While some people shuffle off this mortal coil in rather ordinary ways, there are those adventurous souls who seem hell-bent on making the grim reaper scratch his head in confusion. Like drowning in a pool of beer, throwing dynamite out the window of a moving vehicle (but forgetting to roll the window down), tripping on your world record breaking beard, and death during sex. Yes, that’s right. As much as we all like getting it on, there are some people throughout history who literally went out with a bang.
Like Pope John XII for example. He had his work cut out for him. Not only was he just 17 when he landed the gig as the supreme boss of the Catholic Church, but he also liked the ladies. A lot.
Call him sensual, adulterous or depraved, but this guy knew how to have a good time right up until the moment of his death. Either he died of a stroke, was beaten to death with a hammer or was thrown out the window by the husband of the woman he was having… a good time with. What else would the richest and most powerful man-child of Rome be doing?
Apparently, death in the saddle isn’t all that uncommon.
Former Australian Prime Minister Billy Snedden succumbed to his fate during an adrenalin-filled evening with his son’s ex-girlfriend. There’s also 79-year-old Nelson Rockefeller, former US Vice President, who stayed back to work on a “project” with his 25-year-old research assistant. What a shame… He thought he was coming, but he was actually going.
In 1974, Paris’ most respected senior churchman and the author of fourteen books on sexual morality, Cardinal Jean Danielou, also carked it on the stairs of a brothel. But of course, he was just on his way to offer “comfort” to a nice young lady in an official capacity only.
There was also Felix Fauré, the President of France at the end of the 19th century who slipped away for some special time with his mistress. Let’s just say it didn’t end well… for either party. He died mid-act of a cerebral haemorrhage and she was left with nothing but trauma-induced lockjaw, requiring surgical removal of Felix’s lil’ friend from her mouth.
Does this kind of thing just happen to old dudes who can’t handle the heat? Or are there other explanations for why some lovers seem to ride all the way to the pearly gates?
Well, turns out you’re more likely to die from the deed if it’s an unfaithful one. Also doing dumb stuff like sex on balconies or in a car filling up with carbon dioxide.
So how common is it for people to die while doing it? Would it be less deadly if we did it more? And wait, Viagra is implicated?!
Word of caution to all those young (and old) lovers out there: Don't get naked near lions, steer clear of homemade electrical pleasure aids, and maybe don’t do it on a billiard table.
SOURCES:
5 people who died during sex and 100 other terribly tasteless lists by Karl Shaw
Association of Episodic Physical and Sexual Activity With Triggering of Acute Cardiac Events in JAMA by Issa J Dahabreh and Jessica K Paulus
Lots of People Die Every Year During or After Having Sex. A Pathologist Explains Why on ScienceAlert
Sexual and Cardiovascular Correlates of Male Unfaithfulness in The Journal of Sexual Medicine by Alessandra Fisher et al
Thunderclap headache with Orgasm: A case of Basilar Artery Dissection in Clinical Communications by Elizabeth Delasobera
-
[00:00:00] Will: She died after she and her boyfriend were making love in a bush and a lion pounced on them. And
[00:00:08] Rod: that's not sex's fault.
[00:00:10] Will: It's not. It's not. But you're distracted though. And sadly, she was mauled to death by the lion. Her boyfriend managed to escape and he's, he apparently is running down the road with owning a condom on.
[00:00:22] Rod: That's not sex's fault. She didn't die from the sex, she died from the lion.
[00:00:26] Will: She was not primed to defend herself from the lion, isn't he?
[00:00:29] Rod: No, she wasn't. But a dude having a heart attack while ejaculating is not the same as a woman who is having a root and then a lion killed her. I feel like there's some differences.
[00:00:40] Will: Oh I'm so sorry, Sharai
[00:00:49] so I love the phrase they made 'em different back then. You know? Oh yeah. You know? Yeah. They made cars different back then. Yeah. You know, they were tougher and harder and shit like that.
[00:00:59] Rod: They made sandwiches different back then.
[00:01:00] Will: They made sandwiches different. I don't know if they did
[00:01:02] Rod: footwear.
[00:01:03] Will: Footwear. They made footwear different back then. All sorts of things. All sorts of things. Computers,
[00:01:08] Rod: attitudes. They made attitudes different back then.
