92-103
It's funny how we can read things differently. I saw the L.A. Times article as mostly scientific. To me, it gave a description of the early puberty phenomenon, mentioned how widespread it--or isn't, put it in historical perspective, and gave some theories as to causes, none of which were conclusive. I saw the personal anecdotes about individuals worried about their daughters and why they were worried as a journalistic style that we all have to put up with. In other words, if you're writing science for a lay reader, you have to give it a personal spin as a hook. You also throw in something particularly shocking like a child giving birth over a hundred years ago.

But others seem to have seen the article as an editorial on how people feel about the phenomenon or how they're supposed to feel. I'll grant that that's a legitimate way to look at it, just one that never occurred to me. Viewed in that light, I suppose it is disturbing. Perhaps the point of other articles could be that the thing that's very wrong about children giving birth is that there must have been a man to impregnate them, but the point of this article was about early puberty.

As for the question about whether the article provided any reason for the lowered age of puberty, I found good answers provided here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/21/…

If the link doesn't work, google on "Modern puberty For American girls, womanhood's first signs"

@ Crin

I think it's all relative. I'm used to getting my science from textbooks, books, journals, etc. So the personal stories stick out to me because I'm not used to that.

Which isn't to say that I think it was poorly written. It just that people seemed to be saying that women who are concerned or alarmed about this phenomenon are being repressive or sex-negative or puritanical or something. But I think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about early puberty.

I... think that made sense.

> there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about early puberty.

Absolutely. But if the aspect of puberty which was declining in age was the growth spurt, rather than the breast buds, that would be cause for the same concern. I take issue with the article's insistent focus on girls' sexuality. For instance -- has anyone looked into whether any aspect of male puberty is on the increase? What does childhood obesity do to young boys?

That is, whether any aspect of male puberty is happening at younger ages...

@ Erica,

Actually my point was that the focus on sexuality does have a legitimate aspect as well. As I said above, "I think the concern about girls developing earlier isn't about 'purity' per se but more than they will be attracting sexual attention (from non-pedophiles) earlier in life and that can be problematic if they are not yet equipped to deal with that attention maturely."

I don't think it's the whole story, but it's not a trivial aspect of the story either.

If anything I'd imagine that obesity would delay puberty in boys. I don't think estrogen is a big player in the onset of male puberty. Chilhood obseity is a problem for both genders, in any case.

mydriasis@102: kids that age are a lot less likely to be out without a grownup anyway, and I very much doubt that a ten-year-old with breasts would fool anyone who was really interested in adult women. When I was twelve I might have passed for a sixteen-year-old if you just looked at my chest, but one look at the braces and the scabby knees and the stringy hair (not to mention the way I walked -- oh, dozens of things) and you could have told instantly that I was a kid. There were guys who paid me attention at that age, but they were slimeballs. And no, I had no idea how to deal with it then, despite being within the average range for development.

I admit I was extrapolating a bit about the purity thing, but I don't think it's farfetched to assume that kind of concern from people who have no idea that anyone talks about sex to eight-year-olds. (In my experience it's vastly easier to talk about sex to eight-year-olds than to older kids; they take it as a matter of scientific interest.) And I did say that there were legitimate reasons to be concerned as well as ones I consider spurious.

The general sense I'm getting from this discussion is that the article is to be criticized for what it doesn't focus on. The article doesn't deal with early puberty in boys. It doesn't deal with child abuse of early pubescent girls. It doesn't deal with the problems of heart disease which, I'm sure, affect a lot more people. Also, highway deaths and the traffic in my neighborhood are conspicuously absent, two subjects which I think are very important indeed.

I can hear you all telling me that sarcasm doesn't travel well on the internet, but I'm trying to make my point. The article is about a few aspects of early puberty from a scientific viewpoint written for a broad audience of non-scientists. They couldn't include everything. Everything else is a good subject for this comments column, and I am interested in reading everyone's opinions, but that particular article isn't to blame.

@109

I pretty much agree with everything you said.

