao asks Cassie Ventura about the "freak off" allegations that have been central to this case. Ms Ventura, 38, has alleged she endured "hundreds" of sex sessions with escorts, under the influence of drink and drugs, and that these were "directed" by Sean Combs, 55, while they were together. Ms Estevao asks Ms Ventura why she first agreed to take part, and she tells the court that at that time, she wanted to make Combs happy. Jurors hear she told Combs, who had six children at the time, that she hoped they would one day have a child together. The defence lawyer puts it to her that Combs "opened up" her world "tremendously". Ms Ventura responds: "In a different way." "To make him happy you said you wanted to do freak offs?" Ms Estevao says. "No, it was a lot more than that," Ms Ventura responds. Cassie says Diddy relationship was 'fast, scary' - but rapper could be 'sweet' and 'attentive' The court is now hearing about messages exchanged by Cassie Ventura and Sean "Diddy" Combs during their relationship. Early on in their 11 years together, they would send "loving" messages, jurors are told. Combs referred to Ms Ventura as "Babygirl", the court hears, and in one message to her Blackberry from 2009 he says: "I love you so much it makes me cry." In another email exchange from 2010, Ms Ventura tells him she is going to sleep and that she loves him, and he replies: "I love you so much it consumes my life." In another message from 2009 she tells him: "I love you so much I can't wait till we don't care anymore." Asked what she meant by this, she tells the court they were not open about their relationship at this point. On Tuesday, she told the court Combs was in a relationship with his long-time partner Kim Porter around the time they started dating. Ms Ventura now tells the court she would travel to see him and that they had long breaks away from each other. Asked why she wanted to spend so much time with him, she replies: "Because I fell in love with him, he was charismatic, [a] big personality, larger than life." The beginning of their relationship was "really fast, fast-paced, scary", she says, but the more time she spent with him she saw what she thought was his real personality coming out - "sweet, attentive". Prosecutors want Cassie questioning to be quick due to her pregnancy The defence wants to show that Cassie Ventura was a willing participant in her relationship and sexual encounters with Sean Combs, and might have been involved with others. Before cross-examination proceedings got under way today, defence lawyer Anna Estevao told the judge that a large part of their case would be that there was infidelity on both sides and Combs understood Ms Ventura had other relationships. Prosecutors said they hope to have Ms Ventura, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, off the stand as soon as possible. "This witness is very, very pregnant," said lead prosecutor Maurene Comey. "We are afraid she could have the baby over the weekend. We want her off the stand before the weekend." Cassie tells court she 'knew a version' of Diddy the public didn't Defence lawyer Anna Estevao points out that Ms Ventura has called the defendant by his first name, Sean, during her time giving evidence so far. "There were other names like Puff Daddy, Diddy, but you called him Sean," Ms Estevao says. "Yes," is the reply. Asked if she knew the "real" Sean, and the Sean others didn't see, she again replies "yes" to both questions. "You knew a version of him the public didn't know?" Ms Estevao says. "Correct." The defence lawyer then puts it to Ms Ventura that she knew how special she was to him. This time, she answers "no". Ms Ventura, who is wearing a light coloured blouse and a coat in court today, agrees that it hurt when Combs lied to her and cheated on her. Asked if she put up with this for 11 years, she says she didn't for the entire time - but tells the court that, yes, she kept going back to him. She says she spent a lot of time feeling hurt in the early stages of their relationship and that she fell in love with him quickly. Cassie returns to the stand Court is now in session and singer Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's key witness, is back on the stand once again. Anna Estevao is the defence lawyer asking questions for the defence. She starts by asking Ms Ventura about her relationship with Sean Combs, which was on and off for about 11 years until 2018. Ms Estevao asks if she and Combs were in love, to which Ms Ventura replies: "Yes."