[00:01:10] Will: That's true. That's true. But you know what one thing they absolutely 100% made different back then. Popes. Popes were so fricking different. John the 12th, for example, he's a pretty good example of a different sort of Pope.
[00:01:25] He was born with a glorious name of Octavian. He ruled as Pope from December 955. To May 964. So he made nine years as Pope. So, but about a thousand years ago, how he got the job is the first weird thing about him, right? Like, long story short his dad Alberic, the second was the self-styled Prince of Rome at the time. My 16 year old he needs a job. He needs a job.
[00:01:48] Rod: And what do you got? You got a, you got anything like in the, in a coffee house, you got anything, maybe killing some animals? You got a pope?
[00:01:56] Will: A pope, he got like an apprenticeship sort of thing to become the Pope. And when the previous Pope died, 17 year old Octavian, landed the boss as the supreme leader of the Catholic church.
[00:02:08] Rod: I, I feel like as a 17 year old, were it me, it might go to my head.
[00:02:16] Will: So that's one of the first things that is very different about being Pope in 955. The second thing that was very different for John the 12th in 955, he was a fighting pope.
[00:02:27] Rod: Fuck yeah. He was. I don't believe in Jesus. Oh, kick your ass.
[00:02:30] Will: Like he's riding out in Italy, head of the Army and he's gonna fight people, which is again, a thing that you don't see the popes doing very much.
[00:02:36] Rod: Not as often give it time, though. The war in Ukraine and stuff, you never know.
[00:02:40] Will: But the third thing about John the 12th that made him not like the Popes of today is that he was what's called in the parlance of the time, a worldly guy. So
[00:02:49] Rod: what he had ideas and knowledge? Or had a lot of the intercourse? Yeah. Right.
[00:02:53] Will: And they called it worldly. Like as in he was, you know, you could have the spiritual aspect or the worldly aspect.
[00:02:59] Rod: Oh, not worldly as in world traveled worldly as in, connected to this model coil this physical realm.
[00:03:04] Will: The physical. Connected right to the pene. Interested of things in the world rather than things of the soul. They used a bunch of other words to describe him. Sensual. Sensual adulterous. Ooh, depraved.
[00:03:16] Rod: You're a powerful man or boy, man child, and you've got lots of money and you're living in the middle of Rome. You're gonna be banging. You're gonna be banging.
[00:03:23] Will: That's what he's doing. You know, they testified about his adultery, which they did not see with their own eyes, but nonetheless knew with certainty he had fornicated with the widow of Rainier. With Stefana, his father's concubine with the widow Anna, and with his own niece. And he made the Sacred Palace into a whore house.
[00:03:39] Rod: This is all the same time, I assume.
[00:03:41] Will: He seems like a one at a time guy, but,
[00:03:43] Rod: oh. He was a moral fornicating adulterer.
[00:03:46] Will: But, Okay, here's the thing. It's not the fucking that brought John the 12th to my attention. Instead, it's the fucking plus other, and that other being his death.
[00:03:57] Either John the 12th died of a stroke. Or was beaten to death with a hammer or was thrown outta the window by the husband of the woman that he was fucking. And there's drawings of this, obviously not live drawings, but there's a drawing of, here's the pope, going out the window and there's the husband and there's the nude lady
[00:04:14] Rod: to be fair, I could draw anything too.
[00:04:18] Will: It's not evidence but all the stories point to the fact, he died while on the job. And oh, I'm proud and that's what I wanna explore today. Well done young man. The history, the stories and the science of dying while on the job. So there's a whole bunch of euphemisms for death during sex.
[00:04:42] Rod: Really?
[00:04:42] Will: You'd be surprised. Dying in the saddle. Dying on the job, obviously is what I just said. The French have la ur.
[00:04:50] Rod: Oh, the death of love.
[00:04:51] Will: The love death. The death of love. They also, you know, you know, they call the orgasm the little death. Then they call dying while having sex the big death as well, like La gram, Mort, like, it's like, it's a play on that as well, which I like. It's like orgasm is the little death, and if you die having sex, that's the big death. So
[00:05:09] Rod: it's weirdly specific, very focused,
[00:05:12] Will: and weirdly French as well as I'll come to in a little bit.
[00:05:15] Rod: Okay, so, I do like weird French shit.
[00:05:18] Will: Now how common is it? So there's a bunch of studies. So first off, this is the German Journal of Kardiology. They reported on a whole bunch of autopsies at the University hospital in Frankfurt. 21,000 autopsies, and they found 39 cases, not a lot, so not a lot.
[00:05:32] Rod: Point zero zero, whatever.
[00:05:33] Will: Well, There was some unnatural deaths in there. You know, a car crash? Murders.
[00:05:38] Rod: I imagine sex wasn't unnatural.
[00:05:40] Will: No. So they said, look, it looks to be about 0.2% of natural deaths. One in 500. Another way of looking at it is not natural deaths, but sudden deaths. Okay, so, so that takes away the stuff that you can see in advance, you know, lung cancers and stuff like that. So, so you're looking, you know, this includes stuff like car crashes, but you're looking at
[00:05:58] Rod: everyday healthy human beings suddenly dead.
[00:06:00] Will: Yeah. No reason to suspect. Okay. 0.6%. So, again not no chance, but it's, you know, it's like one in 200 sort of thing.
[00:06:07] Rod: Getting scarier.
[00:06:08] Will: So what types of people would you guess are those that are dying on the job?
[00:06:12] Rod: Okay. I assume it's more men than women.
[00:06:14] Will: Yes. Okay. So the first German study that I talked about they found 95% of it was men. Like as I said, Pope John the 12th before, or former Australian Prime Minister, Billy Snedden.
[00:06:25] Rod: Fuck. Yeah, he did.
[00:06:26] Will: I know, right? But the police found him, Snedden was found wearing a condom and that it was loaded with semen. He had ejaculated. Who's another famous old man who died of in the moment of sex. Nelson Rockefeller. One of Nixon's vice presidents age 79. Okay. This is a couple of years, not long after being vice president. So this was in early, early 1970s, about 1973.
[00:06:49] Rod: That's old then.
[00:06:50] Will: He'd been working late on a Saturday night on a project with his 25 year old research assistant.
[00:06:57] Rod: Another project
[00:06:57] Will: really?
[00:06:58] Rod: And 25 and he's 79.
[00:07:01] Will: Yeah. And he had a heart attack caused by orgasm. And apparently she was pinned under his hefty body for several minutes before she could phone paramedics. New York Magazine. Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going.
[00:07:14] Rod: I see what they did there.
[00:07:15] Will: But not only men. So Oh, of the people that died during sex? Yeah. 65% men. Okay. This is from my Zimbabwe. Her name was Sharai Mawera. She died after she and her boyfriend were making love in a bush and a lion pounced on them.
[00:07:33] Rod: And that's not sex's fault.
[00:07:36] Will: It's not. It's not. But you're distracted though. And sadly, she was mauled to death by the lion. Her boyfriend managed to escape and he's apparently is running down the road with owning a condom on.
[00:07:47] Rod: That's not sex fault. She didn't die from the sex, she died from the lion.
[00:07:51] Will: She was not primed to defend herself from the lion, isn't he?
[00:07:54] Rod: No, she wasn't. But a dude having a heart attack while ejaculating is not the same as a woman who was having a root and then a lion killed her. I feel like there's some differences.
[00:08:06] Will: Oh I'm so sorry sharai . Apparently there were like seven lions in one story. Now I don't know how verifiable the media is on this thing. I don't wanna fight one lion, I don't wanna be nude fighting one lion. I don't wanna be having had sex very recently and fighting.
[00:08:22] Rod: It's fair to say by the time I'm fighting a lion, I don't care if I'm wearing pants.
[00:08:28] Will: I do. You know, that study there's a study that shows, and this is, it seems sexist, but I'm sure it parallels a little bit. And it seems very nineties sexist. This is the sort of the Paris Hilton era of psychology they did versions of IQ tests. Yep. With women who are fully clothed and women in bikinis and shock horror. They found that women in bikinis
[00:08:48] Rod: much smarter,
[00:08:49] Will: sadly, no. And the argument was that they were thinking potentially more about how they were being observed, whereas, you know, if you're fully clothed, you can things and so here's me, I'm fighting off a lion. I don't wanna be nude. I wanna not be thinking.
[00:09:02] Rod: I see what you're saying. So if you were wearing pants, you'd probably have a good shot at defending yourself. That's what I'm hearing. And now I get it. Now it would matter to me. So like, can you wait till I put my pants on? 'cause then I'm gonna fucking slap you down lion.
[00:09:14] Will: Yeah. I could take a lion if I'm wearing pants.
[00:09:16] Rod: Otherwise, you're only human. There's a limit.
[00:09:19] Will: So it seems to be much more men, but it's not exclusively men. How old is the other question? Okay, so the stereotype
[00:09:26] Rod: moves towards the more mature gentleman.
[00:09:28] Will: Mature gentleman. Yeah. Like, Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister in the mid 19th century, he was prime Minister twice and famously thought of as Britain's Randiest prime Minister.
[00:09:40] Rod: Big call. 'cause Boris Johnson has what, 9,000 children?
[00:09:42] Will: He does too. So maybe he's up there with, if Boris Johnson goes out this way, then. I don't know. Brexit will have been worth it.
[00:09:49] Rod: I feel like walking quickly could kill Boris though. So I mean, sex is bound to
[00:09:53] Will: the official story. And this is very Victorian era is that he died of pneumonia at 82 after catching a chill while riding in his carriage. Oh, but the rumor is that he in fact died of a heart attack while having sex with his parlor maid on a billiard table,
[00:10:09] Rod: which that is the way
[00:10:11] Will: If you are 82 and you're like, It's time to go.
[00:10:15] Rod: My parlor maid not a pool table, not a snooker table, it's a billiards table.
[00:10:19] Will: Billions. Yeah. Yeah. Of the studies that I could find, it seemed like the average age, and obviously average means that you've got the 82 year old at that end and there's seems to be like 59 to 61 sort of thing.
[00:10:30] Rod: Okay. But what I've learned from this is don't do it near lions and don't be a pope.
[00:10:37] Will: It does skew to the older men, but not exclusively. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like the 27 year old woman in Pennsylvania who died after being electrocuted from homemade nipple clamps
[00:10:47] Rod: of all the things. Nipple clamps. Not like some deep insertion device. Nipple clamps.
[00:10:53] Will: Homemade though. So what causes it? What causes it?
[00:10:57] Rod: Well, it seems like a lot of things. Lions, electricity, angry men. hearts. fat.
[00:11:02] Will: Of course. You can guess at the biggest causes. In a lot of cases it's the physical strain of sexual activity, particularly if you are infirm or not used to it. Like, 82 year old cardinal Jean Danielou. So in 1974, France woke to the news that one of their most respected senior churchmen. Yes. A world leading Catholic theologian. Yes. The head of the theological faculty at Paris University, and the author of 14 books on sexual morality and the church discipline Oh. Had experienced lagrande mort.
[00:11:35] Rod: I'm just having a heart attack myself. Carry on.
[00:11:37] Will: When he dropped dead on the stairs of a brothel in cliche, the Red light District of Paris.
[00:11:42] Rod: Ah. On the stairs.
[00:11:44] Will: On the stairs. Yes. Yes.
[00:11:45] Rod: He was there to admonish them.
[00:11:46] Will: Well, no he wasn't. No, he wasn't. The police explained that the cardinal was on his way to offer comfort to a 24 year old sex worker in an official capacity only.
[00:11:56] Rod: We've all done that. I mean, that's just 'cause you care about people.
[00:12:00] Will: There is literature that very much suggests if you are not getting it very much. Get some warmups first. So there, there seems to be a study that get some warmups while there's correlation with age here in terms of heart attacks and other things that will kill you during sex.
[00:12:16] They happen more if you're not used to it. A 2011 meta-analysis in the Journal of American Metal Association. So this is the big journal. And it's a big study, found that each additional hour of sexual activity per week resulted in an increased two to three myocardial infractions and one sudden cardiac death per 10,000 person years.
[00:12:35] Rod: Totaling an hour in a week.
[00:12:37] Will: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Rod: Yeah, I'm proud. An hour in a week, so at three minutes a pop.
[00:12:43] Will: They're just using a unit of time.
[00:12:45] Rod: That's like 20 times a week. No wonder it kills you.
