Apeas. International Symposium, "Choking Game" and other Fainting Games

The proceedings of this first conference on fainting games are intended to act as a starting point for multidisciplinary discussion about dangerous practices that are going on throughout the world. The game that young people call the "choking game", which has been picked up on in the media and which the media helps to spread, is certainly not new. However, new communication channels have taken away the secrecy surrounding various practices that share the same aim of inducing cerebral hypoxia whilst they portrayed them as trivial or even harmless. Does this mean that the Internet is responsible for promoting the spread of activities that endanger the child's body whose integrity countless public health measures try to protect, whose harmonious and healthy development they try to promote ? Why are so many doctors, nurses, teachers and security officers unaware that these activities exist ? Do the young people who take part in these practices, either voluntarily or under pressure from their peer group, realise the seriousness of what is at stake for themselves, their family circle and consequently society as a whole ? Given that it may never be in our power to control the flood of information over the Internet, how can we convey full, objective information, which is still the best means of prevention against the pipe-dreams, manipulations and lark mirrors ? As an enlightened society, why are we hesitant to free ourselves from outdated taboos and their related punishments or old forbidden activities and the transgressions that go with them ? Whereas the law undeniably undermined the means of deceiving others, what is to be feared in going "beyond good and evil"? (Anne CG).