...I consider this a most important Public Service Announcement that everyone here should pay attention to, and discuss with any children or teens anyone knows personally.
I have written before, here on RfM, about the first death that the kids at my school had to deal with...the totally unexpected death of a beautiful, funny, and bright young teenager due to a similar "game." (Not quite the same "game," but with the same physiological effects...meaning: she died. Had she lived, she likely would have been brain-damaged for the rest of her life.)
This choking/cut-off-of-oxygen process is also a widely and officially recognized part of adult domestic abuse patterns---to the point where "choking" is now considered a known precursor to, or predictor of, future murder, in domestic violence situations.
I used to work at Parker Center (the then-headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department), and when I was there I saw a great many crime scene photos of deceased, mostly adolescent, males who had inadvertently hung themselves "to death" while involved in individual sexual activities. (Something very similar can also occur in certain kinds of consensual sexual activities between adults.)
All of these seemingly "different" activities have one thing in common: some kind of outside, physical means is used to cut-off oxygen supply to the brain.
It is really important to get across to kids growing up that these kinds of activities can easily result in death or in lifetime brain damage. (And that, if this happens within a domestic violence situation, local authorities will, most often, automatically move the "danger level" of that situation up to what amounts to "Highly dangerous and life-threatening.")
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2018 09:08PM by Tevai.