History Main / EroticAsphyxiation

->'''Sex Addiction Therapist:''' Most likely, you'll end up going the way of David Carradine and Michael Hutchence: Autoerotic Asphyxiation.\\
'''Kenny:''' Autoerotic asphyxiation? What's that?\\
'''Therapist:''' I don't want to go into too much detail but -- you choke yourself with a belt around your neck while masturbating dressed up like Batman or something then you pass out from lack of air and apparently it makes your orgasm super awesome.\\

'''Butters:''' Oh no! I don't wanna have to buy a Batman costume!

* One {{Jerkass}} cigarette executive in ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' turns out to be into this, as revealed by his wife. As there was a recent strangling recalling a similar series or crimes decades ago, it's yet another reason to suspect him. [[spoiler:The murderer was actually his boss, who murdered his blackmailer and tried to pin it on the previous killer, a hotel owner who ended up stabbed in the shower by his mother when she thought he'd started killing again.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' episode "Higher Love" uses auto-erotic asphyxiation as a major plot point. Mr. Peanutbutter's agent (and later [[spoiler:[=BoJack=]'s costar in the ''Secretariat'' movie]]) both die from these incidents, and [=BoJack=] attempts to do this in order to get his girlfriend to say that she loves him.

'''Wanda''': What? "Funky Spiderman"?\\
'''[=BoJack=]''': I came up with that one myself. [[DontExplainTheJoke It's because he hangs and then he shoots webbing]].

* In the "Voodoo Mansion" back-up story in ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft: Into the Past'' #1 (which takes place in the same continuity as Lori's adventures), it is revealed that one of the souls residing in the mansion is Patrick, who accidentally strangled himself while autoerotic asphyxiation. His death was ruled a suicide and his body turned into an anatomy skeleton.

"Intentionally cutting off oxygen to the brain for sexual arousal", to quote Wiki/TheOtherWiki. A general term for sex acts that involves either restricting one's own breathing for intensified sensations during masturbation or one party restraining the breathing of another. Needless to say, this particular paraphilia includes all the risks associated with asphyxiation, including fatalities. Thus it's generally considered to fail the "safe" part of SafeSaneAndConsensual, particularly when it involves constricting the throat as it is usually portrayed in fiction. Sometimes it will be a plot point that what at first appears to be a masturbation session gone wrong [[AlwaysMurder is actually a disguised murder]]. In the case that the death is just purely accidental, fully expect it to be portrayed as an UndignifiedDeath; a sort of post-mortem CaughtWithYourPantsDown.

* ''Film/TheMechanic2011''. Bishop kills an ArmsDealer this way to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident, strangling him with his own belt, then hanging him up with some porn playing on a laptop in front of him. His protege Steve then makes the mistake of trying to copy this method on his first target -- unfortunately ''his'' victim is a very fit and powerfully built hit man.

* In ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'', Mason Verger was into this, but it backfired when Franchise/HannibalLecter tricked Verger into cutting his face off and feeding it to his dogs while high out of his mind, and then used the setup to hang him. Verger survived, but horribly maimed and paralyzed.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/{{Harrow}}'': In "Aurum Potestas Est" ("Gold is Power"), one VictimOfTheWeek dies in dies during an erotic asphyxiation session gone wrong. The other party's need to cover this up [[MurderIsTheBestSolution leads to murder]].

-->Would they still be here today, if they hadn't gotten bored and tried,

* ''Webcomic/TheaterHopper'' had some people wondering why Vader was strapped to a table in the first ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' trailer, and wondered it he liked that stuff, supporting it with him wearing leather, and that he likely choked officers for this trope.

'''Carter's attorney:''' ''(fast forwarding the tape)'' That's not it.

In short, DontTryThisAtHome.

For clarification, ''auto''-erotic asphyxiation is [[ADateWithRosiePalms doing it yourself]], as opposed to getting someone else to do it to you. For obvious reasons, this is even more dangerous - to the extent that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_asphyxiation#Famous_cases many of the more famous deaths from it]] have happened that way. On the other hand, if you do get someone else to do it and things go wrong, it is liable to get them convicted of murder or manslaughter even if they manage to convince the court that it was consensual. Also, being drunk or under the influence of drugs that affect alertness (whether by making you feel more alert than you are or by lessening awareness and consciousness/depressing the central nervous system) increases the odds of dying, ''especially'' if combined with doing it solo.

Finally, even if you don't die, you can put yourself at risk for chronic traumatic brain damage (in the same way people who suffer from repeated mini-strokes or concussions do - cutting off oxygen to the brain for any amount of time damages it, even if the damage is not noticeable immediately, brain damage is ''cumulative''), a major stroke that may be delayed due to damage to the arteries in the neck/dislodging fat or a clot in one of them, and/or weakening or breaking the bones in your cervical spine, causing anything from chronic pain to death when/if the wrong one breaks. The risk of both stroke and broken neck vertebrae is also multiplied ''exponentially'' if you do anything else - from playing football or hockey to headbanging or having your hair done in beauty salons a lot - that inflicts trauma to the region.

* In a variant that's less about sex than getting high, an internet-savvy unsub on ''Series/CriminalMinds'' persuaded teenagers to choke themselves in order to get a drug-free buzz. Things got deadly when the unsub got the kids competing to see which school's students could deprive themselves of oxygen the longest, resulting in multiple deaths that were initially mistaken for suicides and/or this trope.

* Gyp Rosetti in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire''. He's unlucky enough to be in this when Bugsy Siegel shows up at his place to engage in an assassination attempt on him. [[DisposableWomen Rosetti uses the girl he's with as a human shield]], giving him time to get his gun and drive off Bugsy, but not before Bugsy is able to kill four of Rosetti's henchmen and the paperboy.

*** In the same episode, it turns out to be a ChekhovsSkill, when [[spoiler: Quagmire's repeated abuse of this trope allows him to trick Brenda's boyfriend into thinking he had killed Quagmire via strangulation.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Kenny killed himself this way in "Sexual Healing."

** In "Minstrel Krampus", Roger gets a TooKinkyToTorture moment when Santa's elves try to strangle him

* Happens with you and Mizuki in ''Yume Miru Kusuri''.

* Gyp Rosetti in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire''. He's unlucky enough to have someone burst in with a gun during such activity, but [[DisposableWomen uses the girl he's with as a human shield]], giving him time to get his gun and drive them off. When he gives chase and bursts out his front door [[FullFrontalAssault wearing nothing but a belt around his neck]], his secret gets out.

* In a variant that's less about sex than getting high, an internet-savvy unsub on ''Series/CriminalMinds'' persuaded teenagers to choke themselves in order to get a drug-free buzz. Things got deadly when the unsub got the kids competing to see which school's students could deprive themselves of oxygen the longest, resulting in multiple deaths.

[[caption-width-right:301:For extra ambience, cue up anything by Music/AirSupply.]]

[[caption-width-right:For extra ambience, cue up anything by Music/AirSupply.]]