Being a Boy (7 page)

At the same time, your body is getting you ready for having kids, so your brain might start having sexthoughts. WHOA THERE – you’re probably thinking – KIDS? I’M STILL A MERE CHILD MYSELF. Correct, but in the olden days you were dead by thirty so you’d have had kids pretty much now, it’s just that our bodies haven’t caught up to modern living. But you might start having these sexthoughts because your brain is being told to reproduce. So, you are programmed to think about sex. It’s totally normal. You might start noticing girls, you might start noticing boys and be even more confused – remember EITHER, or both, are awesome.

FACE:
Your face will get bigger, and some features such as your nose and ears may change a little, too. You’ll still look like you, just older. See
‘Skin’
and
‘To Beard or Not to Beard’
in chapter three for more.

VOICE:
Over time it will get deeper. Sadly, for many, the teen years are spent in a bizarre REMIX of ups and downs like Will.i.am gone mad on his vocoder. Sometimes it’s a dramatic overnight change, but more often than not you’ll realise at some point that your voice has become a little deeper.

SHOULDERS AND CHEST:
The shoulders, back and chest expand. Your armpits will get hairy. An amount of hair will also grow on your chest despite what topless pictures of famous stars will have you believe. The amount of hair varies greatly between men.

Let’s also discuss the dreaded MOOBS or ‘manboobs’. During puberty you may gain weight and your chest is likely to expand. Like women, men’s chests come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Tell you what, press-ups are amazing for toning the pectoral muscles. As ever, though, if you are concerned with any part of your body, seek the advice of your doctor but remember everything happening to your body is 100% natural.

BACK:
Some men also get hairy backs. Perfectly natural, just never seen on waxed male models.

TORSO, OR THE MIDDLE BIT:
Most boys will put on a little weight. Just one of those things – usually the weight is distributed evenly so you hardly tell. It’s worth noting though, that a lot of research suggests puberty is the time when a lot of young people become highly INACTIVE when, in fact, you need to keep fit more than ever.

GENITALS:
Here’s the fun part. The penis and testicles will get bigger – sometimes noticeably, sometimes subtly. The change is pretty gradual. Hair will begin to grow over the scrotum or ‘ball-sack’ and around the penis. This is perhaps the most obvious and potentially alarming change. From an evolutionary perspective we grow pubic hair to alert potential mates to the fact we are of reproductive age. YOU DEFINITELY SHOULDN’T drop your pants in front of girls though. It would be VERY forward.

Back to the ‘dropping of the balls’. I hate to burst the bubble, but your balls actually ‘dropped’ or, more accurately, descended from your lower abdomen just after you were born. This new ‘dropping’ actually refers to your balls getting bigger and hanging lower. As with all aspects of puberty, this change could be so subtle you might not even notice it happening.

BUM:
This will also probably get hairy – mainly in the crack.

LEGS:
Hairy. Seeing the pattern yet? MEN HAVE HAIRY BODIES.

Although, some don’t have as much hair (men of some ethnic origins tend to be naturally less hairy). We all have body hair.

HEIGHT:
You’ll get taller, obviously. Short men hate being short, tall men hate being tall. Some women like tall men, some women like short men. Don’t sweat it, you can’t do anything about it anyway. Height is a very geographical thing too. The average height of a man in 2010 was 5ft9 in the UK, but 5ft5 in India and 6ft in Denmark.

So there you have it. Your body is about to, or already has, done some awesome changing. It’s a magnificent metamorphosis. I bet caterpillars don’t sweat changing into butterflies and we should not worry about changing into men. It’s inevitable. It’s just that the process (much like a newly hatched butterfly covered in goo) isn’t always pretty. The good news is, you have the rest of your life to get used to your new body, and in a few years your childhood appearance will be forgotten lest for hideous and embarrassing school photos.

O
ne of the best things about being a boy is your penis. A girl does not have a penis. The penis is the bit that dangles at the top of your legs above your testicles. It is responsible for waste disposal of urine and, more importantly, sex. Hopefully none of that information is news. If it was, man, we have some catching up to do. Here is a very scientific looking picture:

Thank God we can’t see all that stuff. It’s like a horror film in there. Thankfully, we can see only the good stuff: the penis and testicles.

Also, ‘Vas Deferens’ sounds like a sinister James Bond villain, the sort to have a revolving chair and a white cat in his lap!

It is healthy from a very young age to see your penis as your best friend. You’re going to be together for a long time so you might as well get along. This might sound insane, but a lot of male anxiety is attached to this vital attachment. As mental as it sounds, many men have an angry, combative relationship with their tool: ‘Why won’t you work? Why aren’t you bigger? I HATE YOU!’ Don’t deny it, you’ve worried about your penis, right? Fear not. Literally every man has at some stage.