But I do think it is still important to point out that it's not as straightforward as

1. adult men who are only interested in adult women
2. pedophiles

there's a whole lot of gray in there, enough to be troublesome especially if you're talking about an early bloomer who is also sexually precocious. I was super precocious both sexually and intellectually but I hit puberty late so I was the opposite of you in a sense. I was a skinny, scrawny kid but if I had been an early bloomer this definitely would have applied to me.

Crin,

I thought the article was fine?

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/co… and http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.… may be of interest. There is some slight evidence that obesity may delay puberty in boys, but it's not nearly as clear (part of the problem is that BMI isn't as clearly linked with obesity in boys, and they really like using BMI as it's so much easier to measure than something that actually gets at the body fat percentage). Plus there's so much variation in penis size that working out whether someone's at Tanner stage 2 or whatever is very subjective.

@111: I actually purposely didn't use the word pedophiles there. I think there are a lot of reasons young girls get targeted, pedo/hebephilia being only one.

I will admit to almost no experience with similar-age sexual attention at that age (apart from insults), so I'm honestly not sure how it will figure in for these girls. Looking back, I think I was probably quite sexually precocious in the sense of being aware of sexual sensations and so forth, and I'd certainly read a lot of books on the topic, but my sexuality was still very free-floating and not attached to anyone but myself as yet.

Crinoline: I didn't see the article as wildly problematic in itself. I simply noted that it included yet another instance of a phenomenon that I had seen many times before, and that I find troubling because it is widespread (ergo, I'm not just talking about this article). It doesn't matter if one article talks about a pregnant ten-year-old without saying she was raped. It matters if almost all of them do stuff like that.

I think I'd be kind of bothered were I to be using the facilities and notice some weird guy/gal peeking through the crack at me- the fact that s/he was employed by the venue would only make it worse.

Also, isn't the question of what was going on in the stall always going to be a he said/ she said kind of thing? Like the kind of thing that could be used to eject anyone one you found "undesirable"?

@114

My point in raising pedophilia is that pedophiles are in the minority. If a girl physically looks at 10 or 12 like she is old enough to be an object of sexual attention for people who are not pedophiles or hebephiles then that will be problematic. In my mind, early puberty widens the pool of predators substantially.

Yes, some will still give off a distinctly unsexual appearance for the reasons you mentioned, but there are (in my opinion) a significant number of girls that won't. I'm sure my experience with children is very different than yours but I spent a lot of my teen years working with children, I definitely saw a lot of girls that went as far out of their way as possible to not appear like children.***

Looking back, I think I was probably quite sexually precocious in the sense of being aware of sexual sensations and so forth, and I'd certainly read a lot of books on the topic, but my sexuality was still very free-floating and not attached to anyone but myself as yet.

I think you and I have different connotations by what 'sexually precocious' means. My interpretation may be wrong, so there's that. Personally, I think it's not uncommon for girls to be aware of sexual sensations during puberty, and reading about the topic seems pretty normal/healthy to me. It sort of hard to describe what I mean because it's more of a feeling but I guess I was more referring to the inclination to present oneself in a sexual manner or to be receptive or appear receptive to sexual attention. Which isn't an easy thing to quantify.

*** Lest anyone think I'm making a value judgement on these kids. I'm not at all. Not too much earlier, I was one of those kids.

Okay, you've got the pedophiles, who will be less interested in a kid with breasts. You've got the hebephiles, who may be interested at an earlier stage than they otherwise would have been. You've got the guys who like freaking out young girls, who may be interested at an earlier stage than they otherwise would have been. But you don't enlarge the total pool of predators unless you recruit (so to speak) guys who would otherwise be interested in women of the age of consent and up and are getting fooled. Given that menarche is still happening at about the same age, the upper range of appearance isn't changing much, so I don't see that pool of guys being affected much at all.

Add in the protective effect of younger girls spending more time with their parents or other adults, and I don't really see where the greater exposure to predators necessarily comes in. As it was, my daughters say their experience was very different from mine as they weren't out on their own much until high school anyway.

