Can I ask a question? You reblogged the thing about people 17-18 hitting on like 13 year olds? This seems like a stupid question... But is because puberty? I'm 16 and I'm finished with puberty cause I'm a girl, so it's not really creepy if slightly older people like me, it's completely normal for me to date a seventeen year old. But thirteen year olds are basically kids growing into their body parts and minds. Sorry if this is dumb.
Yes and no. (Although, surprise! You’re not done with puberty yet, and won’t be until you’re in your early 20s.)
See, here’s the thing. Think about a baby, an infant. Just born. Can’t hold up its head. Can’t eat without someone guiding it to the nipple. Can’t see more than a foot in front of its face. Has no sense of object permanence--when things aren’t in view, they don’t exist. This baby has no control over its bowels or bladder and can only eat breast milk or formula.
Now think about that same baby at a year old! It’s probably walking. It’s started potty-training. It feeds itself dry cereal and fruit snacks with its hands, and may have started trying to use a spoon or fork. Anything within walking/reaching distance is fair game for being grabbed, examined, and probably drooled on, because babies are a lot like dogs.
Between the ages of approximately ten and fifteen, you are doing the exact same thing as that baby. You’re growing that rapidly. It doesn’t seem like it when you’re going through it, but, well, you said you’re 16? Go take a look at some thirteen-year-olds. That was you not that long ago. Someone who was a high school freshman when you looked like that is a senior now.
This is the first part of puberty. AFAB people will be growing breasts, starting their periods, and developing hips as the pelvis spreads. AMAB people will be experiencing lengthening of the penis, testicles dropping and becoming visible and enlarged, and the onset of noticeable erections*. Both AMAB and AFAB people will experience the beginnings of underarm and pubic hair; voice changes; “growing pains” as they literally grow overnight and also begin the process of growth plates closing; sexual dreams; acne; and potentially other bodily changes that feel really weird and awkward and don’t get talked about enough in health class. (I started having serious problems with dry hands and feet during this part of puberty. Nobody explained to me that this was probably actually related to the same hormones that were causing me to develop a “skin type.” I felt like a freak. I wasn’t. This shit happens and we just choose not to address it.)
That’s a lot to cover. The thing is, that’s only part of the story. Starting with the onset of puberty and not ending until its true completion around age 25 (surprise!!!), your brain undergoes more changes than it deals with at any other point in your life except being in utero. As this process continues, however, it slows down, because there’s less ground it still needs to cover. This is why you dating a 13-year-old would be far more weird than you dating a 19-year-old--while I still wouldn’t recommend you dating the 19-year-old, you’re going to have a lot more in common with him/her/them than you are with the 13-year-old, who’s still at the beginning of that process while you and the 19-year-old are both in the middle.
*Erections can actually happen at any point in childhood development, including in utero, and AMAB fetuses have actually been observed masturbating via ultrasound. (Now THERE’S an awkward story for when you give your kids the talk.) Neither masturbation nor erections are actually a sign of sexual arousal in kids, although both occur--they’re literally just “this feels good, Imma do it.”
