Death as a result of autoerotic activities : criminalistic, legal, forensic-medical and psychological aspects

abstract The aim of the paper is to discuss issues related to cases of death during autoerotic activities (defined in international literature as autoerotic death) on the basis of criminalistic, legal, forensic-medical and psychological knowledge. These are events in which death usually occurs as a result of rapid suffocation (autoerotic asphyxia, sexual asphyxia) due to the blocking of respiratory openings, hanging or strangulation, in the course of activities undertaken in order to evoke defined experiences of a sexual nature. A fatal consequence should be investigated rather as an unfortunate accident than the conscious intention of the victim/ perpetrator of the incident. As in the case of suicide, the victim is at the same time the perpetrator of the action, although other people may also have participated in the behaviour or provoked it. Some cases of this type must surely number among the dark figure of crimes. The case selected and described in this paper was studied at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków. It constituted both an example and a starting point for broader analysis of the issue with reference to various fields of science. Incidents consisting in self-strangulation with the aim of achieving sexual satisfaction have been noted by sexologists, and in situations ending in death, such cases are analysed by law enforcement agencies with the participation of forensic medical doctors. Cases of death as a result of autoerotic activities thus requires a complex, interdisciplinary approach in order to explain them

Death as a result of autoerotic activities - criminalistic, legal, forensic-meDical anD psychological aspects

abstract The aim of the paper is to discuss issues related to cases of death during autoerotic activities (defined in international literature as autoerotic death) on the basis of criminalistic, legal, forensic-medical and psychological knowledge. These are events in which death usually occurs as a result of rapid suffocation (autoerotic asphyxia, sexual asphyxia) due to the blocking of respiratory openings, hanging or strangulation, in the course of activities undertaken in order to evoke defined experiences of a sexual nature. A fatal consequence should be investigated rather as an unfortunate accident than the conscious intention of the victim/ perpetrator of the incident. As in the case of suicide, the victim is at the same time the perpetrator of the action, although other people may also have participated in the behaviour or provoked it. Some cases of this type must surely number among the dark figure of crimes. The case selected and described in this paper was studied at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków. It constituted both an example and a starting point for broader analysis of the issue with reference to various fields of science. Incidents consisting in self-strangulation with the aim of achieving sexual satisfaction have been noted by sexologists, and in situations ending in death, such cases are analysed by law enforcement agencies with the participation of forensic medical doctors. Cases of death as a result of autoerotic activities thus requires a complex, interdisciplinary approach in order to explain them