It occurs to me that it could actually be beneficial to have puberty be more spread out, so that early breast changes become more like getting permanent teeth, a thing that people think of as happening to little kids. I would never have enjoyed the process of getting breasts (they itched and hurt and so on), but if it had been normal for it to happen when I was younger and less self-conscious, I might have minded less, just as I minded braces less before I was old enough to think about kissing anyone. The cascade of body changes all happening so fast wasn't fun, either -- a more gradual process could have been better in a way. (I still think it's probably not normal, though, and am concerned about environmental damage, etc.)

Incidentally, I have kids. I'm at schools and kids' events all the time. I know what girls of various ages look like, and no, ten-year-olds with breasts still look like ten-year-olds. They may occasionally try to look sixteen, but they don't do much of a job at it. I've occasionally seen them look sexualized, yes, but that doesn't make them look older, to me.

So Ted Nugent is a big-mouthed frothy homophobe, but when he needs relationship advice he comes crawling to Dan Savage.

Eirene;

I know you have kids, I wasn't having a dick-measuring contest. I was saying that my experience is different than yours. It also might maybe be possible that children act differently around teenage chaperones than they do around their parents. Just a thought.

As to predators, I don't subscribe to age of consent being especially salient - I think it's more of a sliding scale issue, which is maybe why what I meant didn't get across.

@119: Sure, it's a sliding scale. But the top of the puberty scale hasn't really moved. The girls who get breast buds at 8 rather than 11 are still AFAICS ending up looking the same at 13 or 14 or 15 as they would have anyway. So why would they get a different reaction? Guys who aren't interested in girls of those ages are still not going to be interested.

I didn't mean to sound dick-measure-y, either. But I don't get the same impression you do. (I'm thinking of observing crowds of kids in hallways and such, incidentally, not just times when they're consciously aware of adults present.) Also, this isn't so much about whether there are girls who look older than their ages, or girls who act unusually sexual, but about whether there are more such girls than there otherwise would be, specifically due to early puberty. I doubt it.

@120

I think that the impressions we get are pretty heavily influenced by who we are and what our experiences are. It's not uncommon for people who are parents to view young people (especially those their children's age) in a light that's different than other people. Not always, but often.

In my experience, it can be a very good thing. I rememember a few years ago being really aggressively hit on by a coworker who was much older than myself. Meanwhile, another man about his age commented "M? She hasn't even got her puberty yet". I was 19 (and definitely post-pubescent) at that age - it wasn't that I looked that young, it was that as someone with children somewhat closer to my age (the other man was a parent of a much younger child) I think he was more inclined to view me in a paternal light.

I hope that makes sense. I mean it as a good thing. I also think the way I look at those girls is a lot different than they way a 17 year old boy (who is likely sexually active) will see those girls. You might think they make unconvincing 16-year olds, but when I was in highschool there was a saying. "If there's grass on the field, play ball". Of course personal grooming habits were rapidly making that saying obsolute but you get my point.

As for the stretching of puberty, etc, I see what you mean now. I think people all respond to puberty differently. In that article, the 'end' of puberty is marked as the period, isn't it? That's not really as relevant in terms of physical appearance. If the beginning of puberty is when the appearance changes begin, then that's the salient point in this context.

To be clear... I didn't mean to imply that early puberty caused precocious behaviour, more that the coexistance of the two could be a problem.

You might think they make unconvincing 16-year olds, but when I was in highschool there was a saying. "If there's grass on the field, play ball".

Wow. That's a REALLY different social norm than any I've ever run into. There was far more pressure for same-age relationships in high school than at any other time. I knew almost no guys in high school who would even date a girl more than a year younger than themselves (it was more common, though not the norm, to see younger boys/older girls). A middle-school girl would have been unthinkable (not to protect her, but because middle-school girls were considered beneath contempt). Middle-schoolers' options were (1) other middle-school kids and (2) by-definition-creepy much-older guys. That was it. (Of course, that was formal relationships in the case of the high schoolers. I don't know how many people's younger sisters got jumped on at parties. I'd be surprised if actual hook-ups with younger girls were common.)

But in any case, these guys at your high school knew they were messing with much younger girls, right? they weren't thinking that "grass on the field" meant the girls were older?

Meanwhile, another man about his age commented "M? She hasn't even got her puberty yet". I was 19 (and definitely post-pubescent) at that age

But he did know you were 19 and not 11, right? That's all I'm talking about -- being aware of the girl's age. Not the attitude toward the age. Being able to tell how old the girl is.

@ Eirene

I wouldn't say it's a social norm, but it's not unusual enough that I'd be comfortable ignoring it either, if that makes sense?

The context I heard that in was always a joke/exaggeration but I think jokes tend to also refer to truths on some level. My vague point being, if a girl in 5th grade looks like she could be in 9th grade, it's quite possible she'll be subject to attention to boys in 9th grade, 10th grade, and etc.

Your comment "A middle-school girl would have been unthinkable (not to protect her, but because middle-school girls were considered beneath contempt)." suggests that if teenage boys didn't consider them beneath contempt they would be fair game. Perhaps they are now? I don't honestly know.

@123

Yes - but I do believe it's quite possible for girls to pass for several years older than they are. Horny teenage boys don't exactly put the objects of their affection through rigorous screening to determine their age level.

In Nas' "I can" he raps "this is for grown looking girls who's only ten/the ones who watch videos and do what they see/cute as can be/up in the club with fake ID" I don't think he's being 100% literal but I once babysat a girl around that age who put on some tunes and did some dancing that I doubt she'd want her parents to see. I doubt she'd make it past a bouncer but who knows. When I was about 16 (and probably looked more like 13 or 14) I noticed that in Mexico there was no way I'd get served at the bar - unless I was wearing a bikini. Did I pass for older? Maybe. Were strange bartenders getting me drunk based on my tits alone regardless of the fact that I looked way underage? Yes. Is that kind of still to my point? I believe it is.

I really don't get this conversation. Regardless of the child's age, maturity (both physical and mental), attitude and etc I'm pretty sure any decent parent is already doing everything they can to protect their kids short of hiring a full security detail. The best thing that can be done is to encourage people to be involved with their children, which is just about the best thing that can be done whether you're talking about predators, drugs or sex.

I apologize for the repetitive sentence.

Mydriasis and Eirene-- Thanks for the clarifications. I understand now.

Horny teenage boys don't exactly put the objects of their affection through rigorous screening to determine their age level.

I realize I'm kind of beating a dead horse at this point, but my experience was so very different. A year made a huge social divide at that age. It took serious effort to scrape an acquaintance who anyone who wasn't within a year of you, even for ordinary friendships. I remember being a freshman in high school and looking at the seniors as though they were some kind of beings on a different plane. There was just no question that everyone paid attention to age -- it was a really, really primary stratification system. I mean, obviously that was artificial, but it did seem to be in accordance with general teenage arrogance toward younger kids, and the desire to seem as grown-up as possible (one reason I'm really having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of a typical 17-year-old having any interest at all in a 12-year-old, no matter how horny they both were).

Granted, that probably also means that if a senior guy had taken any interest in me I would have been bowled over. But it would have seemed very, very weird.

It's somewhat different at my kids' schools, but it was still a very big deal when my daughter got asked out by a guy two or three years ahead of her (she turned him down). It was definitely not happening to all her friends. And while she has friends of different ages, she talks about them in terms of their groups -- her freshman friends, her sophomore friends, etc.

@ gash

The point I was trying to make is that early puberty makes that job more difficult. Along with the health issues, this makes early puberty concerning.

@Eirene

I follow you; you have your experience, I have mine. I know what I experienced, I know what the kids I worked with experienced, etc. I think maybe it's a cultural or subcultural difference.

When I was fifteen, (a "sophomore") my boyfriend was in college. The boyfriend I had at sixteen had an office job. I started getting attention from guys more than a year older than me starting when I was ten. So obviously my experience is not what yours is.

My point isn't to say that it's universal, but that it certainly does happen and it's a reason that I think if I had a daughter and she was developing way ahead of time I'd want to have a more in depth conversation about how to deal with unwanted sexual attention. I'd prefer to not have 10 year old have to deal with that kind of attention. Even a few years makes a huge difference in the maturity and etc. I think a girl is better off if she can have that stuff hit her a couple years later.

Again, it's not the end of the world, and yes, it's a parent's job to make sure their child is safe/happy/healthy no matter what his/her circumstances. I'm just saying that it's not unreasonable for parents to become concerned about early puberty in terms of sexuality because I do think it's a legitimate concern.

But once you're down to ten years old, you're in the realm where it is one goddamn serious crime to mess with that girl sexually. That's a whole different situation than ordinary harassment or sexual attention at a later age. Moreover, while it's not impossible that the girl might be interested in return, at ten it's a hell of a lot less likely. So as a parent you'd be in a far better position to say something like "Excuse me, my daughter is ten. Fuck off," than you would later on.

And a ten-year-old by virtue of being younger is that much less capable of deflecting attention (heck, I couldn't do it until I was sixteen or so). They shouldn't be asked to take that responsibility, in my view. I'd give her the same "get away and tell an adult" advice I'd give at any earlier age or stage of development.

What I definitely would NOT do (not saying you would) is imply to her that it was in any way justifiable for anyone to show sexual interest in a ten-year-old due to early development. That's just playing into abusers' excuses.

Is there any evidence that a ten-year-old girl with breasts is more likely to be molested than one who hasn't developed yet? Even if you had statistics, you couldn't sort out the issue of early breasts versus obesity and looking vulnerable to a predator.

To me, it makes no sense to be interested in the early-development thing primarily because of the increased danger of predators. As Eirene has been saying, a reasonable person should be concerned about girls' health and about environmental issues.

Keeping girls from developing breasts early will not protect them from predators, and the question of predators should be dealt with as a separate issue.

@Eirene

Alright one thing at a time I guess.

1. I wasn't talking about supervised situations where it's possible to say "fuck off, my daughter is ten", I was talking about situations without adults present.

2. And a ten-year-old by virtue of being younger is that much less capable of deflecting attention

Exactly my point.

It's not about whether they should be 'asked to take that responsibility', obviously they shouldn't. That's sort of my point. Children also shouldn't have to deal with bullies all on their own either, but we should still be discussing how to best cope with bullying should it happen. Because it may.

3. On your final point I do agree. I would again compare it to bullying. People who are different are more likely to be teased. That doesn't mean it's okay to be teased becasue you're different, but discussing how bullying happens doesn't (in my mind) justify the act.

@Erica

I actually wasn't referring to molestation. I also wasn't arguing that the primary concern should be the increased danger (I personally do believe that early puberty is one risk factor), rather that it is a non-trivial concern.

I also don't think that being concerned about that issue means not being concerned about health. I also don't think that being concerned about that issue makes someone an unreasonable person.

Finally - no one is suggesting that we should 'keep girls from developing breasts early' in order to protect them from predators.

My discussion with Eirene leads me to believe that early puberty is unlikely to draw extra attention unless it's paired with the kind of precociousness we discussed earlier. But I don't know - because I don't have stats. Do you?

I don't think there's anything unreasonable about thinking "oh, she's probably going to start getting unwanted attention at 11 instead of 14. That's unfortunate because she'll probably have a harder time dealing with it at 11 than she would at 14." in addition to also worrying about her health, etc. You do realize it doesn't have to be one or the other?

