Author Peggy Orenstein knows that talking to your son about sex isn't easy: "I know for a lot of parents, you would rather poke yourself in the eye with a fork than speak directly to your son about sex — and probably he would rather poke himself in the eye with a fork as well," she says. But we don't have "the luxury" to continue avoiding this conversation, she says. Orenstein spent 25 years chronicling the lives of adolescent and teen girls and never really expected to focus on boys. Orenstein notes that society doesn't often give boys "permission or space" to discuss their interior lives.

Sexual feelings, attractions, fantasies and desires affect virtually all people from at least puberty onwards. The average age of puberty for girls in the UK is 12 to 13, 13 to 14 for boys. In common with other aspects of development, the age at which puberty occurs varies widely from person to person. It is normal for the onset of puberty in different individuals to start as young as 8 or to be delayed until 16 or The age at which people first begin to act on their sexual interests also varies widely and can be affected by a large range of factors including biological development, hormone levels, cultural factors, religious and moral views, upbringing, self-esteem, education and socio-economic status. Wide variation in age at sexual debut is part of the normal spectrum of adolescent development. By the end of the teenage years most young people in the UK will have had sex.

Talking to your children about sex can be awkward, but new research suggests that parents need to have those conversations much earlier than they do. That number varied greatly depending on where the boys lived. Race and ethnicity also made a difference in whether or not a young person had an early sexual experience. Black males were most likely to have sex before 13, followed by Hispanic males. The author of an accompanying editorial, Dr.

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