Puberty for boys can begin at ages 11 through 17. The age of puberty is dropping quite fast, possibly because of better health and food, possibly because of the growth hormones farmers now feed to their stock, which are still in the food when we eat it.
Some boys can’t wait to get to puberty; others are nervous of it, reluctant to grow up. I suspect that someone who is extremely anxious about puberty can actually delay getting there, by the power of their mind, but I don’t know of any medical evidence for that theory.
I’ve known a few boys who didn’t reach puberty until they were in Year 12. That can be a tough gig. Several were fine about it, several felt unhappy that they weren’t keeping up with their friends.
Boys who reach puberty at a young age are bigger and stronger than their friends for a while but are often shorter than average as adults.
Here’s how to tell if you’ve ‘officially’ reached puberty:
1. Once the testicles reach a certain size, you have officially begun puberty. As a medical fact, the circumference of the testicles is a certain guide to the onset of puberty.
2. There is a theory that when the hair around your penis becomes wavy, you’ve reached puberty.
3. Most males think of their first ejaculation as the moment of reaching puberty.
Here are the physical changes of puberty:
THE PENIS: becomes longer and thicker. Average size varies as much as the size of noses vary, or the size and shape of bodies vary. It’s said that the average size of an adult penis, when soft, is around 6 to 12 cms, and when hard between 12 and 18 cms. But it’s doubtful that anyone’s ever done a major survey of them.
There’s never been a male who wasn’t interested in the size and shape of his penis. With some emotionally unhappy males it becomes an obsession. Every sex education book ever written will tell you that size isn’t important. Medically speaking, that’s true. A small penis performs exactly the same as a medium or large penis.
If size and shape do matter, it’s because of attitudes. There are lots of jokes about penis size, and males who want to put other males down will make jokes suggesting that the other man has a small penis. Some women say they find a large penis more exciting when they’re having sex. Others say a large penis makes them uncomfortable. Both statements could be correct; both could be more to do with psychological reasons.
Males with small penises tend not to feel proud of their penis size. They might have to look elsewhere for sources of pride. Be aware though of the ‘foreshortening’ effect: when you look down at your penis it will appear smaller, simply because of the angle from which you’re looking at it.
Some males with big penises feel proud, some embarrassed. It’s odd that people should feel proud or embarrassed about something they have no control over.
Your penis will get smaller when it’s cold. Both the penis and the scrotum (ball bag) shrivel a little, and draw back into the body for protection.
Penis size can’t be changed, except by serious plastic surgery. Men who are interested in having surgery like that have a big problem with their confidence.
In recent years women have come to realise how much their body shape and size have been used for centuries to make them feel bad. Girls and women have been made to feel that everything depends on how they look. If they’re above or below average weight, or if their breasts are large or small, they’re sometimes made to feel that they’ve failed as human beings.
The fact is that the same thing happens to men. Boys or men who are above or below average weight, who have ears or lips or a nose or a penis that is unique to them, are often teased and made to feel there is something wrong with them. This can do terrible and long-lasting damage.
If you feel that your penis (or anything else about your body) is the wrong size or shape, you probably have a confidence problem. You may have a lot of work ahead of you to fix this problem. It is extremely unhelpful for you to abuse yourself: to tell yourself how fat or skinny or ugly or grotesque you are. This is a very damaging and dangerous thing to do.
TESTICLES: these two balls, which hang in a bag called the scrotum, drop lower and get bigger as puberty continues. As with the penis, the scrotum comes in a variety of sizes and shapes. It’s entirely normal for one testicle to hang lower than the other. It’s entirely normal for the scrotum to have freckles or brown spots, but of course as with any spot on the body, if these change colour or get bigger or bleed you should see a doctor immediately.
Sometimes one or both testicles didn’t drop properly when you were a baby, but got caught up in the abdomen. This is easily fixed but should be fixed straight away, and will require you to see a doctor.
ERECTIONS: erections are when your penis sticks up stiff and firm. It’s a rush of blood to the penis that makes it go like that.
The reason you have them is so that the penis can enter the vagina, on its way to deliver sperm to the woman’s egg. Unless it’s stiff it won’t go into the vagina.
