A Quebec woman is believed to have died when she was engaged in sadomasochistic sex.
The 39-year-old woman died Saturday night in a home in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville on Montreal's South Shore.
She went into cardiac arrest while engaging in "out of the ordinary" sexual practices using "very particular" accessories.
Police found numerous objects that appear to be intended for torture and are used in uncommon sex practices, but public affairs officer Constable Martin Simard declined to provide specific information.
When police arrived at the residence on Sommet-Trinité Street, the man was trying to resuscitate the woman, but she died, Simard said.
The man was arrested and questioned, but released without charge.
Investigators are waiting for the autopsy report to determine if he'll be charged with criminal negligence causing death.
They tie each other up, dabble in role-playing and experiment with whips, handcuffs and nipple clamps to experience the kind of turn-on most people achieve through kissing and racy lingerie.
Sadomasochists use a variety of activities, props and even torture-like devices to inflict consensual physical or psychological pain on each other to experience pleasure that is usually sexual in nature.
Although S&M has long been considered a deviant or underground form of sexual behaviour, statistics have shown that up to 10 per cent of the North American population has experimented with some form of it.
In recent years, sex clubs, for-hire dominatrixes and fetish shops that cater to the kinky pain-and-pleasure set have popped up across Canada.