WHEN SEX HAPPENS, DEATHS HAPPEN

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Following my recent blog post on sex-related accidents (see WHEN SEX HAPPENS, ACCIDENTS HAPPEN), I thought I'd do a follow-up post on sex-related deaths. So here goes.

Below are ten unfortunate sex-related deaths trivia:

1. There are several phrases to mean death during sex, such as 'dying in the saddle' and the French phrase 'la mort d'amour' (meaning 'death in love' ).
2. Deaths during consensual sex account for about 0.6 per cent of all sudden deaths.
3. It's claimed or at least rumoured that Pope John XII (in 964), the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (in 1865), the French President Félix Faure (in 1899), the American Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (in 1979), the Japanese writer Isamu Togawa (in 1985) and the Australian politician Billy Snedden (in 1987) all died while having sex. On Rockefeller's death, the New York Magazine quipped, "Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going"!
4. One research study found that each additional hour of sexual activity per week resulted in one sudden death by cardiac arrest per 10,000 person-years. (See Dahabreh I J (2011) 'Association of episodic physical and sexual activity with triggering of acute cardiac events. Systematic review and meta-analysis' Journal of the American Medical Association 305(12).) Sex isn't always good for us!
5. A study of necrophilia, the act of having sex with a dead person, found that "The most common motive for necrophilia is possession of an unresisting and unrejecting partner." (See Rosman J P & Resnick P J (1989) 'Sexual attraction to corpses: a psychiatric review of necrophilia' Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 17(2).) It seems necrophilia is all about control. I find someone having sex with a dead person in a lift/elevator plain wrong on so many levels!
6. There have been many recorded deaths as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation. About 75 per cent of deaths caused by autoerotic asphyxiation are caused by hanging, about 20 per cent of such deaths are caused by the use of plastic bags and chemical use, and between 5 and 10 per cent of deaths caused by electrocution, foreign body insertions and overdressing/body wrapping. (I'm unclear why plastic bags are coupled with chemical use and why electrocution is linked with foreign body insertions and overdressing as categories for these statistics.) The French-born English writer Peter Anthony Motteux (formerly Pierre-Antoine Le Motteux) is arguably the first recorded case of someone dying from erotic asphyxiation, albeit assisted, in 1718: Other cases include the American actor David Carradine in 2009, the British politician Stephen Milligan in 1994, and the British television presenter Kristian Digby in 2010. It was tempting to add INXS' lead singer Michael Hutchence to this list; though his then girlfriend Paula Yates claimed his 1997 death was caused by autoerotic asphyxiation, the coroner didn't agree and put his death down to suicide.
7. Choking as a sexual act, often known as sexual strangulation or breath play, is an increasingly popular activity - see my FANCY A CHOKE? blog post. With the rise of choking as a sexual activity, there are more deaths arising from this activity. And let's be honest, most choking is done by men on women. In 2019, the British grassroots organisation set up to counter domestic violence, Women's Aid, has estimated that the number of women dying from sexual choking has increased by 90 per cent over the last ten years and that on average one woman in Britain is strangled to death by her partner every two weeks. Obviously these statistics can be interpreted at least two ways, more choking or more reporting of choking. Perhaps both. Often men who choke a woman to death use the 'a sex game wrong' defence. Choking isn't safe sex even if consensual.
8. According to the Our World in Data website, Africa of all continents has by far the highest death rates due to unsafe sex, that's sex without a condom. Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) has the highest death rate from unsafe sex. In 2023, the country recorded 379.3 deaths out of 10,000 deaths caused by unsafe sex. 11 other African countries - Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Congo and Central African Republic - make up the top 12 in the world for unsafe sex deaths. Poverty kills!
9. A research study found that unfaithful men were more likely to suffer from fatal cardiac events during sex. (See Fisher A D et al (2012) 'Sexual and cardiovascular correlates of male unfaithfulness' The Journal of Sexual Medicine 9(6).) I'm staying faithful to my wife!
10. A French expression for an orgasm is 'la petite mort' meaning 'the little death'.

Given it's pointless asking people whether they've died as a result of sexual activity, I'll post a video clip instead.

I've largely focused on the famous, but here are six bonus bits of trivia about sex-related deaths of ordinary people (all Wikipedia--vouched):

1. In 1999, a Romanian couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning while having sex in a car with its engine still running in a garage.
2. In 2007, a naked couple both aged 21 were found dead after falling from a four-storey building in South Carolina.
3. In 2008, an American woman died after being electrocuted from nipple clamps.
4. In 2013, a Zimbabwean woman died while having sex outdoors with her partner after being attacked by a lion.
5. In 2016, a 20 year-old Russian prostitute died after choking on a condom while giving a blow-job to a client.
6. In 2020, a 35 year-old man died in the company of a prostitute in Malawi. The police took no action against the prostitute because she "committed no crime by being too sweet for the man"!

Dying while having sex sounds a good way to go, maybe even better than dying in one's sleep. Billy Snedden's son, who was having sex with the same woman that his father died from having sex with, said "I'm sure the old man went out happy - anyone would be proud to die on the job." Like father, like son!

After compiling this post, I feel quite empty. I didn't even broach the r+pe subject. Men need to behave, and most men need to behave better towards women on this site. I know I'm preaching to the converted!

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