I don't think it is unusual that Carradines family wants to believe that he was murdered.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31129156/
Families grapple with stigma
For families of people who die from auto-erotic asphyxiation, or AEA, the shock of grief is compounded by disbelief.
“The thing that’s probably the hardest is that you learn about a side of a person who didn’t know about,” said Keith Clarke, 40, of Raleigh, N.C.
His brother, Kevin, a salesman, died in 2007 at age 34. Like Carradine, Kevin Clarke was discovered naked in a hotel room. He had used a belt tied to a closet rail to choke himself while viewing pornography. Police told the Clarke family to say the death was a suicide, in order to avoid stigma. At the funeral home, the staff said they’d seen several similar cases already that year, Keith Clarke said.
He and his wife, Lisa, 41, decided to speak out about the issue, even creating a Web site for friends and family members of other victims:www.hark4KC.com.
“People who practice AEA have so much shame around them and we wanted to help do away with that shame,” she said.
Roots in 'choking game'
Some auto-erotic deaths have roots in the “choking game,” a blackout game often played by adolescents who strangle themselves looking for a “woozy, floaty feeling,” said Kate Leonardi. She’s a St. Augustine, Fla., woman who created the DB Foundation in 2006 to raise awareness about the issue after the death of her 11-year-old son, Dylan.
As they mature, teens and adults may add a sexual component to the ritual, often in hopes of enhancing the climax, Leonardi said.
But deaths related to autoeroticism can be especially difficult for families left behind.
“It’s got a shame stigma to it, that there was some sort of perverse, underground activity going on,” she said.
“I think it makes it increasingly more difficult.”
Families often feel a combination of anger and shame at older victims. Unlike children, teens and adults know they’re taking a risk for the sake of a sexual thrill.
Cases have been reported around the world, including Turkey, Bulgaria and Canada, among other places. Most victims are men.
In Canada, one report notes, “a 34-year-old man died due to asphyxia, secondary to body wrapping in the largest and most complex plastic bag ever involved in a published case of auto-erotic death.”
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The taboo, yet tragic-comic, aspect of auto-erotic choking means that many people who do it never speak of it and so have no safe outlet other than their own makeshift means. This is why, according to Ando, clients often request breath play from dominatrices.
But breath play is more common than most of us think. Many couples, for example, may try to create the same effect, Ando said “but are not calling it breath play. One of the points in my study was that in talking to people who teach human sexuality in colleges, their students say ’Oh my God, that is sick! I would never do that. I just like to choke my girlfriend.’”
But even when breath play involves a partner, she said, it can still be dangerous, even exacerbating unknown medical problems. “That’s when you get people saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize my partner had a heart condition.’”