Most boys have erections through their childhood years. Some baby boys are actually born with an erection.
The erections you have when you’re little can be to do with sex: seeing someone naked, having someone play with your penis, seeing animals have sex, watching an R-rated video for example. But they can be nothing to do with sex. Being nervous in class, riding in the car, watching an exciting movie, going to the Show . . . anything can cause your penis to react.
I remember reading years ago about a young boy who had an erection as he watched a time-lapse film of a flower unfurling.
The erections you have when you’re a kid can feel nice and exciting. Or they can make you nervous and uncomfortable. Or both, at different times. And some boys don’t seem to have erections until they’re close to puberty.
A common cause of erections, in boys, adolescents and men, is the desire to urinate. So many boys and men wake up with erections every morning that they’re actually called ‘morning erections’, and they’re usually caused by the desire to go to the bathroom. The easiest way to get that erection down is to take a leak. Other ways to get erections to go down are to think of something else, to start an activity that will take all your attention, to get into a conversation that isn’t about sex. The old-fashioned remedy was the cold shower. Certainly erections don’t like cold, but it’s a pretty drastic remedy. I’d rather have the erection.
Fear will usually cause an erection to go down, but it’s not recommended either.
You normally can only ejaculate if your penis is erect. And you normally can’t urinate through a totally erect penis. It’ll have to come down a little bit at least. You might find the urine then sprays around, so you have to do some mopping up if you’ve missed the bowl. It’s really crass to leave that task to someone else.
As you enter puberty erections become a more powerful part of your life. Chances are you’ll have them more often, and the feelings from them will be a lot stronger. For quite a while though, as in childhood, they’ll probably be caused by all kinds of things, not just sex. I had an erection almost every morning from the rocking of the school bus, through Years 8, 9, 10 . . .I enjoyed it, although it made getting off the bus a bit awkward, and potentially embarrassing.
Of course with your penis getting bigger your erections get bigger too. A character in my book The Great Gatenby is supposed to be able to hang five towels from his erection. This is sheer fantasy on my part, although there may be guys with erections that big.
It’s quite normal for erections to be more horizontal than vertical. As you get older they’ll get more horizontal anyway. It’s equally normal for an erection to be so vertical it touches your stomach. As usual, each person’s different, although the more excited you are, and the longer time it’s been since you last ejaculated, the bigger and more vertical your penis is likely to be.
Your erection might lean to the right or to the left or go straight up and down; these are usually all normal, although some leans can be the result of a medical condition which it’s worth having a doctor check.
If you have an erection as part of a sexual experience, like masturbating or kissing or petting, the longer that experience lasts the more your erection is likely to change. It’ll probably become darker in colour, throb more noticeably, and semen will ‘leak’ from it. It’ll probably become bigger and stiffer. On the other hand, if the sexual experience goes on for a long time, your penis may need a rest, and go soft again for a while.
There’s an expression ‘lover’s balls’, which refers to the fact that a guy who’s had an erection for a while and hasn’t ejaculated will feel the pressure in his penis and testicles, which may well become more swollen, and darker in colour. Over the centuries many guys have used this feeling of pressure in their erection as an excuse to get girls to have sex with them. ‘I’ll die if I don’t have it!’ ‘You’ve got to let me; I swear, it’s killing me.’
If you do die in these circumstances you’ll make medical history. It hasn’t happened yet. To be so worked up and have to settle for less than intercourse – for example, masturbating – can be extremely disappointing. But to use that as an excuse for rape, as some sad men have done over the years, is to deny your responsibilities as an adult.
SEMEN: the first ejaculation can be difficult to identify, because some boys have a few drops of white or colourless liquid ‘leaking’ from their penis for a few weeks or months before their first real ejaculation. Some boys ejaculate a small amount of colourless liquid a number of times. Gradually it becomes more obviously semen, in its colour and quantity.
Semen is usually a milky white colour, not as liquid as water, more like shampoo, but it can be quite thin and runny sometimes. It contains the sperm which fertilises the woman’s eggs to make babies. The amount, colour, and the force with which semen comes out vary from person to person, and are also affected by how long your penis has been excited before the ejaculation, how sexually excited you are by the situation you’re in and how recently you have had other ejaculations.
