What is Erotic Asphyxiation?
Erotic asphyxiation (also called autoerotic asphyxiation, breath control play, breath play, asphyxiophilia, or hypoxyphilia) is an activity sometimes seen with BDSM where the brain is deprived of oxygen (air) in order to achieve greater sexual pleasure. This can be done by restricting air through hoods, hands, collars, ropes, or anything you can think of that will decrease the amount of oxygen you get.

Why Would Someone Partake In Erotic Asphyxiation?
The carotid arteries are on the side of your neck. In movies, these are what you often see people checking someone’s heartbeat with. They carry blood that is rich in oxygen to your brain. The veins then take it back to your heart to get oxygen again. When the carotid arteries are compressed (through a hand, a rope, or a tight collar), less oxygen rich blood gets to the brain. This causes an accumulation of carbon dioxide in the brain. These increased levels of carbon dioxide cause your brain to act funny and this causes feelings of giddiness, lightheadedness, and just an overall good feeling. These feelings are what can heighten sexual intercourse or masturbation and these feelings are what people chase when they perform erotic asphyxiation.

Safety
Erotic asphyxiation is considered to be edge play. What this means is that there is no way to always be safe when playing. There is always a substantial amount of risk when playing. And I agree with that sentiment. There is always a high amount of risk, but if you are still going to do it, you should understand some safety tips.

So one of the biggest risks is that you deprive the person of oxygen for too long. You brain requires lots of oxygen because it is a highly metabolic organ and dies quickly without oxygen. So if you stop a person from breathing for too long, they can have permanent brain damage and potentially even die. Even with very short periods of oxygen deprivation, you can cause little bits of brain cell death and that can add up after years of play. So there are long term risks.
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The other safety concern is that you can go into cardiac arrest. Your carotid artery measures blood pressure. If you squeeze it, you are going to increase the blood pressure, and it can get quite high. Your body recognizes this. Now your blood pressure is partially dependent upon your heart rate. When your blood pressure increases, your heart slows down to compensate, because high blood pressure is bad. Your carotid blood pressure can get so high that your heart slows down to the point of not beating. If this happens, the person can die. Obviously not having a heart beating is very, very bad.

The final safety concern is that you are altering a person’s consciousness. When I partake in bondage, I am fully aware of my body. I understand the pain signals, I understand how I am feeling, and I understand when I am pushing my body too far and need to stop. I can use a safeword if there is too much strain on my muscles and I think I might be damaging them. I cannot do that when I am partaking in erotic asphyxiation, because that causes my brain to function improperly. You cannot adequately tell when it's too much. One of the biggest risks is that you cannot say stop or use a safeword when you should. If you go so far as to black out, you obviously cannot use a safeword then either. There is no way to get oxygen deprivation while at the same time maintaining your consciousness and ability to make rational decisions.

It is estimated that 250 to 1000 people die each year in the United States from erotic asphyxiation. So weigh the risks before you decide to play.

How Do You Partake In It
As I previously mentioned, there are a variety of ways people engage in erotic asphyxiation. People will place plastic bags over their head and then tie them shut. Or people will use a hood that prevents normal breathing. Collars or rope can be fastened around the neck placing pressure on the neck. Sometimes someone uses their hands to compress the neck. Pressure can be placed on the chest by sitting on them, preventing normal breathing.

My recommendation is you do not partake in erotic asphyxiation. There are simply too many risk associated with it. But there are people who consider it to be essential to their sexual identity and hopefully this article will help you understand the risks and mitigate them as much as possible.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments.