Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation

I once spoke with a woman who confided she was unable to articulate her grief after the death of her son, who had died consequent to auto-erotic asphyxiation. She was afraid people would judge her son, and by proxy, her entire family. She had kept this 'secret' bottled up for years until she read an article I had written on Self Mutilation with an attached poem I previously wrote on behalf of a young teenage girl who was a cutter. I offered to listen to her story about her son and she in turn responded by pouring out all of her pain and anguish.

Several days later, while still pre-occupied with everything she had shared, I wrote a poem on her behalf, called SCARFING, based on that information. It was not my first encounter with this subject. Years prior, I performed auxillary duty as assistant to the Office of Special Investigations into a similar unfortunate A-EA death of a male military member on our base, and it was an experience that I had never forgotten.

I wrote this poem to let her know I understood and empathized, sincerely hoping it might bring her a small measure of comfort. Luckily, it did. She later said it was the catalyst toward her healing path of recovery. Not finding closure exactly, but something akin to it. She thanked me for having given 'voice' to the "emotions she deeply felt but couldn't adequately express." It is my hope that by sharing this post it might be beneficial to someone else, or at the very least perhaps open up important dialogue on this fairly taboo topic.

For more information, I have left a number of links related to A-EA on our GLBT Resources page.

SCARFING

I twirled the neck scarf
Through my fingers
Shimmering white silk
So innocent looking
So soft to the touch;
“Ryan,” I breathed,
“Why in God’s name
Did you do this?”
The societal stigma
And family shame
Flushed my cheeks;
I needed to talk
But I couldn’t speak
Of the bizarre images
Flashing through
My tortured mind;
Ryan, sweet Ryan,
So ‘normal’ it seemed
Through the years,
Yet he did this deed
With a consequence
Still wrenching tears
I didn’t understand
I couldn’t comprehend
Why didn’t someone know?
Maybe one of his friends?
But if so, I wondered,
Which one of them
Introduced it to him?
Did they experiment together,
Perhaps on a whim?
Or did he find the idea
Somewhere on the internet?
In a detective novel?
Or a porno magazine?
So many questions
Forever remain unanswered;
The cops, the clergy,
The doctors, and I,
Can only shake our heads,
But I feel a sense of guilt,
‘A parent obviously remiss
Or I’d have noticed this’,
But how could I?
I was never accessible
To your most private acts
Oh, Ryan, dear Ryan,
I can’t erase
That horrid vision,
My last sight of you
Swinging naked
From a high beam
Not suicide, not homicide,
But ‘accidental hanging’
‘Auto-erotic Asphyxiation’
As officially labeled…
Son, how could you
Leave us this way?
Was the pleasure so great
It was worth the risk
Of ending your life?
I just want to scream
At the echo of alien words
Spoken at the scene:
“Your son was into scarfing.”

-Camille Cheek
25 June 2001


We've heard a lot about auto-erotic asphyxiation from the usual (read: MALE) sources. But what do women think about the phenomenon that robbed us of "Kung Fu" star David Carradine?