Polley's RUN TOWARDS THE DANGER: Worst [Age Gap] Date Ever | Teen Choking Fetish?

Dave Itzkoff related in his New York Times piece that "Sarah Polley Is OK With Oversharing" (Feb. 17, 2022). In the piece, Itzkoff wrote that Polley, the accomplished actress, shared that when she 16,  after a(n) (consensual) age-gap date, she experienced a violent "sexual encounter" with 28-year-old Jian Ghomeshi - the musician and former CBC host.

In another chapter [of Run Towards The Danger], “The Woman Who Stayed Silent,” Polley revisits what she used to call “a funny party story about my worst date ever” with Jian Ghomeshi, the musician and former CBC radio host [...]

Describing the episode now without euphemism, Polley says that when she was 16 and Ghomeshi was 28, she left his apartment after he became violent during a sexual encounter in which he ignored her pleas to stop hurting her.

Polley, now 43, shared in “The Woman Who Stayed Silent” that when she was 13, she danced with Jian in Moxy Früvous' "King of Spain" video:

He asked me to appear in a video for one of his band’s songs, “King of Spain.” I was thrilled beyond belief, dancing with him outside the Bloor Street Cinema. (I was thirteen so forgive me, world.)

And when Polly was 14, she was captivated by ≈ 24-year-old Jian after he "tenderly'' tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gazed upon her lips:

I met him again when I was fourteen and was the MC for another fundraiser, this time for the Canadian Peace Alliance. He was there to perform with his band, Moxy Früvous, which I loved at the time. While another band was performing onstage, we sat together on a back staircase. He told me I was doing great. He tenderly pulled a strand of hair out of my face, tucked it behind my ear, and gazed at my face, my lips, my forehead in a way that made me think he was going to kiss me. He didn’t. But I was captivated.

Interestingly, Meghan Daum wrote in her New York Times piece, "How Sarah Polley, Child Star and ‘Canada’s Sweetheart,’ Grew Up Way Too Fast" (March 1, 2022), that 15-year-old Polley left home and moved in with her 19-year-old boyfriend.

Born into a theatrical family, she was 11 when her mother died, after which her father, who “prided himself on ‘not being a father,’” retreated into a solipsistic funk. With her much older siblings long out of the house, Sarah decided at 14 she was grown up enough to leave home and, by 15, was living with her 19-year-old boyfriend.  

15-year-old Sarah Polley in Exotica (1994)

Polley went on to describe the "sexual encounter" with Jian by sharing that after their date, she went back to his apartment and after they kissed, he warned her that he was into "some pretty weird stuff" before he ran his "devil hands" all over her young body:

A few years later, Jian asked me out on a date. We ended up back at his apartment. I was nervous [...] After he had played me some recordings of his music and cursory amounts of kissing, he said, “I’m into some pretty weird stuff, Sarah. Do you think you can keep up?” In the story as I told it, I would say, in an adult fashion, a simple “No.” He proceeded to stand behind me and run his hands all over my clothed body at a million miles an hour, saying, “You’re in hell, you’re in hell, there’s devil hands all over your body, you’re in hell, it’s the devil!”

16-year-old Sarah Polley in Avonlea (1995)

The "pretty weird stuff" that Jian was referring to was his erotic\sexual asphyxiation fetish, but Polly wasn't a fan. Consequently, a "furious" ≈ 28-year-old Jian bent Polly's 16-year-old legs over her head and penetrated her until her muscles ached, and she cried out in pain:

“[...] he wouldn’t get his hands off my neck, though I tried to pry them away and managed to say, while he briefly moved them away from my neck, that I hated having my neck touched like that and I didn’t want him to do that again. He did it again [...]

[...] the sex became painful after that. He bent my legs back over my head and wouldn’t stop when it felt that muscles were being ripped and I cried out. I left out that I expressed that it hurt and wanted him to stop and he ignored this, looking at me with what looked like abject hatred. 

Daum reminded us that Polly: "[...] flattered and flirted with Ghomeshi when they crossed paths in professional settings [...]" For example, in an email exchange with Jian, Polly even offered Jian her "hot sister":

“He writes: “you owe me. But we knew that already…:p”

And I reply: “Ah. You are the best. I shall provide you with my hot sister.”

And curiously, Polly wrote that she shared her age-gap one-night-stand story at parties, but she left out some details like her age:  

Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I had a funny party story about my worst date ever. [#worstdateever]

Lastly, per the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, unlike Polley, some teens appear to condone choking during sex:

Among 14-to-18-year-old girls with sexual experience, more than one in eight has experienced choking during sex [...]