AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIA – WHEN SHAME TAKES THE SCENE

Abstract

Autoerotic death is defined as accidental death that occurs during individual and solitary sexual activity in which some type of instrument or apparatus was used to increase the victim’s sexual stimulation leading to an unintentional death. We present the autopsy report of a 50-year-old man presented for autopsy with a history of suicide by hanging. The characteristics of the victim’s clothes, the semen stains on the clothes, with the presence of toilet paper next to them, suggesting masturbation and the absence of a hanging groove due to protective foam used by the victim, allowed the reconstitution of the probable mechanism produced by the victim in his asphyxia with the help of a rope and an elastic band attached to the heel of a high shoe, which, when broken, would have produced the fatal accident. The description of this case is important to alert to the concept of autoerotic death and avoid the misinterpretation of the legal medical etiology, allowing accidental cases to be interpreted as suicides, or even natural deaths to be interpreted as autoerotic deaths without fitting into the concept of autoerotic death, which must always be an accidental death. Keywords: autoerotic death, autoerotic asphyxia, autopsy.