It’s started happening in the past ten years, as Internet porn is always needing to up the ante. In kink communities it was always strongly frowned on.
I’m posting this in full, because this comment thread is extremely disturbing. I am a kinky person who does absolutely extreme shit, but I don’t fuck with breath play - I watched an ex almost kill someone that way.
Jay Wiseman - The Medical Realities of Breath Control Play
(This is a copy of an essay that I have posted many times in internet newsgroups, particularly soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm. It has become my main and best-known writing on the subject. It has been very lightly edited in this 2009 update.)
Hi folks,
As many of you know, the subject of breath control play pops up here from time to time, and I often participate in the resultant threads.
I notice that I repeatedly tend to post the same basic information about the physiology of what's involved, and such "re-inventing the wheel" is unnecessary. I have therefore been working on a basic "position paper" of what's involved for some time, and here it is. Assuming that it's factually accurate (and I cordially invite informed challenge on this point), this will become my "boilerplate" statement on the matter.
Given that "any subject can be written about at any length" it has been a distinct challenge to write this article. I have tried to keep it short enough so that people will actually read it, but also make it long enough to cover what I consider are the important points. I have tried to provide relevant physiological and biochemical information, but not go so deeply into detail that the average reader would get lost. I have tried to provide basic "starting point" references for my points and concerns for those who wish to research this matter further on their own (and I certainly encourage such research), but not to provide such an exhaustive list of citations that the researcher would become overwhelmed. Hopefully, my efforts have been at least adequate. My best wishes to all.
Regards,
Jay Wiseman
Copyright issues footnote: I wrote this article with the hope that it would be widely read and distributed, and without any particular expectation of financial compensation in return for writing it. Therefore, I consent to the following uses of this essay:
- It's fine with me if you read it.
- It's fine with me if you send it, in unaltered form and including the foreword, in private e-mail to appropriate others.
- It's fine with me if you post it, as mentioned in point # 2, to newsgroups, social networking sites, and closed mailing lists.
- If you put it up on a private, no-fee-to-access, website, please put it up as mentioned in point # 2 and include a link to both the Greenery Press website and to the main page of this website.
- I do require that you get my specific prior permission before putting this article up on a pay-to-access website, putting it in a book offered for sale, or otherwise charge for any sort of access to it.
The Medical Realities of Breath Control Play
Copyright 1997 by Jay Wiseman, author of "SM 101: A Realistic Introduction". All rights reserved.
For some time now, I have felt that the practices of suffocation and/or strangulation done in an erotic context (generically known as breath control play; more properly known as asphyxiophilia) were in fact far more dangerous than they are generally perceived to be.
As a person with years of medical education and experience, I know of no way whatsoever that either suffocation or strangulation can be done in a way that does not intrinsically put the recipient at risk of cardiac arrest. (There are also numerous additional risks; more on them later.)
Furthermore, and my biggest concern, I know of no reliable way to determine when such a cardiac arrest has become imminent.
Often the first detectable sign that an arrest is approaching is the arrest itself. Furthermore, if the recipient does arrest, the probability of resuscitating them, even with optimal CPR, is distinctly small. Thus the recipient is dead and their partner, if any, is in a very perilous legal situation. (The authorities could consider such deaths first-degree murders until proven otherwise, with the burden of such proof being on the defendant). There are also the real and major concerns of the surviving partner's own life-long remorse to having caused such a death, and the trauma to the friends and family members of both parties.
Some breath control fans say that what they do is acceptably safe because they do not take what they do up to the point of unconsciousness. I find this statement worrisome for two reasons:
(1) You can't really know when a person is about to go unconscious until they actually do so, thus it's extremely difficult to know where the actual point of unconsciousness is until you actually reach it.
(2) More importantly, unconsciousness is a symptom, not a condition in and of itself. It has numerous underlying causes ranging from simple fainting to cardiac arrest, and which of these will cause the unconsciousness cannot be known in advance.
I have discussed my concerns regarding breath control with well over a dozen SM-positive physicians, and with numerous other SM-positive health professionals, and all share my concerns. We have discussed how breath control might be done in a way that is not life-threatening, and come up blank. We have discussed how the risk might be significantly reduced, and come up blank. We have discussed how it might be determined that an arrest is imminent, and come up blank.
Indeed, so far not one (repeat, not one) single physician, nurse, paramedic, chiropractor, physiologist, or other person with substantial training in how a human body works has been willing to step forth and teach a form of breath control play that they are willing to assert is acceptably safe -- i.e., does not put the recipient at imminent, unpredictable risk of dying. I believe this fact makes a major statement.
Other "edge play" topics such as suspension bondage, electricity play, cutting, piercing, branding, enemas, water sports, and scat play can and have been taught with reasonable safety, but not breath control play. Indeed, it seems that the more somebody knows about how a human body works, the more likely they are to caution people about how dangerous breath control is, and about how little can be done to reduce the degree of risk.
In many ways, oxygen is to the human body, and particularly to the heart and brain, what oil is to a car's engine. Indeed, there's a medical adage that goes "hypoxia (becoming dangerously low on oxygen) not only stops the motor, but also wrecks the engine." Therefore, asking how one can play safely with breath control is very similar to asking how one can drive a car safely while draining it of oil.
