In this illustrated talk, Professor Lisa Downing explores how auto-erotic death has been understood and represented in narratives drawn from four fields: media representation, forensic psychiatry and pathology, literary fiction, and internet humour.
What do representations and explanations of auto-erotic death tell us about mainstream cultural understandings of sex and gender? What can we learn about the assumptions and biases guiding perceptions of normal and abnormal sexuality by looking at discourses surrounding extreme bodily practices that lead to death?
Presented by Modern Languages and Sexuality and Gender Studies