13 People Who Died From Masturbating
The French refer to orgasms as les petites morts, AKA “the little deaths.” Typically there is very little downside to such little deaths—in fact, they can be pleasurable, reassuring, invigorating, and downright life-affirming…that is, up until the point where they lead to big deaths.
Estimates vary widely, but roughly 500 to 1,000 Americans die yearly due to autoerotic asphyxiation, the act of accidentally suffocating or strangling oneself to death while purposely cutting off oxygen to the brain to enhance one’s orgasm. Practitioners of this dangerously seedy art often go the extra mile to construct impossibly elaborate devices that would make Rube Goldberg proud.
Based on available evidence, the victims are overwhelmingly—to the tune of about 95%—white and male. But it’s difficult to crunch the real numbers because many of these cases are categorized as suicides by family members who live in a culture where for some reason it’s considered more noble to purposely take your own life than to accidentally croak while trying to bust a nut.
While autoerotic asphyxiation is by far the most common cause of death by masturbation, the following list will reveal hapless self-pleasurers who met their maker due to getting sucked off by a vacuum cleaner, electrocuting their penis, perforating their bowels with a vibrating dildo, choking to death on a zucchini, and even pleasuring oneself with frozen sausages. It’s a big world, and there’s room for everybody here.
1. 87-year-old man found naked and hanging by his belt.
This is allegedly the oldest victim of an autoerotic fatality ever reported. He was found hanging by a belt wrapped around his neck in his living room, naked and bound with ropes that crisscrossed his body from his legs up to his chest. Investigators discovered semen on his right hand as well as on the floor.
2. Man perforates bowel after getting vibrating dildo stuck in his anus.
At age 50, Londoner Nigel Willis was an unemployed diabetic who lived with his mother. He also apparently enjoyed pleasuring himself while having a vibrating dildo shoved up his crapper. One fateful day late in 2013 he accidentally lodged the vibrator so far up his rectum that he found it impossible to extract. He was also so humiliated by the entire sequence of events that he refused to seek help until five days later, at which point the little buzzing fake penis had already punctured his colon. He spent over a month in the hospital before finally succumbing to “multi-organ failure, sepsis and a perforated bowel.”
3. Man electrocutes his penis.
This tragic and easily preventable autoerotic fatality could have been averted if this lonely Australian drunkard who lived alone in a mining town had settled for traditional, unencumbered, hand-on-penis masturbation. But nooooooo—he had to go for the “Cadillac plan” by plugging in a wall-mounted electrical cord and trying to zap himself into a state of heightened ecstasy:
The cord had been taken from an electrical appliance; the appliance plug had been removed from the cord, bare wires being thus exposed. Attached to one of the live wires of the electric cord was a 45 cm long metal neck chain, extending down the left side of the abdomen to a single loop wrapped around with the chest of the deceased; the earth wire was tucked into the rubber/fabric shroud of the cord. At the site of contact with the negative wire on the chest was an electric burn to the skin extending into subcutaneous fat. A further, patterned, superficial electric burn mark extended down the left side of the abdomen and around the base of the penis, the pattern corresponding to that of the neck chain….
The takeaway? Don’t electrocute your cock. Alas, the victim in this case learned his lesson too late, assuming he learned it at all.
4. Man chokes to death on zucchini during afternoon bout of autoeroticism.
This case involves an under-employed man in his late 20s who grew zucchini in the backyard of the house he shared with his wife. One afternoon he desperately knocked on a neighbor’s door seeking assistance because he was choking on a zucchini he’d shoved down his throat while masturbating. Sadly, it was too late to save him. According to the report:
Removal of the trousers showed the penis to be semi-erect; around the base of the penis was a rubber band. On the lower abdomen and in the groin was dried, white coloured material, subsequently identified as semen….Internal examination showed a zucchini impacted in the larynx and oropharynx, totally occluding the airway….
5. Man dies of heart attack after attempting to get a blowjob from a vacuum cleaner.
A 1988 report from The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology details the case of a 57-year-old man who joined the Choir Invisible as a result “of a fatal cardiac episode resulting from an unusual autoerotic practice involving the use of a vacuum cleaner”:
The decedent was naked, leaning against a dining table with his feet on the floor. His testicles, thighs, and buttocks were tightly bound with panty hose. Areas in direct contact with the [vacuum cleaner’s] beater bar (his abdomen, parts of his chest and arms) showed some burn marks….A bottle of wine, some food items, jars of lubricant, a glass of urine, and a wooden table leg laden with fecal material were on the dining room table.
OK, then. I think I’m going to skip lunch.
6. Canadian man dies from incredibly complicated underwater self-pleasuring contraption.
In 1984 a researcher coined the term “aqua-eroticum” to describe a case where a man drowned in a river during an intense underwater jackoff session. A much later case involves a 25-year-old Canadian who perished as a result of “an unusual autoerotic fatality in a lake involving a home-made diving apparatus.”
