 |
|
 |
Probably
the most distressing aspect of my career as a county
"Corrections Officer" (jail guard, turnkey, "screw", etc.)
was how quickly and utterly I was corrupted. Peer pressure
and natural rottenness could be blamed, but mostly it's the
virtually absolute power that a jail guard exercises. Even
cops can't just strip you and search your body cavities for
no particular reason, jailers can. I used to control men's
meal times, telephone contact, mail, clothing, periods of
light and darkness--virtually everything. Only the strongest
and most secure jailers avoid absolute
corruption.
After quitting the jail job I worked for a year with an agency in the Smith Tower that was devoted to helping ex-offenders find jobs but I had a feeling that I hadn't yet seen the other side of the coin, hadn't completely re-aligned my karma. Boy, was I ever right about that. Meanwhile, I did my worst violations by use of the Sleeper Hold, otherwise known as the Carotid Block, Choke-out, or (as commemorated by Joseph Wambaugh) Doing the Chicken.
The "sleeper" hold isn't really choking, it doesn't work on the windpipe but it cuts off the flow of blood to the brain through the carotid arteries, which causes rapid loss of consciousness. More or less. It is the most efficient way to control violent prisoners (or lunatics) without hurting them and has a powerful place in corrections work, despite the outcry raised against it. "Choking people out" is also, I found out, a lot of fun.
I started getting a major kick out of it. I loved the way you never knew how people would react. I've seen big, no-necked guys that looked like they could go a few rounds with Robin Givens if need be collapse almost the second I laid hands on their throats. I called that my "carotid chop". I once did a very pugnacious punk like that--I no more than touched his neck and the kid's fist unballed, his eyes rolled up, and he kissed the floor. A trusty was watching, impressed and disgusted. I said, "Just like Mr. Spock." He said, "In that case, beam my ass up."
The most fun was guys who would go into convulsions. This leads to doing the classic "chicken". Hilarious moves. With a little experimentation I found that you could regulate blood flow, giving a little squirt of consciousness, which you could see in the eyes--a mainline hit of sheer terror because they're slaloming in and out of a total blackout their consciousness can't distinguish from death. Funny inmate tricks--doing the funky chicken for the good of the soul. You are probably getting a glimmer of why I don't whine too much about the way I got treated when it was my turn to be the inmate.
But major discoveries still awaited; I wasn't at all prepared for the results I got when I started doing choke-outs on my sex partners. I'd always had a throat thing, liked to expose the throat during sex, liked to bite it. And it seems that some women find vampire necking to be a turn-on. So it didn't take me long to work around to applying a little pressure (so to speak) on some badge groupie du jour. The results were pretty spectacular for all concerned.
It turns out a lot of women like it. The fading flicker of consciousness, the throat menaced, the terror, the stare-down at death itself. I guess. Few women would request being choked out or discuss it--they just responded to it. It got to be my most popular parlor trick. I'm continually appalled by the trust that women will invest in a man just because they happen to be fucking him.
I've since learned a lot about the relationship between the throat and sexual release. Check out virtually anything by William Burroughs. Remember Vaughn Bode, the warpo cartoonist who killed himself with his homemade sexual strangling machine? Dr. Ruth meets Dr. Kevorkian It's a major arterial on the erogenous map, but one little investigated by science. Too fun and scary, I suppose. And bound by depths of political, if not anatomical, incorrectness.
The chokehold is under fire from reformers. (What isn't?) I can't agree; it's an indispensable enforcement tool and the only really safe way to deal with violent prisoners. Without the ban on sleeper holds Rodney King, for instance, could have been easily subdued in seconds without ill effects or screen tests. Admittedly, carotid holds have led to some deaths (though nowhere near as many as other means of pacification) and the majority who die from throat holds are Black. At one time there was actually discussion in print of the idea that perhaps Blacks are congenitally more susceptible to death from carotid interruption than other races. There may be something to that, and it would be a good thing to know, but there's not much chance anyone will investigate it. These are not the best of times for even mentioning racial differences. Not for anyone who wants to keep their tenure, job, or ass intact, at any rate. And, as in most cases in which race-specific research is black-holed, it's a shame. What if it's true? You'd find people being more careful of how they handled black inmates. Instead of having blanket bans on "sleeper" holds, bans so impractical that they are generally ignored. Naturally there are other, darker theories about why most choking fatalities are black men and they may be valid. We should find out.
Which has nothing to do with the use of sleeper holds as sexual aids. It's probably safer than amyl nitrate or lambskin condoms. I'm getting more curious bout it all myself. It would be bizarre, feathering back and forth between the glaring hum of reality and the stark dark of "Not". I have it on no less an authority than "they" that our normal consciousness is like that, flickering in and out like a florescent bulb, that Lo, in the midst of life we are indeed up to our ass in death. And I believe it. It's just that losing consciousness doesn't really get weird until you're aware of it.
Within a month after turning in my badge, I looked up one of my ex-colleagues, a guy we called Deputy Dawg. and got him to choke me out. He was happy to oblige. All I noticed was a soft, slick slide from consciousness, no chicken impressions, erectile anomalies, or panic. But then I used to be an acid head. And then again, I wasn't afraid he was going to kill me. I still use carotid restriction (if it catches on maybe it'll get a nicer name like "Sleeping Beauty") to enhance erotic encounters, but so far I do all the choking myself. If any ladies out there think equal strangulation time might do me any good, contact me at the e-mail below.
