My earliest memory was an illustration of Nathan Hale about to be hanged in my first grade history book. I was fascinated by that and looked at it constantly. After that, about any hanging on TV or in movies gave a huge thrill.
At some point, maybe by nine years old or so, I decided I needed to feel what it was like to be hanged. I tried a number of ways, nothing real serious but probably dangerous enough that I'm lucky I didn't fuck up and kill myself. At some point my hanging play always included my getting some serious wood over it, I think I was 12 when shit got real!
About the same time, three things happened. First, I saw the movie "Hang 'Em High". Seeing Clint survive that hanging at the start was not a good thing for a kid like me! I already thought it took awhile to strangle unconscious, I didn't need that reinforced, especially a ridiculously long time hanged and surviving. Clint with his cigars was also a big thing, I had really been wanting to try smoking cigars. The scene with the young prostitute was also huge, though I'm not sure I grasped everything they were trying to relate there. I liked seeing the girl smoke the cigar for sure. She was obviously frustrated there but was it from not getting fucked, or from being denied seeing the men hang?
I had also gotten a Tomahawk comic book about the same time. For those too young to know, Tomahawks was a kind of frontiersman comic book hero. In this one, he and his men are captured by an evil baron that had a castle. Tomahawk was being forced to pull the lever and hang his men, several of them, maybe five if I remember right. Of the bunch, one was a beefy bear type and next to him, a baby faced young blond guy. The kid looked a lot like me.
"Bear" had a big cigar as always. Before his hands were bound, he gave the kid his cigar. He was allowing the kid to experience at least that manly pleasure before he was hanged! Kind of a metaphor there maybe. Couldn't very well have them bring in a hooker to really take care of him properly, or if "Bear" and the kid were gay, give him his first blowjob, in a comic book! LOL
So you have the kid with a noose around his neck puffing on a big cigar and choking a little, then "Bear" showing bravado and telling Tomahawk to go ahead, he's ready fer the rope! Then of course at the last minute the cavalry rides in and saves them.
Third was that all that made me determined to buy some cigars and try it, and to ramp up my hanging play and really find out what it was like. I was a big kid for my age and go my nerve up and managed to buy some cigars without any problem. I smoked one that first night and was a natural. I really liked it and didn't choke or get sick or anything. The huge event in developing both my hanging and smoking fetish came within a few days, the next time I was home alone.
Once alone that morning I put a real hemp noose up in my room to put on and check myself out in the mirror smoking one of my cigars. We were avid campers and it was a nice 1/2 inch hemp noose. The sight of that around my neck and the big cigar gave me raging wood, no doubt helped by what I planned to do next. In our laundry room, I had a belt from a robe rigged from our main sewer pipe against a wall with a sturdy bench under it.
When I was ready, I took the real noose off, put my cigar in the ashtray and went in to hang myself. I'd never attempted a hanging this extreme before. The belt was secured and it had a slip knot in it. I had never considered any kind of safety measure like just using a fixed loop or a stop knot. I wanted it to tighten around my neck and choke me, that is how you hanged someone for real, and that is what I wanted to feel. I had never fully dangled by my neck and wouldn't this time, my back would be against the wall and that makes quite a bit of difference. It's enough to kill of course, just like those pole style hangings, close enough to doing the air dance for me at this time anyway.
I intended to step off the end of the bench, hang for as long as I dared, then just get my feet back up and get out of it. I did and hanged very briefly, got up and got the belt loose in time, then went back to my room. I put the real noose back on and puffed my cigar back to life, seeing my face a little flushed from the strangling. It was a real rush! The belt had hurt some, but not terribly so. Feeling myself hang by my neck and strangling, I loved it and wanted more! It could be my cock was telling me I needed more, I was absolutely throbbing hard!
I repeated the process and then a third time! Just as I got out of it the third time, I felt something intense happening with my cock and pulled my pants down just in time to shoot a huge load! Oh my God! I had no idea! It scared me a little at first, and then I realized it must be what cumming is. I had only heard about it and jacking off but never understood. I fully understood now what all those erections were for, and damned well realized how to make it happen again!
That thoroughly cemented my hanging and smoking fetish I believe, if it hadn't took before. It was awhile before I ever heard or read of a hanging giving a man an orgasm. When I did, I knew it was true. Had I been really taken out and hanged that morning for some reason, and had lasted just a little while, I know nothing could have stopped me from blowing that load! Maybe it didn't happen very often, but at least for a fairly young man, aroused and throbbing hard by the thought of being hanged, it had to have happened if he was lucky.
That was an experience I would never take back for anything. I feel that was the day I became a man, much more so than the first time I fucked a girl a few years later. I've been straight most of my life but consider myself bi now, or at least I love hard cock where a noose or strangling is involved. The noose took my virginity! A wonderful first lover it was too. I'm not sure I ever shot a load like that my entire life with a woman. I've always felt it would be fitting to die like a man the way I became one, shooting my last load while hanging by my neck!