“Hey, Jim,” you earnestly ask me, “exactly how unusual was his home-made diving apparatus?” Gee, I’m glad you asked:
On his head, the victim had a hockey helmet equipped with a safety grid. The garments were composed of a two-piece black snowmobile suit and beige ski boots….On top of the black suit, a complex bondage system joining together the waist, knees, and ankles of the victim was observed with meshed metallic chains and straps and accessories usually used for horseback riding.…A section of electrical wire was also used at the knees. The whole bondage device was secured at the pubic region by a padlock, consequently maintaining the victim’s legs tightly joined together.…Furthermore, a meshed metallic chain was attached to the hockey helmet and straps were also present at each wrist….Under his winter garments, the victim was wrapped in a transparent plastic jumpsuit covering him from head to toe.…The man was [initially] completely underwater, his feet connected to a wooden board by ski bindings. The wooden board was linked to a floating pneumatic boat by an electrical cord. The victim had linked a long black tube from his mouth to an open plastic container floating on the lake, thus creating a device for air supply. The open plastic container allowed air to enter the black tube and get to the victim.
Apparently the black tube didn’t adequately allow for sufficient airflow, and this gallant and dedicated masturbatory warrior slowly suffocated to death.
7. British conservative politician found naked, dead, and with part of an orange in his mouth.
Stephen Milligan was a conservative Member of Parliament with an apparently lazy eye. His corpse was found in his London flat in 1994, “naked except for a pair of stockings and suspenders, with an electrical flex tied around its neck and a black bin liner over its head.” There was also “an orange segment in his mouth at the time of his death,” although no one seems to know quite why.
8. Man heartlessly killed by the tractor he fell in love with.
Love is a many-splendored thing which manifests itself in so many colorful ways, it might as well be a painting of Ganesha. Ours is not to question the validity of others’ attractions and obsessions, nor to secretly mock and laugh at them. The book Autoerotic Fatalities details the case of a man who fell in love with his tractor—he even wrote love poetry to it—only to be brutally murdered by the cold, heartless, sadistic, steely mechanical farming device:
A 42 year-old Asian man was found hanging by the neck, suspended by a rope attached to the raised shovel of a John Deere Model JD410, diesel powered, backhoe tractor…The decedent was suspended in a semi-sitting position by a cloth safety harness strap wrapped around his neck and clipped to a rope that was hooked to the raised shovel of the backhoe tractor. A towel was between the loose fitting strap and the victim’s neck. A long piece of plastic pipe was connected on one end by conduit tape to the hydraulic control lever of the shovel in the operator’s compartment of the tractor. A broom stick was taped to the other end of the pipe and was partially under the decedent’s buttocks….The victim kept a journal of love poetry dedicated to his tractor that he had named “Stone,” outlining his desire for them to “soar high” together. The victim was unmarried and lived with his parents on their farm. He also had a reasonable expectation of privacy for an extended period, as he engaged in this behavior in the late evening down by the barn. Cause of death was determined to be accidental autoerotic asphyxiation with carbon monoxide intoxication as a contributor.
9. British nationalist found dead in a cupboard with a cord wrapped around his neck.
Kristian Etchells was a prominent member of the British National Front party, which is deemed by some to be “fascist” and “far right” and “nationalist” and, what the hell, probably even “evil” if not “Satanic.” He had once been jailed for “throwing eggs and shouting racist taunts.” In another incident, he was sentenced to a year’s worth of community service for “threatening an Asian taxi driver with a hunting knife.” In August of 2004 at the age of 29, Etchells was found dead in his apartment’s cupboard with a cord wrapped around his neck and “a picture of a woman dressed as a schoolgirl on the floor.”
10. Woman dies of possible stroke while masturbating with a frozen sausage.
Although the woman’s body was only discovered after it was in a “severely decomposed condition,” it is suspected that her cause of death was a subarachnoid hemorrhage while diddling herself with frozen sausages:
A black woman in her early twenties was discovered in a severely decomposed condition. She was found on a bed in her locked apartment where she had resided alone. She was nude and lay face down with a pillow under her abdomen and her buttocks in the air. Her right hand was beneath her, near her vagina. Her face was turned to one side, and a knife was beneath her cheek. On the bed immediately below her vagina lay a long sausage, which in all probability, fell from her vagina after death. On the kitchen counter a package of similar sausages, once frozen, had since thawed.
11. Woman dies of extreme arousal while masturbating with sex toy.
Nicola Paginton was young, blonde, healthy, vibrant, and seemingly had a bumptious ’n’ bountiful life ahead of her until that catastrophic day in October 2009 when, apparently flicking her bean to some porn video on her laptop, she allegedly croaked due to a “sudden cardiac arrest” from “physical and emotional arousal.”
12. Baptist preacher dies in “mishap” involving rubber wet suits.
Reverend Gary Aldridge of Montgomery, AL, died and went to heaven to meet his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ after a 2007 incident at his home that left him dead from “accidental mechanical asphyxia.” He was found hogtied and wearing a face mask, a head mask, diving slippers, diving gloves, “rubberized underwear,” and two—count ’em, two—full rubber wet suits at the time of his demise. It is assumed that St. Peter demanded that he remove his shameful rubber outfit before allowing him past the pearly gates.
13. Movie star found dead in Thailand from act of masturbatory self-bondage.
Yes, I realize I could have just as easily included Michael Hutchence from INXS, but the difference between him and actor David Carradine is that a coroner ruled Hutchence’s death a suicide while Thai authorities ruled out suicide in Carradine’s case. Both men were found dead in closets in a state of undress. Both had former lovers who stated they’d routinely engaged in autoerotic asphyxiation and sundry other acts of kinky debauchery. The decisive factor here is that while I found INXS to be only mildly annoying, Carradine starred as the title character in fake-ass huge-chinned nerd director Quentin Tarantino’s unforgivably awful Kill Bill films, and thus I shed no tears for him. 
