There’s some danger in everything we do from walking across the street to eating breakfast. There’s also some things that are much more dangerous than others such as being a test pilot versus having a desk job.
This is just the same when having sex. There can be very “traditional” vanilla sex to wild and kinky sex using knives and blood everywhere. It’s just a matter of knowing what you’re doing and how to do things safely and sanely, but just like walking across the street – no amount of planning can account for freak occurrences.
The facts aren’t entirely clear, but recently David Carradine, star in Kill Bill and other films died from what appears to be auto-erotic asphyxiation. You could probably take the words apart and figure out what it means, but essentially it’s cutting of your own airflow to enhance an orgasm. I put this in the Fringe Fetish category because it’s one of the more rare fetishes, but it not quite as rare as a balloon fetish (at least I don’t think it is). Auto-erotic asphyxiation is something you’d definitely want to be extremely careful with if you ever try. I would even highly recommend having someone with medical experience in the room just in case.
No one wants to talk about erotic asphyxiation, auto (self-induced) or otherwise. It’s generally thought of as the kind of sex you have if you want to die. Or get damn close to it. But people do it: estimates in the US put the death rate for erotic asphyxia at upwards of 1000 people a year. According to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, around 250 of its policyholders die from sexual asphyxia each year.
It’s a sexual practice that ranges from what practitioners call “breath play” to full on “RACK”, an acronym for Risk Aware Consensual Kink. I guess it’s named such hoping that the people doing it are aware of all the risks they’re taking, and even though they’re gonna do it anyway, are making a choice that involves consent. Consent is the ability to choose the experience that is appropriate for you, the individual, the ability to understand what you are consenting to, and the power to say no. The opposite of shame — like hiding it from your lover, wife, husband or seriously tolerant kink-aware community who know that you’re aware of the risks and want to do it anyway, and who want you to stay alive even if they don’t support the sexual activity you’re into. [source]
I don’t truly like the idea of RACK because it’s nearly impossible to know all the risks that could be involved with many of these things. Also, most things could fall into a RACK category from nip play to whipping. Part of why I do my blog is to educate as much as possible on what SOME of the risks involved are. It’s impossible for me know present all of them, but a lot of times you just have to use the not so common, common sense.
It’s kind of like a game of Russian Roulette. Your chances of living are pretty good if there is only one bullet, but that doesn’t mean you’ll live. Different kink activities put different amounts of bullets in the revolver for a kinky game of Russian Roulette. Please, in whatever you do, even just going over to a guy’s house for a hook-up, be careful and take as many precautions as you can. You can never predict everything that MAY happen, but you can try and make everything as safe as possible. You also have to be consistent in the precautions you take. It’s likely that time you’re just a little lazy that something will go wrong. If you can’t put forth your whole effort, don’t put forth any.