*Eirene

Also, it's not just about being able to deflect attention, it's about the emotional response the girl has to that attention. I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the more immature a girl is, the more negatively that attention will affect her. Even if she does 'run and tell a grown up' (which may or may not happen depending on the nature of the attention, her personality type, the situation, etc) she will still have an emotional response to the event. I think the younger she is the more confusing/upsetting/threatening she will find it. It seems to me that you're more looking at it in terms of "okay when you're x years old you can handle y but when you're z years old you can't" but I think of it more gradually. I think I'm more inclined to think 'she is way better off dealing with x at 13 than at 10, although obviously neither is ideal' but you seem to be lumping them more together and saying 'hell, before 16 it's all bad and it makes no difference when'.

That's how I'm interpreting why we see things a little differently. Am I way off?

As fascinating as 10 year old girls with breasts are, could we get back to discussing the ethics of getting a blowjob from a bearskin rug?

@133 If you're proposing that parents talk about safety and sex and predators and pleasure and choice and responsibility with their young children, before puberty starts, and elaborate on those issues as the child matures, then we agree.

I disagree with people who think that girls who develop breasts early need special early training and special early protection that other girls don't need.

The question of how nutrition or environment is affecting our children's health is a different question, and very worthy of investigation.

@136

If you're proposing that parents talk about safety and sex and predators and pleasure and choice and responsibility with their young children, before puberty starts, and elaborate on those issues as the child matures, then we agree.

Yes... but in my mind "elaborate on those issues as the child matures" means that if she physically matures earlier she may need to have some of that elaboration earlier. I think ignoring earlier development and pretending it has no bearing on her life is naive, to be honest.

Well, when I was pretty young I got an actual pedophile trying to get me into his car, and that was scary all right, but it was not really very personal. I didn't feel as if it was my fault for having wanted it, or dressed wrong, or anything like that, as I might have if I'd been older and more self-conscious. I didn't obsess about it for long at all.

I think someone trying to chat me up at ten would have gotten a sort of bemused, "Wait, what?" reaction, and any sort of molestation would have been something like my reaction to Car Guy. I wouldn't have associated that with the whole concept of sex and relationships as regarded myself. It would have been more like somebody yelling drunken insults or trying to steal a purse -- a kind of random scary thing that happens sometimes, but not anything that was really about me.

Whereas when I was older and got unwanted attention, it seemed completely personal. I was afraid it was only the totally creepy guys who would ever be interested in me, and that they were somehow aware of my nascent sexuality in ways that other people weren't. It was much worse, to me, to feel "Y'know, I actually could let that weird guy buy me a drink," rather than it being completely unthinkable, to the point of being silly, as it would have been when I was in fourth grade.

And my kids just didn't hang out on their own at ten the way I used to. At most it would be something like "You can go ahead to the library if you want, I'm going to finish my coffee and be along in a few minutes." If I'd been working away from home, they'd have been in after-school care at that age. Granted lots of parents are more laid-back than I was, but generally speaking kids that age are under adult supervision vastly more of the time than kids a couple-three years older, whatever your parenting philosophy.

I don't think I'm lumping it together at all. I'm just saying that I don't think it's a straight-line thing from whatever attention you would have gotten at 13, now you'll get at 10. Not only are ten-year-olds themselves very different, but usually their day-to-day routines are very different and don't expose them to nearly the same environment.

@137, It makes sense to me to tailor your conversations to what you think your particular child needs, based on their actions and interests and peer group as well as their physical development.

Saying that all girls who develop breasts early are in a special category, different from all girls who don't develop breasts early -- that seems naive to me.

@Eirene

I don't want to get any more detailed when it comes to my own life so I'll just say: what you say may be true for you, but it isn't universally true for all children.

"Saying that all girls who develop breasts early are in a special category, different from all girls who don't develop breasts early -- that seems naive to me."

Did I say that?
I certainly didn't mean that.

Based on your first paragraph it seems we're basically on the same page. Physical development does have an impact on those conversations. That's all I was trying to say.

@141 Thanks for helping me understand.

