autoasphyxiation for pre teens in my neighborhood

do they sit ner the tailpipes of a car to get asphyxiated ?

No, it's a sexual high thing.
If I remember right, the movie was Oshima's Realm of the Senses.
Not that I am sure this new kick for kids is about that euphoria, but I took it that was from the first article I saw.

They choke themselves with a necktie or a rope until they pass out - it gives them a high of sorts. Not wise. It is sad Osso - on so many levels.

The child in the article above couldn't get the rope loose and deprived his brain of oxygen too long - went into cardiac arrest and died two days later.

Here's the movie review - the movie not really a promotion for the activity. Oshima is/was a good movie maker, in my point of view.

http://www.amazon.com/Realm-Senses-Tatsuya-Fuji/dp/6305049378

I saw this at the time, probably 1977. I remember being affected and irate in some way, but not exactly what about, re the movie, and arguing with my not yet then husband. Clearly I remember the movie somewhat, after all this time. If I saw it again, I might not agree with my then-self, or maybe I would remember exactly what I was going on about.

I doubt the present kid-trend is about this movie, but auto asphyxiation as a high, sexual or not, has probably become known.. filtered down to kid level.

Deadly 'Choking Game' Comes With Big Risks
by Rob Stein - NPR Morning Edition
April 16, 2012

Michele Galloway went looking for her son, Connor, one morning in their Webster, N.C., home to make sure the seventh-grader hadn't overslept.

"I opened the door and I found him," Galloway said. "And he looked like he was standing up beside his bed. And I just said, 'Connor, you're awake.' And then I realized he was not awake."

Connor Galloway, age 12, was found dead in his bedroom with a belt looped around his neck. Connor's friends admitted to his mother that they'd been talking about playing "the choking game."

She looked more closely. "There was a little gap between his feet and the floor," she said. "And I realized, you know, he had a belt around his neck."

The other end of Connor's belt was looped around the top of his bunk bed.

At first, police thought Connor had committed suicide, even though he was a happy, popular 12-year-old. But Connor's friends at school admitted they had all been talking about playing "the choking game."

"I kept thinking, if I pinch myself, this is not real," Galloway said. "I'm dreaming. This is not really happening."

But it was real. And Connor's parents aren't alone. Similar reports have emerged around the country, sparking alarm among doctors, parents and public health officials, such as Katrina Hedberg, the state epidemiologist in Oregon.

"The choking game is a strangulation activity that some kids participate in, using either their hands or something like a rope or a belt or something like that," she says.

Why? Thomas A. Andrew, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner, who has studied the trend, explains: "As the brain is deprived of oxygen, there's this sensation of lightheadedness, which is interpreted as a high. And then once the pressure is released and blood flow is restored in a fashion, they see stars and the feeling is described as a rush," he said.

According to a study Hedberg's colleagues published today in the journal Pediatrics, around 6 percent of more than 5,000 middle-schoolers surveyed in Portland, Ore., have tried the choking game. And about a quarter of them have tried it at least five times, the researchers reported.

"With each of those episodes, obviously, just a little bit of the brain is being damaged," Andrew said. "So who knows what the long-term effects may be on children who do this repeatedly?"

And no one really knows how often the game is being played or how many kids may have died. Back in 2008, a national estimate put the death toll from the choking game at about 82 between 1995 and 2007. But the study relied on media reports that couldn't be verified independently. And many deaths that weren't reported in the news could have been missed.

Cleveland pediatrician Nancy Bass, who has also studied the game, hopes the new research will help parents, doctors and teachers spot kids at risk. The survey found that despite the game's reputation as being a "good kid's high," those participating in the game also engaged in other high-risk activities, such as drug and alcohol use.

"The thing that haunts me is that every parent that I've taken care of their child that has done this did say to me, 'If I just knew. I mean, I saw hickeys or red marks on my child's neck. I saw scarfs tied around the bedpost or the closet rod being bowed,' " Bass said. "And, 'If I would have just known what that meant, I could have talked to my child and gotten them some help.' "

In hindsight, Galloway remembers telltale signs about Connor. Since he died, she has gotten involved with a group of other parents who lost children to the game, hoping her story will at least help prevent more deaths. Galloway and her husband are both teachers.

Even so, she said, "Neither one of us had never, ever heard about it before."

Yeah, we just got a letter about this from sozlet's school. Evidently some 4th and 5th-graders were caught doing some sort of "Blackout" or "Pass out" game. "The end goal of this dangerous activity is to in some manner result in the participant blacking out or fainting."

This whole thing ("The Fainting Game," other names) is actually not sexual, it's just going for the dizziness/ high. (There's a whole other sexual asphyxiation activity, that's similar, but separate from the "Fainting Game" and variations.)

Nobody was hurt but we got this letter and more info about it.

Sozlet had no idea who was involved, she says nobody she knows is doing it and I tend to believe her. Scary stuff though.

Yikes!

What dlowan said.

There was a movie star that died a while ago, David Carradine - with rumors at the time of his doing this. Obviously I don't know, and I guess one wife thought differently -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carradine

You're probably right that there are two or more different motives for testing the rope (tie, obi, etc) for a high.

I'm also wondering where this game for youth started as a fad.

I think some versions have been around for quite a while. I was reading the information sheet that came with the letter and was generally being appalled and then read that one variation is spinning around in circles until you fall down dizzy -- I certainly did that when I was a kid. Didn't think anything of it.

I can imagine starting with that kind of benign version and getting progressively more dangerous in search of that high/ rush.

This apparently has waxed and waned for a while. No idea why it's waxing just now -- the nature of kids I guess.

Kids were doing this in the early 1960s. One kid would spin around in a circle as you describe, then another kid would wrap his arms around the victim's chest and squeeze as hard as he could. It was alleged then that there were deaths--i personally know of no deaths, but that was what was in the newspapers.

It also resulted in the death of one of our local MPs.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan

As I have understood the concept,
it was done to maximize orgasm
by temporary oxygen starvation ( not temporary enuf )
resulting from pressure on the carotid arteries.

I 've heard that it can be, and it has been, ADDICTIVE,
ergo: David Carradine. Over the years, every 1ce in a while,
u read of a nude boy hanging from a knotted rope dead in his bedroom closet,
(ofen a slippery rope, maybe silk). He effectively turned the door of his closet into a gallows.
He depended on the knot to slip loose, so as to allow him to resume oxygenation of his brain.
Sometimes (ofen the last time) it did not slip loose.

I 've read in the newspapers that the rope can safely, uneventfully, come loose
1OOOs of times after orgasm, but not the last time.

If I had a son, I 'd make it a point to have a chat with him.

I understand that this problem has never befallen any member of the fair sex.

( Sorry I can 't spell knot fonetically; I dunno how to do that. )





David

To restate, there are two separate, but related, issues.

There's auto-erotic asphyxiation, which is a problem but is NOT the current "fad" among young people.

The current fad (osso's original article, the later article posted by BBB, and the letter I got from sozlet's school) does NOT have a sexual component. The point is the rush or the high. Girls and boys both do it.

It's done in the privacy of homes as well but more often it's a group activity, and often is just done out in the open.

From the letter I received:



In the information provided with the letter, it also says:

It's weird. A kid I saw today....very traumatized and dysregulated kid....asked about choking in a session today. Wouldn't tell us why he was wondering.

Probably unrelated, but made me prick my ears up...notnthat they'd not have pricked anyway.

Yikes.

One of the danger signs in the info we got was an internet search history of "the choking game." Asking you seems similar-ish.

Hmmmm....he's certainly mixing with some similar kids. He said it was a film, but I am also thinking he may have seen a lot of DV. He has no net access.