HEADLINE NEWS!

To Die For!

It was reported in a Tampa Bay newspaper that a young man from Ottawa, Ontario, had died while masturbating. (Yeah, I had that same expression too but it's not what you think.)

Apparently, after classes at a local college, he went home and prepared himself to masturbate. But it wasn't as simple as stripping and lying in bed or heading to the bathroom.

Instead, he strung a rope through an eye hook he'd driven into the floor, looped it around his neck in a way that allowed him to control the tension, and threaded it through a second eye hook, which he'd affixed to the archway above his head. Then he took the free end in his left hand and pulled.

The next day, the tall, blue-eyed man 23-year old failed to show up at the movie theater where he worked part-time.

When police discovered his slumped naked body a day later, they also noticed something else nearby - a laptop that was showing porn. The coroner's report - death by autoerotic asphyxiation (AeA).

This is certainly not new. Years back, actor David Carradine was found dead in the closet of his Bangkok hotel room, reportedly with a set of cords lashed around his neck, hands, and genitals. In 1997, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence died in a Sydney hotel; he was found naked, kneeling against a door, with a belt nearby.

In both cases, suicide and murder were among the initial theories but later, it was reported that both weren't seeking death or pain but pleasure. While many see this as only affecting an obscure minority, according to an FBI estimate, between 500 and 1,000 Americans die from AeA (mostly men). That's comparable to the average number of homicides in New York City every year.

MS: I've heard of this and when I was in Europe years ago, a couple friend of ours had actually showed us how it was done. Of course being a coward to that sort of thing, I didn't get involved. Besides, I was not that stupid. But honestly, even though they said it was not dangerous when it was done with someone else, I beg to differ. I mean, at any point in time, having a rope around your neck, strung from the ceiling is always asking for trouble isn't it?

Missus Singapore out