Normally the semen is ejaculated with great force, so that it can reach the woman’s uterus and the sperm can fertilise an egg.
Semen has its own smell and taste, usually quite subtle. Some people find its smell and taste off-putting, some find it sexually exciting.
Semen doesn’t stain: it washes out of clothes and sheets easily. It is safe to taste and swallow.
You may notice that the first urination after an ejaculation is a bit wild. The urine, which comes out of the same tiny hole as the semen, might spray around in a few different directions. This is just because there’s still a drop or two of semen clogging the hole.
WET DREAMS: in adolescence most boys have exciting dreams often or sometimes, during which the penis gets stiff and ejaculates while they’re asleep. The dreams are usually about sex, but they can be unusual: for example you might dream about having sex with a super-model, or a child, or you dream that your grandmother is masturbating you, or that a guy is sucking your penis.
Don’t panic! These situations (except for the super-model one!) might have you wondering about yourself. But it’s entirely normal for you to have all kinds of unconventional dreams about sex.
You often have wet dreams when you haven’t had an ejaculation for a while. Often only a small amount of semen is ejaculated, but again that varies from person to person, from day to day.
BONE AND MUSCLES: the growth that begins at puberty continues for many years. Most men are well into their twenties before they are fully grown. It’s true of muscle that ‘if you don’t use it you lose it’. Health, strength and co-ordination all improve with exercise.
In the early stages of adolescence however it’s important not to strain the body by asking too much of it. Trying to lift enormous weights, for example, is dangerous. On the other hand it’s good to test yourself to the limits, to see how strong and fast and fit you are. A short course of training can cause amazing improvement. Get advice from a P.E. teacher or a coach.
HAIR: hair grows on the face, under the arms, around the penis, and in some men on the chest and on the back.
The hair around the penis gradually forms into a triangle pointing upwards. In women the hair on the vulva gradually forms into a triangle pointing downwards.
A line of hair, sometimes called the ‘flea track’, appears from the bellybutton to the groin.
The hair on the arms and legs that children have from birth becomes darker and longer and rougher.
The hair on the head has a different texture to the hair on the rest of the body, but the colour is usually similar.
You should be concerned if your parents are reluctant to get you a razor when you obviously need one. It may be that they do not want to notice that you have reached puberty. If this is the case you may have a problem establishing your independence in the years ahead.
VOICE: the change in the voice begins some time after puberty and continues for a long time. The voice can break suddenly or gradually. Sometimes a young man will have a croaky or unreliable voice (switching from high to low or low to high) for a while. But if a young man’s voice continues to be squeaky or strained for a long time there may be a physical or emotional cause. Check it out with a doctor or speech therapist.
I had a friend who had a very croaky and nasal voice all through adolescence. He was so embarrassed about it that he hardly talked to anyone and avoided girls. When he was 24 a doctor realised he had an adenoid problem that caused his voice to sound unusual. He had a small operation which fixed it completely. The change in his personality was absolutely amazing. I thought it was sad that he’d gone through those years of unnecessary suffering.
Again, it would have been better if his confidence hadn’t depended so much on his voice, but I know it’s easy for me to say that, and not always so easy in real life.
Most men’s voices don’t become fully mature until they’re in their twenties.
Some people say that if you want a good singing voice as a man you should be careful not to push your voice too hard as an adolescent, by trying to reach notes that are beyond you, or by shouting or screaming so hard that you damage your voice. Certainly it is possible to cause permanent damage.
SWEAT: as an adolescent you may sweat more than at any other stage of your life. Gradually the body starts to settle down again and sweat levels stabilise. In the meantime though you may be embarrassed by sweating a lot, or by hurtful jokes about smelly feet.
It seems that a lot of people think adolescent males have no feelings, that these insulting jokes don’t do any harm. Some boys aren’t upset by them, but some are, and they have a right to be.
On the other hand, during these years of high sweat levels, you should have the respect for yourself, and the consideration for others, to shower when necessary and to use deodorants.
