Can you imagine something between your legs suddenly becoming hard, about twice its usual size and sticking up? That’s the embarrassing thing that happens to boys when they are in puberty and beyond. Boys can get erections even as babies. It happens sometimes if they have to pee or if they rub or play with their penises. In puberty, boys get “boners” a lot more frequently because of their hormones. Erections can be unpredictable and can happen at the worst times . . . like when a guy is asked to get up in front of the class to read a report. Yikes.
Erections usually happen if a guy is thinking about something sexy or having a fantasy. It will also happen if he is “playing with himself ” or masturbating. The embarrassing part for guys, though, is that sometimes they have no control over a sudden erection. It’s certainly not something you want to point out to them like, “Um, excuse me, is that a banana in your pocket or are you having an erection?”
Most of the time, guys find a way to hide it. They either won’t stand up, or they might put their hands in their pockets to hold themselves down. (“Down boy, down!”) Sometimes they will think about something unexciting (like kissing their grandmothers) to make erections go away. These erections usually last only a minute or so when they happen like that.
A teen guy will almost definitely get an erection if he is dancing closely, body to body, with his “sweetie” or if his crush sits on his lap. If you are the subject of one of these erections, don’t worry, it’s not your responsibility to help him make it go away. Some guys might expect you to “do something” sexual to help them “finish” their sexual excitement with an orgasm (read more about that in the next section). The great news here is that ALL guys know how to take care of that all by themselves. You should feel NO obligation, and don’t let any guy tell you differently!
The other thing you might hear about is a nocturnal emission— fondly known as a wet dream. A wet dream is when a guy ejaculates in his sleep. It might happen because of a sexy dream, or it might just happen for no reason. No need to ask your guy friends about it. They won’t want to talk about it, and some guys never have one.
The Journey of a Sperm
If you’ve been paying attention, we are sure you know that sex is how a baby is made, and we will definitely talk a lot more about sex stuff in this book. For now, let’s concentrate on getting this anatomy straight. It seems like a lot to learn, but it makes more sense when you understand how it all connects and works together. Let us take you on an amazing, swirly, twistyturny journey that will start with a sperm and end with a pregnancy happening in a female. Ready? Here we go.• Sperm are made in the testes. (You know that by now, right?)
• They travel into the epididymus (incubator), where they hang out for a few weeks until they grow and mature.
• With sexual excitement (we’ll get to that later), they are pushed through another tube called the vas deferens. In the vas deferens, they pass the seminal vesicles and prostate gland where they pick up their nutrients and fluids (snacks) and officially become semen.
• As the journey out continues, the sperm travel into the penis ,and with ejaculation, the semen squirts out of the penis through the urethra.
• If they come out during sexual intercourse, they find themselves in a woman’s vagina (hey, where are we? how’d we get here?). And they’re off, up the vagina, through the cervix, into the uterus, then into one of the fallopian tubes. Little do they know, there is usually only one egg. So that means about HALF of them will make a wrong turn down the empty fallopian tube (you know how men don’t like to ask for directions. . . .).
• Anyway . . . ahoy! After a long upstream swim, some (actually many many thousands) of the sperm finally reach the egg that has been floating peacefully down the fallopian tube since it ovulated. Eggs only live about 24 to 48 hours after ovulation, but sperm can live up to a week, so timing is important.
• The egg and sperm, now together, will share their genes (DNA or biological information that determines how a person looks, grows, etc.), and they begin to grow into a ball of cells that can eventually become a baby. The ball of cells (called an embryo) will then travel back into the uterus. It settles into the thick, lush, nutrient-rich endometrium (remember the “bed”?).
• Blood vessels from the mother begin to feed the pregnancy, and it continues to grow for the next nine months into a real, live baby! The birth of that baby is another story we don’t have space for in this book, but it is incredible!
It’s an amazing miracle!
8
S-E-X
When you hear the word sex, what do you think of? Your parents or grandparents may refer to sex as “the birds and the bees.” Whatever. Most people think of that penis-in-vagina thing, but there’s really a lot more to it. What about feeling attracted to someone? Holding hands? Kissing? Touching? Intercourse? Oral sex? All of these are part of sex. And the penis-in-vagina thing is usually near the end, not the beginning, of sex. See? There’s a lot to talk about when we say that very big little three-lettered word, S-E-X.
Sex: The Basics
Let’s start with the basics. From a scientific viewpoint, pregnancy is just a sperm and an egg coming together at just the right time to make a new living creature. For many animals, that’s about all there is to it. You might see frogs mating in your backyard (maybe you just thought they were playing piggyback). You probably have seen a dog trying to mate with another dog (or sometimes someone’s leg). But for humans, who have the unique ability to feel love, to communicate, to bond with other humans and to express feelings, sex is a much bigger deal! It should involve a lot of emotional closeness and intimacy, a lot of trust and comfort. It should be something that both people are ready for and agree to do.
Puberty is when your body becomes sexually mature. But to be mature enough for responsible sexual activity is another whole long and involved process that includes your emotions, your sense of self and your ability to be in a healthy relationship. Just because you have the parts and the plumbing doesn’t mean you’re ready to use them (more about this later).
There are a lot of ways to safely explore your body’s feelings and pleasures besides having sex. There’s other stuff, like “petting” or making out, before “going all the way.” Girls with Girl Power need to know about the basics of sex, but they also know that Empowered Girls wait until they are mature enough to deal with all the responsibilities and consequences that come with sex. They don’t have sex before they KNOW they are ready.