I mean, what Astarion's doing could be okay if consensual, so the choking itself isn't the problem, and I don't think this is what will influence kids to be abused or something, especially when they added Tav's scared facial animations which are clearly trying to send a message. This was always the crux or Ascended Astarion's romance as well, so it's not out of character for him, I'm sorry.
What I will agree with is that there is some real cognitive dissonance going on with the kisses themselves, and I think a lot of the controversy is coming from that. Larian is mixing two contradictory messages that don't mesh well and the takeaway can be a bit confusing. It kind of reminds me of how TLOU2's story is about how revenge is bad and killing is bad or whatever but then the gameplay does nothing but contradict that by making carnage look and feel epic to play. Here you have Tav's facial expressions telling you "this is not a good situation to be in" in what I guess is an attempt to not glorify/fetishize/romanticize Ascended Astarion's romance, but you ALSO have the kisses themselves be very clearly intended to be sexy, so it defeats the whole purpose by contradicting the message it's trying to send. Fanservice doesn't mesh well with trying to avoid romanticizing something.
