Undertaker Victor M. Sweeney has revealed what happens if someone dies with an erection and how often he deals with so-called ‘angel lust’, which occasionally happens after death
A mortician has answered the burning question we’ve all been dying to know – what happens if someone dies with an erection. Victor M. Sweeney said as the nervous system and brain stops working, the erection would go away.
He admitted he didn’t know for sure as he’d never dealt with a stiff with a stiffy. But he has come across a phenomenon known in the industry as “angel lust”, when a man’s penis suddenly becomes erect as the mortician is working.
He said: “I’ve never had anybody die with an erection… yet. I’m not sure how that would work. 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.”
He told Unilad: “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.”
The phenomenon – also known as rigor erectus or simply a death erection – is thought to be a Priapism, a condition in which a penis remains erect for hours in the absence of stimulation or after stimulation has ended.
It has historically been more likely to appear in the corpses of men who have been executed, especially by hanging, due to the pressure on the spine created by the noose. Spinal chord injuries are often associated with priapism in living patients.
Art historian and critic Leo Steinberg alleged a number of Renaissance-era artists depicted Jesus Christ with a post-mortem erection after crucifixion, which was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church for several centuries.
Last year, Father Thomas McHale was scolded by the Catholic Church after his Good Friday sermon focused on the anatomical aspects of the execution and claimed Jesus Christ would have had an erection when he was nailed to the cross.
He told parishioners that execution by crucifixion would have sent all the blood rushing down to Christ’s lower body. One dismayed worshipper told The Times: “He told people Jesus died with an erection. The church was shocked. There were young families there.”
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