Warning: This post contains scenes that may be disturbing to some readers (as opposed to all the other posts that are very tame and not at all disturbing). Audience discretion is advised.
I like to contemplate the macabre and the humiliating. So needless to say, the combination of the two is irresistible to me. True to form, I awoke today with the following thought:
What would be the most embarrassing way to die?
I think there are basically two options: (1) While taking a dump; (2) While engaged in auto-erotic asphyxiation.
To the second point first: In the Aerosmith song, "Voodoo Medicine Man," off the 1989 album "Pump," Steven Tyler sings about "living loving getting loose/masturbating with a noose/now someone's kicking out the chair." Because I was 12 years old in 1989, I had no idea what this meant and so I asked my mother, who freely explained to me the concept of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
For the uninitiated, auto-erotic asphyxiation is a sexual practice wherein some people (no judgment) apparently enjoy the sensation of choking during sexual climax. (The wisdom of explaining this to a 12 year-old is debatable, but there you have it). Anyway, I was duly confused and horrified. Several years later, Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, was rumored to have died while doing this. And about the same time, a trench-coat mafia/cape-wearing kid at my college was likewise rumored to have perished while engaging in this paraphilic, Fifty-Shades-of-Grey-esque shenanigan.
The problem with death by auto-erotic asphyxiation, of course, is that no matter what else you achieved in your life, you will forever be remembered as a sexual deviant who took things one step too far and was discovered by cops with your dick in your hand and your neck in a belt on a doorknob or something. It's not a pretty picture, and it kind of undermines the rest of your life's accomplishments. Accordingly, this has got to be one of the two most embarrassing ways to die.
To the first point second: Dying while taking a dump has got to be the second worst way to go. Doctor friends of mine tell stories of seemingly healthy people suffering an aneurysm while on the can. Paramedics find them with their pants down, keeled over on the toilet. Again, this is a pretty terrible way to go. Peeps be like, "Oh no, how did so-and-so die?" And the response be like, "Oh you know, just taking a shit. They blew a gasket in their head pinching out their morning loaf. Send donations in lieu of flowers." WTF. This is not good. Because again, regardless of your prior accomplishments, the main thing people remember about you is that you died literally mid-crap.
I apologize in advance if any readers have a loved one who perished in the midst of either of these activities. I certainly don't mean to be insensitive. It's just pretty clear to me that of all the ways to go, these two are likely among the least desirable in terms of the humiliation component and the tendency to be forever remembered primarily for the embarrassing way you went out.
Bringing things back full-circle, I continued to admire Steven Tyler notwithstanding his songs about odd sexual proclivities, largely because I felt we were kindred spirits in giant mouth-having, as evidenced by the side-by-side comparison pictures below:
