Guys and Girls

This is what all the books say, so it must be true. Yet I do not think I have seen an explanation why.

Im not sure what counts as the start of puberty. I started masturbating age 11, I didnt have boobs at all then and Im still waiting for my first period. But I did start thinking about sex stuff... and my parents started calling me a puber (which is a word in Dutch for a kid in puberty).

I was 11, but maybe it had started, just no obvious changes yet

I started when I was 12 so around the same time I started puberty

I started puberty before i started masturbating, as soon as I started getting boners all the time thats when I stared

I started masturbating before I started puberty

I know what you mean. In my case it was something instinctive and it just felt like I needed to start doing it.

But I think what may also be happening is some uncertainty about the start of puberty which I mentioned in my previous answer and which Murderous_Bunny also mentioned. Puberty actually starts in the brain.

There is a negative feedback loop to control sex hormones. In guys, the brain senses the level of testosterone and adjusts the amount of another hormone GnRH produced by the hypothalamus (part of the brain) in order to get a set level. GnRH causes the pituitary gland to make two more hormones: LH and FSH. In guys, LH causes the testicles to make testosterone and FSH and testosterone together cause them to make sperm.

So the change at the start of puberty is that the bit of that feedback loop that senses testosterone becomes less sensitive so that causes the hypothalamus to make more GnRH which causes the pituitary to make more LH and FSH which causes the testicles to make more testosterone until the brain is happy with the new level.

All that happens before there are any visible signs and it may take the testicles a little while to get up to speed. All the visible changes are caused by the higher level of testosterone. But as the testosterone level rises it also acts on another part of the brain to cause us to become horny and much more aware of our penises and their potential and to start masturbating. Depending on how long it takes hair follicles to respond and how observant people are, that horniness may also happen before they are aware of having pubes and therefore of having started puberty. If a guy was to have measured his testicles he would have found that they had started growing but most of us don't check them out very often. But regardless of what people have noticed, if someone feels a drive to masturbate rather than simply having worked out that our penises feel good to touch, then that's because their testosterone level is up, i.e. puberty has started whether they realise it or not.

I have only mentioned the hormone situation in boys - it is more complicated in girls but will still be along similar lines and the two hormones LH and FSH are actually named for their effects in girls: Leutenising Hormone and Follicle Stimulating Hormone.

That certainly seems more spread out than it was for me.

In my case I remember, in the last year of primary school, which in the UK school system would be 10-11 y/o, we had a new game of chasing the girls around the playground until they hid in the girls toilet. I also remember thinking a couple of the girls were very attractive when, up until then, I had paid them very little attention.

Also, I think around the same time, I became much more aware of my dick. Up until then I had really only pulled it out to pee and put it away again but one afternoon I remember really examining it, pulling the foreskin back and checking out the head underneath etc. and I also just seemed to be generally more aware of it.

By the summer between primary school and secondary school, which would have made me about 11y6m, I had discovered masturbation and was doing it regularly, though dry. By 11y9m, I had started to ejaculate: not that much at the start but it gradually got more as time went on. I don't remember how old I was when I started to notice pubes. I do remember that in the 2nd year of secondary school (12/13 y/o) I definitely had them and my dick had grown enough that other boys commented on it.

Back to the large time gap in your case, I think it is possible to simply find touching your cock to be pleasurable and start doing that without it having the same focus or drive behind it as it does once puberty has started but that didn't really happen for me. Once I instinctively started masturbating it felt like I absolutely needed to do it. It felt great, of course, but even if it had been nothing special I still think I would have been driven to do it.

But I also wonder if, for some people, that hormone mechanism reacts faster and the start of puberty is rather more sudden whereas for others it's more of a soft start. Like a traditional light switch vs. a dimmer switch. I don't know - I am only speculating. I am not an endocrinologist, just someone who likes to read about how the body works.

Same

I didn't do it until I started puberty.

I didn't masturbate until I started puberty either.

I started noticing puberty changes at 12 and started to masturbate at the same time

I started at 12 about 5 months ago
I'm not sure if I have started puberty yet but it always feels as good lol

I started when I was 11 just before puberty started