Mitigating Risk in BDSM Hanging
Hanging is a form of bondage in which the bottom's weight is suspended by the neck.
This is a form of edge play and should be approached with additional care.
Common Risks of Hanging:
Loss of consciousness
Hypoxia
Fractured or broken neck
Death
Key Requirements for Hanging:
Cutting tool
Spotters
A raised platform
Things to Consider about Hanging
Be prepared for fellow kinksters to judge your play
Hanging is a taboo subject, even in today’s kink world. Sharing images or video of your play or opening discussions in forums can often invite judgement and kink-shaming. Unfortunately, many riskier kinks will potentially lead to this. You can’t mitigate the risk of admonishment from others in the community, but you can prepare for it.
Do your research on hanging methods
Pressure points, tension, and quick release holds are incredibly important in hanging. Breath play is not the same as hanging, so don’t take for granted that knowing how to hold a neck in your hand is at all similar to tying a noose around it. Your hand is responsive and can release quickly, but a rope or other binding will not behave the same way.
Supporting a person’s body weight by their neck is incredibly dangerous - from the tension required, to the durability of the material, to the speed at which you suspend them. Never underestimate the amount of research you can do, and don’t assume that any amount of research will ever be enough.
Have a spotter on-hand during a hanging scene
It’s common for high-risk scenes to involve ‘spotters’, who are uninvolved in the scene but keep an eye on the activities to ensure nothing is going awry. Spotters are crucial in hanging scenes to keep an eye on the bottom, as well as be a second pair of hands with a cutting tool, or to step in and support the bottom’s weight in case of emergency.
Always keep a platform nearby for the hanged person to step onto
Once your bottom has been suspended, have a platform, such as a stool or chair on hand to quickly place under their feet and support their entire weight promptly. Ensure this platform is sufficiently high, and do not attempt to ‘tease’ the bottom with a predicament of trying to reach the platform.
Don't hold neck suspension more than a few seconds
Neck suspension is inherently risky, no matter how cautiously it’s approached - hangings were a form of death penalty in the UK until the 1960s, in the US until the 1990s, and it is still a primary form of execution used in many countries worldwide. Typically, a ‘short drop’ hanging (where support is removed, leaving the person dangling) results in strangulation and death within 10-20 minutes. That may seem like a significant amount of time, but the cell death caused by starving the brain of oxygen takes a lot less than five minutes. Even if you’re raising a person into a neck suspension slowly, bear in mind that you are starving the brain of oxygen from that very first moment.
Never suspend someone suddenly
In executions using the ‘short’ and ‘long’ drop methods, the aim is to snap a person’s neck, resulting in a quick death. Liberal research will show cases where this wasn’t the case, and the person either didn’t die immediately, or was in fact decapitated. Hangings in BDSM can take the form of heavy breath play, or simulated executions, but under no circumstances should you ever suspend a person by their neck suddenly.
This is an almost certain way to break a person’s neck, and if it doesn’t kill them, it can at the very least paralyse them.
These considerations are not designed to be advice in how to play safely - they are things to think about prior to engaging in dangerous forms of play.
No matter the precautions you take in this kind of activity, you cannot guarantee the safety of those involved. Approach this form of play with extreme caution.