The most famous pervert never to be struck off the medical council was Dr Sigmund Freud. He believed that at about age three we go through something called the phallic stage. He believed this was when boys and girls recognise their bodies are different, and more importantly, that these bits DO STUFF and FEEL NICE. He probably had a point. He said some other stuff too, but it was to do with fancying your mum, so it’s best to move on.

The fact that your penis DOES STUFF and FEELS NICE will define your relationship with it for most of your adult life. Therefore it is important that you are totally comfortable with this vital piece of your anatomy – in both physical and mental terms.

First of all, let’s decide on names. Genitals, both male and female, are subject to an array of nicknames, some cute, some offensive, some plain wrong. It’s parents’ fault. Not many parents would refer to a baby’s penis as a ‘penis’, so the identity crisis starts at birth. Let’s save time. For the rest of the book, I’LL call it a penis (or sometimes a dick or a cock for LOLs). See
‘Synonyms for Penis’
at the back of the book.

That’s all before we’ve even mentioned testicles. Let’s save some time and call them balls. Anything else is wrong, I assure you.

SIZE:
The size of a man’s penis seems to be the epicentre of male insecurity. No other body part inspires such concern. Never have I heard a man fret about his stubby fingers or bony feet. As far as I know, no man has ever approached a plastic surgeon to cure his short neck or wrinkly elbows.

The thing that seems to haunt men the most is penis size. Worse still, we can’t talk about it. Least of all with other men. This is a real shame. If men were more willing to discuss their penises, a lot of worry could be resolved in about two minutes flat, as men universally realised they are all pretty much the same.

Where does this insecurity stem from? I believe the blame can be laid at the door of one word: MANHOOD. We equate penis size with manhood, as if your knob was an avatar for every inch of your being.

The theory follows that ‘the bigger your penis, the bigger the man.’ This rubbish is supported by pornography and in our culture, I’m sad to say, bigger is better. We strive for big houses, big cars, big bank accounts. It follows that we should be led to believe a big penis is better than a small one.

I have good news, my friends. This is balls (the metaphorical kind). For many years, the average penis size was thought to be 6.5 inches erect. However, as this was taken from self-measurement, we can be sure the facts were a little skewed because MOST MEN FIB ABOUT PENIS SIZE. More recent data indicates that the actual average penis size is a slightly more modest 5.9 inches erect.

Although Europe ‘went metric’ in 1989, willies will always be measured imperically. Strange, because having a 14.9cm cock (5.9 inches) sounds quite impressive.

For the record, 5.9 inches is about the length of a biro. You can tweak the size of this page as much as you like but 5.9 inches is always 5.9 inches!

This data presents an average, so of course there will be dicks out there that are considerably larger or smaller – and before you start comparing, remember yours is probably still growing. It’s tempting to do some sneaky comparing in changing rooms. It’s not a gay thing, it’s reassurance. You’ll find that some are bigger than others, but it’s worth noting that a knob’s soft or ‘flaccid’ state is no indicator of how big it will be when hard, or ‘erect’. We call this ‘growers’ versus ‘showers’. A great big soft schlong is literally no use to anyone – remember it’s only when erect it can do its sex job. Some penises experience upward of 100 per cent size increase when they go from soft to hard, while others increase only by approximately 50–75 per cent.

This brings us nicely to my next point. Women don’t seem overly concerned about penis size. I asked a female focus group (see
‘Manhood’
later in this chapter)) ‘does size matter?’ The overwhelming consensus was no: ‘For 90 per cent of men, no. However there is that 5 per cent who are too small/thin and 5 per cent who are too big/wide.’

Interesting. For the first time we encounter a whole new level of fear and paranoia. So you’re pretty sure your dick’s not miniscule? Well, hang on a second mister! Maybe it’s TOO BIG! You can’t win. What we’re dealing with there are the EXTREME cases. But remember, what doesn’t work for one sexual partner will work for another.

We will talk about sex in depth soon, but let’s state right at the beginning, sex is NOT all about your penis – if it is you’re doing it wrong. Therefore, any worries you have regarding penis size and sex should be separated. However, if you are worried you might fall into the 5 per cent of men who are ‘too small’, don’t worry. Remember what we said last chapter – you might not have finished growing yet, but if you are losing sleep, see your GP or GUM clinic (see
‘Helpful Numbers and Stuff’
at the back of the book) where a professional can reassure you.

APPEARANCE:
The simple fact of the matter is that no two penises look the same. Some are thick, some are thin, some have dark patches of skin, some have foreskins, some do not. If we’re being really honest, they all look RIDICULOUS. The human body design team were having a laugh that day.

Erect penises rarely poke out from the body at a 90 degree angle. Most have a slight curve somewhere and this can be in any direction. This is totes normal and only a really extreme bend would affect your sex life, for instance a condition called Peyronie’s Disease in which scar tissue can cause severe bends. This can still be treated by a doctor.