What age did you start puberty- girls and boys

    • Birds18 wrote:

      tfkbuggy wrote:

      Birds18 wrote:

      I’m always curious what everyone’s definition of starting puberty is.
      I think what you notice about yourself :D
      I mean some guys say that they started puberty at a pretty young age of 11 and I often wonder if they’re just saying that they started puberty because they were getting boners. Or if girls are just saying that they started puberty because they were already horny and masturbating
      We do know quite a bit about the start of puberty. At the very start the hypothalamus, part of the brain, starts to make a hormone called GnRH. That acts on the pituitary gland which produces two more hormones: Folicle Stimulating Hormone and Luteinizing hormone.

      In boys, Luteinizing hormone causes the testicles to start to make testosterone and Folicle Stimulating Hormone, along with testosterone, causes the testicles to start to make sperm. Just about everything we recognise as a sign that puberty has started is something that has been triggered by the resulting increase in testosterone.

      So starting to get spontaneous erections is a legitimate sign of puberty. Feeling horny or having the urge to masturbate is also a sign as these are also the results of testosterone. Then public hair is a sign too and that, again, is caused by testosterone. In fact, in guys, all of the changes we tend to notice including all hair growth, penis growth, growth in height and voice change are all caused by testosterone so if you have seen any of these changes then puberty has started.

      The other factor for boys is that in order to do this extra work, our testicles also have to increase in size and it would probably be possible to spot that they have started getting bigger, probably before there is any public hair, but most guys don't measure the size of their balls.

      In my own case, in UK school year six (US 5th grade) I started to notice girls in a way I hadn't in any of the previous years and that was probably down to testosterone too. I don't remember exactly when I got spontaneous erections but I know I was ejaculating by 11y9m which was early in school year 7 (US 6th grade) and I had discovered masturbation a a few weeks prior to that, i.e. having dry orgasms.

      In girls the hormonal situation seems more complicated. FSH stimulates ovarian follicles which produce oestradiol. LH may also be involved but also serves to create androgens. As in boys, the rest of puberty will be the result of the action of these hormones.

    • Birds18 wrote:

      I must have had some lazy testicles because it took forever for them to grow lol
      They grow once they're stimulated with FSH and LH.

      What we don't know is how the hypothalamus works out it is time to start producing GnRH. We do know that there is a negative feedback loop, i.e. the brain measures your testosterone level and, if it is too low, produces more GnRH, making the pituitary make more FSH and LH to make the testicles work harder. If the testosterone level is too high the hypothalamus makes less GnRH so there is less FSH and LH and the testicles work slower.

      This feedback loop is why taking any androgen supplement that appears to the brain to be testosterone can cause our balls to shrivel up as the hypothalamus is trying to get the testosterone level down to what it considers normal and, in the most extreme case, makes no GnRH so with no FSH and LH the testicles have no work to do and start to shrink.

      So it has been suggested the trigger is that something changes the hypothalamus's idea of what your testosterone level should be and the increase in GnRH comes from that. That still doesn't answer the question of what sets the timing.

      It is believed that body fat percentage has an effect and that part of the reason people enter puberty earlier now than they did, for example, 100 years ago is that nutrition is better* now than it was. It has also been suggested that there is an element of survival to this, particularly for girls, i.e. it would be risky to start reproductive life when the body doesn't have a sufficient reserve of energy to see out a pregnancy. It is believed that extreme athletic training can delay puberty and, even after puberty has started, can cause a girl or women to, temporarily, stop having periods.

      But that seems not to be the only factor as there seems to be a genetic component too.

      The other interesting thing is that the extended childhood we have is unusual. Most animals grow quickly from birth to adult size and then stop. By comparison, we grow fast immediately after birth, then slow down during childhood, then speed up again during puberty and we have lower levels of sex hormones during childhood than we do immediately after being born. In that sense puberty is actually the end of this interlude in our development so knowing what sets the timing may be tied up with what starts this interlude too.

      * on nutrition, we undoubtedly have more calories available now than before but maybe we have gone too far with that. Balance is important and I think there have been improvements in other areas too so, for example, people are taller than they were and that is probably due to greater available of protein.

    • Birds18 wrote:

      I wonder if because I was masturbating so much at an early age before I started puberty that could have possibly delayed the start of puberty. Maybe masturbating so much I was keeping my testosterone level too low for my testicles to start developing.
      That's totally ridiculous. Masturbating doesn't have any long-term effect on testosterone levels. Or I guess nearly all males got delayed puberty lol.

    • Ryzen wrote:

      Birds18 wrote:

      I wonder if because I was masturbating so much at an early age before I started puberty that could have possibly delayed the start of puberty. Maybe masturbating so much I was keeping my testosterone level too low for my testicles to start developing.
      That's totally ridiculous. Masturbating doesn't have any long-term effect on testosterone levels. Or I guess nearly all males got delayed puberty lol.
      The pituitary and hypothalamus are what cause puberty to start, it sends signals to the testes to start producing testosterone

    • Birds18 wrote:

      OK that’s actually what I was wondering. I was thinking that maybe because I masturbated so much that maybe I caused myself to have delayed puberty.
      I don't think that would be responsible for any delay and it could even be a sign that puberty wasn't so much late as slow.

      When you first started masturbating, was that because you had heard of it and other people said it felt great so you thought you'd try it too? Or did it seem to come from within? In my case no-one has been saying it was great it was completely from within. I suddenly started to become much more aware on my penis and it was something I just did instinctively.

    • I guess it was a combination of things. In fifth grade we were already starting a little bit of sex education so I knew some stuff already but I was already getting boners and playing with it. I started realizing that the more I rubbed it the better it felt and then eventually realized different techniques into a ultimately was stroking it.