Autoerotic Asphyxia

Autoerotic asphyxia (AEA) is the practice of preventing oxygen uptake to arouse sexual desire. Medical professionals are likely to refer to AEA as the inducement of cerebral anoxia—a lack of oxygen in the brain—while attempting to achieve orgasm. Other names include asphyxiophilia, hypoxyphilia, and sexual asphyxia, which focus on sexual desire and would include arousing the sexual desire of one's sexual partner(s) in the act, whereas AEA is limited to practices that are directed to one individual for the satisfaction of his or her own sexual desire. It seems to have caught the attention of the scientific community in the early 20th century when a description appeared in the 1902 volume of the Annales d'Hygiène publique et de Médecine légale. As a regular supply of oxygen is necessary for survival, AEA risks causing death and it is largely through such deaths that AEA is known. While AEA seems to attract morbid fascination for its combination of sexual pleasure and the taking of one's life in a single act, that it is known through death is important for considering the epistemology of AEA. Furthermore, death is often represented in the act of AEA, such as with photos or videos of apparently dead people, which means that as AEA is known through death, death is also known through AEA.

Descriptive Knowledge

People who practice AEA rarely discuss this publicly, but because it is a cause of mortality, it has required that those involved in investigating these deaths, particularly the police, coroners, and forensic pathologists, must describe and interpret scenes of fatality where AEA seems to have occurred. The minimum requirements for suggesting that AEA was being practiced are the presence of signs of masturbation and asphyxiation. While asphyxiation is likely to be the cause of death in most autoerotic fatalities, it is possible that signs of masturbation are either absent or missed and therefore that AEA is overlooked. John Quinn and Pauline Twomey report of a man, Mr. J. B., in a psychiatric unit in Ireland who, while appearing to present no suicide risk, had been found with clothing tied around his neck on seven separate occasions. The staff thought these were parasuicidal acts until Mr. J. B. revealed that he found that the asphyxiation enhanced his sexual desire while masturbating. Consequently, AEA may be overlooked for parasuicide or suicide, particularly in psychiatric settings and scenes of fatality.

Methods of asphyxiation include applying pressure to the neck; using ligatures for strangulation; fixing airtight materials, particularly plastic bags, around the head; and using chemicals, such as anesthetic gases and solvents, that remove oxygen. Inducing cerebral anoxia can be relatively simple, but elaborate devices can be constructed with [Page 90]systems that are intended to halt the asphyxiation before it harms the individual involved.

Although AEA is understood to help excite sexual desire, scenes of autoerotic fatality often contain items that are not necessary for asphyxiation or masturbation but may be involved in the practice. Items include pornography; materials such as plastic and fur, which are used in fetishist practice; devices for stimulating the anus; photographs and movies apparently depicting scenes of death; and mirrors and video cameras that are in a position that would allow the individual concerned to watch him- or herself during AEA. Two elements that become more common as the age of the person involved increases are the presence of physical restraints (in addition to any ligatures for asphyxia) and wearing clothes indicative of the opposite sex, which are termed bondage and tranvestism, respectively. Like AEA, bondage and, in some cases, tranvestism are practices for attaining sexual gratification and such practices can be combined.

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