Choking games practiced by children and teens are more popular than many may know and can cause an unintended death.
Autoerotic Asphyxiation is the medical term used for these practices.
Daniel Cowell M.D., retired senior associate dean of graduate medical education at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, said Autoerotic Asphyxiation, or AEA, is an activity voluntarily performed to reduce oxygen to the brain to enhance sexual excitement.
“Practitioners use ropes, plastic bags, even sniffing substances,” Cowell said. “It gives them a sense of giddiness.”
He said no one knows the prevalence of AEA.
“This is why it is important for health care providers to know about AEA,” Cowell said. “So they’ll know what to do about it.”
AEA has an addictive quality, he said.
“It is not like an alcohol or drug addiction,” Cowell said. “It is a pattern of behavior that tends to persist.”
Choking games can be performed alone or with a partner.
However, Cowell said it is much more common for practitioners to be alone. He also said it starts out as experimentation that can evolve over time to AEA.
“Not every kid that participates in choking games becomes AEA,” Cowell said. “It is overwhelmingly a male disorder.”
Choking games are well known to adolescents. When doing research for his article in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Cowell said he was surprised of the amount of teachers and school officials who know about the choking games.
Sarah Fox, a counselor at Barboursville Middle School, said she knows the dangers of choking games.
“If there was a suspicion of a student participating in this activity,” Fox said, “I would investigate the situation further and provide education to our students. If there was a definite concern, then we would contact the parents.”
“It is not an intended death,” Cowell said. “Their escape methods have failed.”
Cowell stressed the importance of awareness of AEA.
“This is a bona fide real medical disorder worthy of a physician’s attention,” Cowell said. “The best advice is to have nothing to do with it.”
Katie Fowler can be contacted at fowler61@marshall.edu.
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