'Death erection' explained after mortician revealed what happens when someone dies with one
Topics: Health, Sex and Relationships
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/m-gucci
Topics: Health, Sex and Relationships
A ‘death erection’ isn’t a term you often hear but a mortician has given an insight into the rare phenomenon.
A death erection is pretty much what it sounds like, an apparent erection after a person has died.
Now, this would be pretty confusing considering most people expect a person to be alive when they stand at attention, but in rare instances this isn’t exactly the case.
Mortician and funeral director Victor M. Sweeney spoke about his fascinating work as well as the odd things he has seen in his career during an episode of LADbible's Honesty Box.
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He was asked what happens when someone dies with an erection and couldn’t help but giggle at the ‘fun’ question.
Sweeney said: "I've never had anybody die with an erection... yet. I'm not sure how that would work."
The funeral director continued: "It's a nervous response, right? There's the physicality of the thing but there's a nervous response.
"So I'd have to believe that when the nervous system and the brain stops working, that the erection goes away. But I don't know for sure."
However, Sweeney admitted that he has come across what is known as ‘angel lust’ or a ‘death erection’ - when a man's penis becomes erect after death.
This phenomenon is technically a type of priapism.
This something that occurs most commonly in living people, where they have a prolonged erection for hours ‘that isn’t caused by sexual simulation’, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The site adds: "Ischemic priapism, also called low-flow priapism, is the result of blood not being able to leave the penis.
"Blood is trapped in the penis because it cannot flow out of the veins of the penis or there is a problem with the contraction of smooth muscles within the erectile tissue of the penis.
"Nonischemic priapism, also known as high-flow priapism, occurs when blood flow through the arteries of the penis isn't working properly. However, the penile tissues continue to receive some blood flow and oxygen."
Spinal cord injuries have been known to be associated with priapism and by extension, those who have died by hanging, whether through an execution or suicide, could potentially experience some form of priapism.
Sweeney explained he has seen a type of ‘death erection’ during post-mortems he has conducted.
He said: "I have embalmed bodies where inexplicably all the pressure ends up in the c**k, and it becomes an erection again.
"And then that also eventually goes away when the abdominal pressure goes down, but that doesn't happen very often.
"I've heard of people calling it 'angel lust', but I've only had that happen like twice in my career, so not super common."