Some deodorants are made especially for men and some for women, and some are for anyone. Try to avoid deodorants with aluminium, as these may be harmful if used for many years. Read the fine print on the container when you’re in the supermarket or chemist’s.
THE CHEST: many adolescent males – as many as 80 per cent – develop some fat in the chest area, which may look a bit like breasts in a girl. Again this can lead to embarrassment and teasing. This stage of growth doesn’t last long: the fat soon goes away again.
For a short time it may even be possible for some boys to squeeze a drop of clear liquid from a nipple during puberty, but this doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another example of the body going through this unsettled period of change.
The nipples usually get bigger with puberty, and more ‘active’: boys find that their nipples can produce exciting feelings, not as powerful as the feelings from the penis, but nice. The nipples on males and females do erect when they’re excited: they become like stiff little buttons. For most males the penis is the most sexually exciting part of the body, followed by the nipples and buttocks.
GROWTH SPURT: you can grow dramatically during puberty, putting on a number of centimetres in just a few months. Then you might plateau for a while, before another quick growth.
Or you might just grow at a steady rate. Or you mightn’t get a lot taller than you were before puberty. But the size you were before puberty has no relationship to the size you will be as an adult. It’s genetically programmed. It’s not affected by smoking or drugs or masturbation or exercise.
It’s now believed that if your father is more than four and a half centimetres taller than your mother you will grow to be taller than her.
You will end up with your shoulders wider than your hips, unlike girls, who when they finish growing have hips wider than their shoulders. Don’t be surprised though if you put on some fat for a few years during puberty. It may be that you’re eating wrongly or that you’re unfit, but it may also be just a natural side-effect of puberty.
ACNE: sometimes the skin does break out during adolescence, usually not until you’re well into puberty. To read some ads in magazines you’d think it’s the only big issue of adolescence.
Again it’s often a question of confidence how well you handle a big outbreak of acne. Generally people who refuse to be trampled on, who refuse to be pushed aside, don’t get trampled on or pushed aside. People who have the confidence to be at the centre of a group, at a party for example, are accepted on their own terms, whether they have acne or not. After a very short time no-one notices the acne. It’s like, when you meet someone, you might notice they have a birthmark on the side of their face. You notice it the same way you notice the colour of their hair, the slogan on their T-shirt, the way they talk. Then you forget about those things as you get to know them better.
It’s the same with acne and all those other things you wish you didn’t have, like a stammer or a big nose or puppy fat. They’re all part of you, they contribute to the unique you.
After all, do you really want to be friends with someone who’d judge you on stuff like that? Comedian Groucho Marx had a famous line: ‘I wouldn’t want to belong to the kind of club that’d have me as a member.’ I suggest you shouldn’t want to belong to the kind of club that has people who judge you on surface things like acne.
Nevertheless if you get a big hit of acne, check with your doctor for the latest treatment. If he or she doesn’t seem up to date, or doesn’t have many ideas, go to another doctor.
THINKING: before or during puberty the brain begins to operate in new ways. For many boys this means that they start to think in abstract terms for the first time in their lives. By abstract thinking, we mean that you understand more than the obvious.
Children generally only understand what they see and touch. They can understand ideas if they are explained in language that is basic, using lots of practical examples.
People who think in abstract terms though can understand ideas and explore them using abstract language.
If you take a topic like war, the abstract thinker might consider issues like ‘Why people fight’, ‘Whether it is human nature to fight’, ‘Whether it is permissible to kill other people during a war’, ‘Whether a war can ever be justified’, ‘How war can be discouraged’.
People who are not abstract thinkers are more likely to see wars in terms of goodies and baddies. They understand war best in terms of stories. They are easily manipulated by governments, who excite them with simple slogans, emotional speeches about dead warriors and photos of leaders looking heroic and enemy leaders looking evil.
People who are not abstract thinkers see life in terms of goodies and baddies. Television programmes like A Current Affair and 60 Minutes are designed for such people. Politicians tend to aim their campaigns at them.
People who think in abstractions often have the greatest difficulty getting on with people who don’t. And vice versa. They just don’t understand each other. ‘Can’t you follow simple logic?’ pleads the abstract thinker. ‘Why do you have to make everything so complicated?’ groans the other.