Actor David Carradine's death has renewed attention to autoerotic asphyxiation, a sexual act in which a person temporarily cuts off the oxygen supply to the brain while masturbating. Though the cause of Carradine's death remains unknown, there is speculation that he could have died from this dangerous sexual act.
The act, which is sometimes incorrectly labeled as suicidal, is intended to heighten the effects of a sexual climax. Slate picked up on the story by pointing out that
there is no safe way to practice autoerotic asphyxiation.
WebMD provided background on the act in 2005, saying that
up to 1,000 people a year die from it:
"When you rob your brain of oxygen (asphyxia), you experience a high -- euphoria, dizziness, and lowered inhibition -- before you lose consciousness. To make their sexual experience more thrilling, autoerotic asphyxiators masturbate while strangling themselves with cords, ropes, scarves, and ties, or they suffocate by sealing their heads in plastic bags.
"The vast majority don't mean to kill themselves. They usually devise some kind of rescue mechanism to stop the asphyxiation once they've climaxed. But the fail-safe often fails. For example, they may tie a slip-knot or hang themselves from something that's shorter than they are, so they can simply stand up to stop the strangulation. But they may get so weak and disoriented from lack of oxygen that they can't pull out the knot or stand up, and they pass out and die."
The story went on to explain why autoerotic asphyxiation deserves media attention:
"Mark Clark, a detective sergeant with the Scottsdale, Ariz., police department, argues that even if sexual asphyxiation is kept out of the media, kids will discover it on their own. 'It should be talked about,' Clark says, adding that after kids get into the practice they look for information on how to do it more safely, and they must be told that there is no way to do it safely.
"Clark had a younger brother who died from autoerotic asphyxiation in 1993 and also says he has just seen too many ghastly sexual asphyxiation death scenes while on the job."
There is nothing new about this practice. The New York Times noted a significant increase 25 years ago in the number of these kinds of deaths:
"Researchers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimate conservatively that 500 to 1,000 such deaths occur each year in this country, but that most are misdiagnosed as suicide or homicide or covered up by the family because of the social stigma that surrounds a sexually motivated death. According to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, some 250 of its policyholders die this way each year.
"In fact, however, there is currently no way to get an accurate count of the number of autoerotic fatalities. The code by which coroners classify deaths contains no such category and, even when the cause of death is accurately determined, it may be listed under one of five different categories.
"A study of all adolescent suicides in a four-year period in Massachusetts showed that hanging was the second most frequent method, used in 30 percent of the cases. 'An enormous preponderance of the hanging deaths were among males, whereas jumping and gassing deaths were evenly divided among males and females,' Dr. Eva Deykin of Harvard Medical Center said. 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of those hangings were really accidental autoerotic deaths.'"
A behavior related to autoerotic asphyxiation is "the choking game."
It claims so many teenage lives that Web sites have been set up to help fight it. The choking game is not necessarily sexual in nature, but it involves getting a head-rush from the sensation of choking.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site provides helpful background.
