Is it ok for boy's to worry about puberty?

Answer 1

There is no need to worry about puberty, although many boys (and girls) do just that. The reason why they worry is because puberty changes everything, not just your body, but also the way you think and act. Puberty essentially signals the end of childhood and the begining of adolesence, and eventually adulthood. Most people are happier when things stay the same, they know exactly where they stand with things, things are comfortable and predictable. Change can be disturbing, especially when it brings with it the fear of the unknown. Many boys will have heard scare stories from other boys about what will happen during puberty and many of these stories are quite simply rubbish. So, let me try and set your mind at ease and maybe you'll realise that there realy isn't anything to worry about. For a start puberty does not hurt, so forget any worries about pain. People sometimes talk about "growing pains" and while it is true that you will grow taller during puberty, if you think about it you will realise that you have been growing taller anyway, you are much taller now than you were when you first started school. Most of the growth occurs during the night, when you are asleep and it is so slow and gradual that you won't even know that it is happening. A few boys may experience a dull ache in their arms or legs which can last for a few months or so but it won't hurt and it won't prevent you from doing anything. Puberty can start at any age from 9 years old right up until the late teens although most boys start puberty around 12 or 13 years of age. Once puberty starts it takes around 6 years to complete although some changes, such as continuing to develop muscles and growing hairs on your chest may continue for several years after puberty has finished. One of the first signs that puberty has started is that your testes and scrotum (balls and ballbag) will begin to get larger and hang lower (some boys refer to this as their balls dropping). The skin of the scrotum will get thicker, wrinklier, looser and eventually darker red in colour. Another early sign is that you may notice that the hairs on the backs of your arms and just above your ankles get longer and more noticable. Soon you will notice a few long straight silky hairs growing close to the base of your penis. Just as you begin to get use to these hairs you'll notice some different ones begining to grow among them. The new hairs will be thicker and curly, a bit like thin wire, and they may be much darker in colour. These are called pubic hairs because the area in which they grow is correctly called the pubis. One minute it seems you have one or two pubic hairs and very quickly you'll find that you have many, many more. They usually form a small triangle shaped patch with its lower point closest to your penis. You may also find that similar hairs also begin to grow on the skin of your scrotum and also close to your anus. Around this time your penis will also begin to grow longer, thicker and the skin may turn a different colour from the skin of the rest of your body, usually a pale honey colour,as if it is lightly sun tanned. You may suddenly find that your penis has learned a surprising new trick. Yes, I'm talking about erections which are also called stiffies, boners, woodies, hard ons, bar ons and lots of other names. One minute its nestling snuggly in your underpants just like it always has done and the next minute its pointing straight upwards and you feel like you have an iron bar down the front of your pants. You'll find that it happens often when you take a bath or shower and also when you wake up of a morning. Taking a pee can be a big problem when you have an erection! (You could always try doing it in the shower if you are really desperate). Suddenly, instead of thinking about fishing, collecting stamps, the scouts or all the other things you used to think about as a boy, you find yourself thinking about one thing and one thing only, sex. All the time, in lessons and at home, your mind wanders and turns to sex and when it does, hey presto you get another erection. Sooner or later, if you haven't already heard about it someone will mention masturbation(I have just done it) although they may called it tossing of, wanking, playing with yourself, self abuse or any of a thousand and one other names. The increase in size of your testes and scrotum had one main purpose, the production of sperm. Sperm are made in your testes and they work best at producing sperm if they are slightly cooler than the rest of your body. That is why your scrotum gets looser so that your testes can hang further away from your body. The biological reason for producing sperm is so that a boy/man can father children of his own. Being able to produce sperm is the primary sexual characteristic of men, this is why puberty takes place. All the other changes are called secondary sexual charcteristics, as they don't really effect the production of sperm. Anyway, sperm can only make babies if it can get into a girl's vagina and in order for it to be able to do this the penis becomes erect. So, at puberty you get erections all the time, you think about sex all the time and you also begin to produce sperm. Most boys eventually link these three things together and start to fiddle around with their penis, especially when it is erect. They soon find that it feels pretty good and instinct generally takes over and they often find themselves taking hold of it and moving their hand up and down. Many boys begin to do this, to masturbate, before they can even produce semen. Sometimes, especially when you first start doing it, you can do it for ages, until your arms ache, and nothing happens. However if you keep doing it one day you'll find that you get a really good feeling, this might be a "dry orgasm," where nothing comes out of your penis. Eventually though the day will come when a few drops of clear liquid comes out of the little slit that you usually pee out of. This clear liquid is called seminal fluid and once you start to produce this you'll find that real, milky white, semen (with sperm in it) will start to get produced soon afterwards. Many boys called semen by other names such as spooge, jizz, sponk, cream etc, etc. The orgasm that you get once you can produce semen is usually much stronger than the dry orgasms which you might have got earlier. After this stage of puberty you will notice that your pubic hair continues to spread until it eventually begins to grow on your inner thighs too and begins to spread upwards towards your navel (belly button). New hairs will eventually begin to grow in your armpits (axillary hairs) and eventually the first hairs will begin to grow on your face, usually on your top lip. The hair growing on your face will spread to the sides, close to your ears and on to your chin and throat. You will eventually need to start shaving, unless you wish to grow a full beard. Some men need to shave once or twice a day but others grow much less hair and may only need to shave once or twice a month. Likeways with body and chest hair, some men have lots, while some men never grow any. You will grow taller and your shoulders will get broader, your face will become longer and narrower than it was as a child. You may bet acne (spots on your face) and perhaps spots on your back too. Your skin may get greasier and you wil sweat more. The sweat in your pubic area and in your armpits is different from other body sweat and quickly begins to smell, so you will need to bath or shower often. Remember to to wash your penis at least once a day to, especially under your foreskin, or it can begin to smell unpleasant. Your muscles will get larger and eventually, at the end of puberty you will be a young man. All these changes might sound a bit scary to a young boy, who might even worry about them and think, I don't want to grow hairs on my bum, smel bad or get erections all the time. And from a young boy's way of thinking this may be true but as puberty begins you also start to think differently too. As new changes happen you begin to look foreward to them, you enjoy masturbating and thinking about girls (or sometimes other boys). You feel proud of your pubic hair and your armpit hair. Many of things which seemed so import when your were a boy don't seem to matter anymore and you find new intersts. Puberty is a time for huge changes and they will happen whether you want them to or not but fortunately part of the process is that you will look foreward to the changes and will want them to happen so you can become a man. So don't worry, remember every one else goes through puberty too. All the other boys and girls of your age and younger will go through it and every man and woman has already gone through it.