Erection after death

[Renee348]

Warning: Although this scenario is entirely fictional, the content may be disturbing.

 

I'm writing a story in which a male is killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

 

Directly after the shooting, the murderer removes the victim's pants and stimulates the penis. Is it possible for an erection to occur? He would have been dead for less than 2 minutes when this happens.

 

I have read about erection occurring naturally during/after hanging, but there's no evidence for gunshots to have the same effect. Erection normally requires a heartbeat to force blood into the penis, but I'm wondering if this can be overlooked because someone is directly stimulating the penis.

[Prometheus]

I would not have thought so, especially as blood lose is a feature of gunshot wounds.

 

If it's for fiction maybe the stimulation could occur after the shooting but while the unconscious victim is still alive?

[John Cuthber]

After death there's no heart beat and thus no blood pressure to "power the hydraulics".

 

Incidentally, is it just me who worries slightly about poster who pop up out of nowhere and ask about odd things "because I'm writing a book"?

[Xalatan]

I'd say it's possible. The basis of penile erection is cutting off blood return from the penis rather than increasing blood flow to the organ as you proposed. This cutting off effect is mediated by the pelvic splanchnic nerve coming out of the S2-4 spinal cord, releasing nitric oxide to dilate the penile arteries, and compressing the penile veins that drain blood from the penis.

 

So, similar to the effect of hanging, as long as there is head or neck injury severe enough to induce tonsillar herniation, there will be mechanical pressure on the spinal cord and thus the pelvic splanchnic nerve to stimulate an erection. This could be an entirely postmortem reflex not requiring brain or heart function - as long as there is no pelvic injury that damages the spinal cord or ruptures the perineum and the causes existing blood to leak out of the penis, I can see a spinal reflex that induces postmortem Prisprism secondary to gun shot head injury.

Disclaimer: For me this is purely an academic discussion and I only share my personal views and opinions.

[Renee348]

Thanks for the detailed explanations. Based on that, I think it is possible the way I've written it. And like Prometheus brought up, it can be implied that the victim was still somewhat alive.

 

A friend also mentioned the idea of having the protagonist (murderer) stimulate the penis before the man is shot. In the scene, they are already embracing and kissing at the exact moment she shoots him, so it wouldn't change much. However, it's hard to know what amount of stimulation would be required to induce a full erection. Even though it is a primarily physiological process, the man would be in a fight/flight response so sex would be quite a low priority to his brain.

 

So I think my story is good to go. Thanks again for all the help—the information provided has been quite invaluable. For those concerned about my interest in such a grotesque scenario, I'm writing a collection of short stories and this one is about a school shooting. I really ran away with the ideas, though.

[Xalatan]

The only mechanistic issue I can see is, hanging generates a pressurising injury that presses down on the cerebellum, through the foramen magnum.

 

A penetrating gunshot injury may depressurise the brain rather than pressurise it, since the bullet would go through the brain. How could a hole in the brain, especially an exploding injury, generate the necessary intra cranial pressure to cone the brain? This is probably why you haven't read the priaprism phenomenon after a gun shot injury. In your novel you may need to think about how the firearm injury is being delivered, it should be blunt rather than penetrating trauma.

[ajb]

So, similar to the effect of hanging...

 

So that is why we refer to dead people as a stiff!

[Phi for All]

Being shot is always hard on people.

[Moontanman]

Being shot is always hard on people.

 

 

GROAN!!!!