Your child just turned 13, I bet you feel extremely proud. There are so many things that you want to teach them, now that they are a bit older you talk with them about sexuality with a little more confidence.

Every adolescent goes through the sexuality stage, some things are explained at school, some at home, some are passed on by friends. This is totally normal.

One common thing that takes place in adolescence is masturbation. Its not something that people should be ashamed of. According to the Kinsey Report 92% of men and 62% of women have masturbated during their lifespan. Like I said, nothing to be scared or shamed to talk about, its part of our health also.

One thing that our society doesnt seem to know to much about is AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIATION, this is a serious problem. And its old news (the first death was reported in 1791), it consists in intentionally cutting off the oxygen to the brain for sexual arousal during masturbation. The lack of oxygen obviously can cause a loss of consciousness, and if the persons method of cutting off the air is by hanging, well you know what can happen. Other ways of provoking the anoxia are bags over the head, self strangulation, chess compresions, etc.

There are up to 1000 deaths a year in the USA related to this paraphilia. I realise this may be a hard subject to talk about, and right now you are probably saying to yourself: “My child would never do that!

Well, what if they do?

Do you want to take that risk?

Do the correct thing, talk to your children about it, a few minutes of embarrassment could save your childs life.