ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL FEELINGS: IF A GIRL IS 13 AND SHE’S HAD HER PERIOD AND ALL SHE EVER THINKS ABOUT IS BOYS AND SEX, IS THIS NORMAL?
March 27th, 2009This question came out of our Everything You Ever Wanted To Know question box. Questions like this often come up in our classes because, as we go through puberty, many of us experience stronger romantic and/or sexual feelings than ever before in our lives. For some of us this means spending time imagining a passionate romance with a special someone or having sexual fantasies. For some it means having the urge to masturbate more often. For some it means getting interested in the opposite sex, having crushes, or going out with boy-friends or
girl-friends.
These romantic and sexual feelings can be very intense and distracting. It may even seem as if romance and sex are all you can think about. Some young people get so preoccupied that it’s a bit frightening for them. If, like the girl who asked the above question, you’ve been worried about your strong romantic or sexual feelings, it helps to know that these feelings are perfectly normal and natural and that a lot of people your age are going through the same thing.
In addition to questions like the one above, we also get questions like this one:
My friends are always talking about girls and sex and everything. But I’m just not interested in girls in a romantic way yet. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?
When boys and girls ask questions like this, we explain that although puberty is a time of strong sexual or romantic feelings for many young people, not everyone experiences these feelings. Some boys and girls are more involved in sports, school, music, a job or some other aspect of their lives, and romance and sex just aren’t major interests for them. Just as we all have our own personal timetables of development for the body changes of puberty, so we all have our own personal timetables when it comes to romance and sexual interests. Some boys and girls begin to experience strong romantic or sexual feelings while they’re still young. Others don’t have these feelings until they’re older. If you’re worried that there’s something wrong with you because your friends all seem to be having strong romantic or sexual attractions and you’re not interested yet, you can stop worrying. There’s nothing wrong with you. Your personal timetable is just different from theirs. So, you can relax, knowing that sooner or later, these things will start happening to you.
The boys and girls in our classes are curious about anything and everything having to do with sexuality, and they’re especially curious about the kinds of romantic and sexual feelings that young people have when they’re growing up. Therefore, they ask questions like the ones we’ve just mentioned and also questions about things like sex play, crushes, falling in love, kissing, necking, petting and having intercourse (to mention just a few). You may be curious about these things too, so in this chapter we’re going to talk about them. We can’t promise that we’ll answer all your questions in just this one chapter. But we would like to say a bit about these issues and we hope we’ll answer at least some of your questions.
Some of the sections in this chapter deal with topics that come up mostly in our classes for younger boys and girls. Other sections deal with topics that usually come up only in our classes for older boys and girls. So, depending on your age, you may find that you’re more interested in certain sections than in others. For instance, if you’ve just started to go through puberty, you may not be particularly interested in the section that deals with making decisions about how to handle your romantic and sexual feelings. This issue may simply not be very important in your life yet. If you aren’t particularly interested in some sections, you may want to skip them for the present. Of course, it’s perfectly all right for you to read these sections – it never hurts to think about these issues ahead of time. Whether or not you read these sections now, we hope you will come back to them later, when you’re older and these things are issues in your life.
*123\95\2*
