Auto-erotic Asphyxiation: Hot or not?
Travis Nicholson
Issue date: 10/10/07 Section: Marginalia
I have a conundrum I really wish I could get un-conundrumed, but I don't really think I can.
There is part of me that thinks "I Need You Tonight" by INXS could be awesome stripper music, but then I remember that Michael Hutchence, the lead singer, died in a hotel room in Sydney naked with a belt around his neck. Suddenly, I am doubting myself as to whether or not more strippers should iTunes this song.
Of course, this is all just a rumour that he died that way. Even though it may only be a possibility of what happened, it's such a popular and explosive rumour you can't overlook it. Whatever the truth is, this rumour has trumped it absolutely.
In this respect, then, does a weird sexually-themed death trump one of, if not the best guitar riff of the 1980s?
I'd like to be able to blow it off and say, "Hey, it's just autoerotic asphyxiation! Don't worry, self, he was just strangling himself during a sex act! That song he sings is still a good choice for your weird little column about stripper music!"
But I can't. Now I can't realistically advise any of my stripper friends (of which I have zero) to use this song in their 'performance', I am going to always have to preface it with two or three minutes of pop music trivia. That is, unless I'm a good enough pantomime that I can act it out so they'd understand the complexities of such a devious act.
It's tainted in the most awful way. Had he been shot like Marvin Gaye or at least drowned in a pool of his own vomit like Hendrix, maybe more guys that your dad works with could be sporting boners together in a strip club listening to this song.
Rock stars die, and really, it's no big deal. Essentially, though, I'm asking how much stock you have to put in how those rock stars died. Clearly, Kurt Cobain was lying when he insisted in "Come As You Are" that he didn't have a gun because he later used said gun to excavate his face.
Does an act of autoerotic asphyxiation gone awry change the fact that "I Need You Tonight" is, or was once, a song packed with sexual excitement? What if Hutchence wrote these lyrics not about Elle Macpherson, Belinda Carlisle or Kylie Minogue, like I would like to believe, but actually about a $20 leather belt?
That leads to a final option, which is that the circumstances of Hutchence's death actually makes this song sexier. But this is getting into a territory where I don't think I want to go. Yeah, it's fun to casually mention the intentional act of reducing the amount of oxygen to the brain during sexual stimulation in order to heighten the received pleasure from orgasm, but to actually go in detail to try and understand it?
I'll pass.
There is part of me that thinks "I Need You Tonight" by INXS could be awesome stripper music, but then I remember that Michael Hutchence, the lead singer, died in a hotel room in Sydney naked with a belt around his neck. Suddenly, I am doubting myself as to whether or not more strippers should iTunes this song.
Of course, this is all just a rumour that he died that way. Even though it may only be a possibility of what happened, it's such a popular and explosive rumour you can't overlook it. Whatever the truth is, this rumour has trumped it absolutely.
In this respect, then, does a weird sexually-themed death trump one of, if not the best guitar riff of the 1980s?
I'd like to be able to blow it off and say, "Hey, it's just autoerotic asphyxiation! Don't worry, self, he was just strangling himself during a sex act! That song he sings is still a good choice for your weird little column about stripper music!"
But I can't. Now I can't realistically advise any of my stripper friends (of which I have zero) to use this song in their 'performance', I am going to always have to preface it with two or three minutes of pop music trivia. That is, unless I'm a good enough pantomime that I can act it out so they'd understand the complexities of such a devious act.
It's tainted in the most awful way. Had he been shot like Marvin Gaye or at least drowned in a pool of his own vomit like Hendrix, maybe more guys that your dad works with could be sporting boners together in a strip club listening to this song.
Rock stars die, and really, it's no big deal. Essentially, though, I'm asking how much stock you have to put in how those rock stars died. Clearly, Kurt Cobain was lying when he insisted in "Come As You Are" that he didn't have a gun because he later used said gun to excavate his face.
Does an act of autoerotic asphyxiation gone awry change the fact that "I Need You Tonight" is, or was once, a song packed with sexual excitement? What if Hutchence wrote these lyrics not about Elle Macpherson, Belinda Carlisle or Kylie Minogue, like I would like to believe, but actually about a $20 leather belt?
That leads to a final option, which is that the circumstances of Hutchence's death actually makes this song sexier. But this is getting into a territory where I don't think I want to go. Yeah, it's fun to casually mention the intentional act of reducing the amount of oxygen to the brain during sexual stimulation in order to heighten the received pleasure from orgasm, but to actually go in detail to try and understand it?
I'll pass.
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