Autassassinophilia is a paraphilia in which a person is sexually aroused by the risk of being killed. The fetish may overlap with some other fetishes that risk one's life, such as those involving drowning or choking. This does not necessarily mean the person‘s life must actually be put at risk; many are simply aroused by fantasies or simulations of such situations.[1]
The term was introduced by John Money who also defined erotophonophilia as the "reciprocal condition" in which one is aroused by "stage-managing and carrying out the murder of an unsuspecting sexual partner". Money classified both these paraphilias as "of the sacrificial/expiatory type".
These concepts, especially their imperfect reciprocity, were criticized by Lisa Downing, who wrote that:
The autassassinophiliac, for Money, is more interested in his orgasm than in his death, resulting in a compulsion to stage manage the possibility rather than the actuality of his end at the hands of another person. The erotophonophiliac, on the other hand, is driven by the actualization of the other's death and - crucially - this other must be unaware of the would-be killer's intentions. These definitions, then, effectively preclude reciprocity and are constructed here in such a way as to prevent the possibility of consent. The sexologist, it seems, is incapable of imagining mutuality in this context. ... The imagined pact is used here as an incentive to the would-be libertarian to support the suppression of paraphilia and the conversion of a death-related desire to a life-giving form.[2]