[00:12:52] Will: There's a couple of other things that make it more likely. Yeah. Having sex with a sex worker.
[00:12:55] Rod: Because they're good at it.
[00:12:56] Will: There was one study that said most cases of the sudden death during sex occurred during the sexual act with a sex worker. Really? So I think it's largely due to that, not having sex so often, not regular, and then going to a sex worker.
[00:13:07] Rod: It could also be just recognize that I'm paying for it. I'm going to do more,
[00:13:11] Will: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it until I have a heart attack.
[00:13:13] Rod: I'm gonna maximize my income. So if it doesn't kill me, I want my money back.
[00:13:17] Will: There's a similar study that says you are more likely to die during sex if you're having an affair.
[00:13:23] Rod: Guilt, guilt will kill you.
[00:13:25] Will: I dunno if it's guilt. Maybe trying harder or you, I dunno. I dunno, right? I don't know.
[00:13:30] Rod: We're not married, I'm gonna impress you.
[00:13:32] Will: Like, Felix Fauré, president of France at the end of the 19th century, ah, the story is that his bodyguards heard a scream and broke down the door to find him seated dead on a sofa with his beautiful mistress kneeling in front of him, potentially his hands in her hair.
[00:13:48] According to some reports, he'd had a cerebral hemorrhage. Ah, and she was in a state of trauma induced lock jaw and had to have, and had to have. I, it was read as his member, his dick surgically removed from her mouth. The French press, obviously he's president. They had a field day. Felix re passed away in good health indeed from an excess of good health.
[00:14:11] It was the Journal of Sexual Medi Medicine that found men who were unfaithful were significantly more likely to experience severe or fatal cardiac arrest during sex.
[00:14:19] Rod: That's weird. I assume that is 'cause of the stress slash thrill of the naughty. I probably, yeah. Suppose you say maybe trying harder to the impression that's it. Wanna be impressive. I need to impress my wife, she married me. That's, I assume the thinking, but
[00:14:33] Will: it's wild though. There's a bunch of other things that make it more likely. Obviously the big one, Viagra. Yeah. Like, I mean, straightaway while Viagra is thought to be pretty safe, the thing that it does increase the risk of is that you're gonna go have sex when you're less likely to be having sex otherwise, and then you might die.
[00:14:51] Rod: It's as if things that affect your blood supply could affect things to do with your blood supply.
[00:14:55] Will: Yeah, there was this weird thing called the Valsalva maneuver. You know when you're driving down a big range or you, or no, you're in an airplane and you need to pop your ears. Yes. So you close your mouth and then you close your nose and then you breathe hard against it and your ears pop. Apparently if you do that during sex, it can trigger a hemorrhage as well.
[00:15:14] Rod: Do you mind if I put my finger on my nose, roll my eyes back and go.
[00:15:21] Will: It's so sexy, you know how it's so sexy. Obviously the other stuff that makes you more likely is doing dumb stuff, sex on balconies. So in 2007, the naked bodies of a man and woman were discovered on an empty street in South Carolina.
[00:15:34] Their clothes were later found on the roof of a four story building are adjacent to the road. Both had died after falling 50 feet from the downtown Columbia building. In 1999 two Romanians died of carbon monoxide poisoning while having sex in a car, which they had parked in a garage with the engine still running.
[00:15:49] Pay attention to your surroundings a little bit. Lions parked car in a garage on a rooftop. Final lesson of caution. This comes from Elizabeth Delasobera’s paper in clinical communications. It's called Thunderclap Headache with Orgasm. A 34 year old man who had a couple of episodes of having a thunderclap headache every time he orgasmed. What they're suggesting is get some treatment here.
[00:16:12] Rod: If he's in a social circle where you don't really talk about that stuff, he might think that's part of what happens.
[00:16:18] Will: It's true. It's true. And I'm glad he's getting help. You listener. If you get a thunder clap headache every time you blow, then
[00:16:24] Rod: everyone polled in this room doesn't
[00:16:27] Will: yeah, and others probably too. I don't know. I dunno.
[00:16:31] Rod: I've not heard of it being common.
[00:16:32] Will: Look after yourself, listener, stay safe, have fun.
[00:16:35] Rod: But not on a billiard table, on a rooftop or near lions. That's not sex killing you.
