Autoerotic depontication is the act of throwing oneself off a bridge whilst
masturbating, either manually or with the aid of various devices.
Deponticate is derived from defenestrate, the act of throwing someone out
of a window. The fenestra is Latin for window — thus,
substituting pont, which is Latin for bridge1, is entirely
reasonable.
Despite many people's initial conceptions, Autoerotic depontication need not
be fatal, nor even particularly dangerous (unlike, say, autoerotic
asphyxiation). Many bridges have water underneath them in the form of
rivers or lakes, and jumping from a not too extreme height into
reasonably deep water is not especially risky. A not too extreme height
does not, however, leave much time for the autoerotic part of the act; one
option is to preheat the oven, so to speak, before the
autodepontication, and time things such that the point of release occurs
mid-fall. Getting this right can take practice.
An alternative method, which can easily give the subject a window of several
tens of seconds, is to use a very tall bridge (for example, over a canyon) and
a bungee rope. The main drawback to this is that it requires the assistance of
others, who may not understand or appreciate what is going on.
Variations involving a parachute or hang glider are theoretically
possible, but rare in practice because of the difficulty of finding an
appropriate bridge. There are also concerns that, with a male jumpee, anyone
unlucky enough to be underneath at the wrong moment may be in for a sticky
surprise.
Autoerotic depontication has been criticised by some for leading
practitioners onto stronger activities, such as jumping out of planes.
Proponents argue that the bridge is an essential part of the experience, and
that statistics showing the contrary are fallaciously assuming that correlation
implies causality.
N.B.: Autoerotic depontication should not be confused with autoerotic
depontiffication, the act of removing a high ranking clergyman whilst
masturbating.
…
1: This isn't entirely true. Latin for bridge is pons, but it becomes pont- or pontis when used with a suffix. Now write it down a hundred times. And if it's not done by sunrise I'll cut your balls off.