@130 Ok, but is it really worth drawing out into a three day long argument? If you're basically saying that the same measures should be taken with a faster developing child then a slower developing one, then the whole argument seems to be about that it's more difficult to protect a more developed girl and how this hypothetical child would feel in the hypothetical situation she got molested. Point one; predators work on availability more than anything else, which is why the majority of molesters who touch boys are actually straight not gay. Point two; impossible to know for sure, but I'm going to guess shitty. Still whether or not it's more difficult to deal with at age 10 or age 13 is a moot point, it's a crappy situation that her parents would have to help her navigate since they're the ones who know her as an individual.

Furthermore I second 135

I suppose a lot of problems come from wanting to draw a very visible line between 'developed girls' (who have to deal with it) and 'undeveloped girls' (who don't). Because we still tend to ('tend to' -- things are changing, but still) assume that children aren't sexually interested and/or sexually interesting, but that at some point in their development they will become sexually interested and/or sexually interesting, we have to draw lines. Somehow, a lot of people still behave as if they thought that the change is sudden rather than gradual (despite quite a lot of lip service paid to gradualism).

To say nothing of individual development... Age groups make sense, yet people also develop as individuals. Especially in the area of sex, where people still tend to tiptoe around uncomfortable issues, many will look at the age rather than at the person when judging 'what is appropriate' or 'what advice should be given her'. Plenty of practical people, who are quite capable of seeing problems individually and applying individual solutions to them, refrain from doing so with their own children. It is a pity...

I'd like to thank the last 50 or so posters for the incredibly interesting off-topic discussion about early menstruation and its connection to child porn and molestation, but please, can't we get back to that bear skin rug now?

Please? I mean, we've all heard about early puberty, child porn, and molestation. We've heard about it a million times, in a million places. But when was the last time you saw a Law & Order Special Victims Unit episode about the victimization of a bear skin rug?

Don't you know unique when you see it?

Another way to frame the discussion would be to compare early puberty with any other medical trouble that children are often ill equipped to deal with and would benefit from parental oversight until they're older. I'm thinking of children with diabetes who need parents to help with blood sugar measurements and insulin shots, children with attention disorders who get Ritalin given to them until they can keep track of their own medication, or children with scoliosis or cerebral palsy, kids who wear back braces or who need physical therapy to learn the physical movements that other children take to naturally. Are there significant differences in helping children with any of those things and early puberty.

Also, with a nod to Wing It, could we consider children with early puberty on bear skin rugs or perhaps bear skin rugs with early puberty?

It occurs to me that maybe the bear was pre-pubescent. Now that would be sick, I'll tell ya.

@gash

I discuss things with people to learn things. I like hearing about their experiences and points of view. It's not an 'argument' in my books?

You know, the way the internet works you can actually have multiple threads running at the same time. The fact that some other posters and I were discussing one thing doesn't stop anyone else from discussing what they want.

P.S.

My opinion on the bearskin rug?

Zzzzzzzz

mydriasis, have you ever heard of "surprise anal?" Don't be so quick to fall asleep on that rug, my friend.

Hey NEWB (if you're still reading this far down):

Please take Dan's advice about using condoms seriously. The last thing you want is a pregnancy scare (whether it turns out to be false or not).

But what I'd like to suggest the most is to learn more than you (don't) know. When I was young, my best friend and I decided we'd be wise virgins, so bought loads of sex advice books (in those days they were legal if aimed at "married" couples). This was in the dark ages - way before the internet. Nowadays I send people off to visit my fave site for PIV positions, namely http://www.sexinfo101.com Take a look at it and see how many terrific positions there are that you might like to try with your new partner. Look at them together and see which ones she's tried and, better yet, which ones she'd like to try with you. There are also plenty of imaginative positions for oral sex. One of the best things about this site is that it should also make it easier for the two of you to laugh at what you see. And that's also important. Sex should be fun.

The other thing is not to feel you have to hurry to get to PIV as soon as possible (as if the world's going to end next week). It can feel really good to drag things out until you both feel as if you're climbing the walls with good sexual frustration and longing while you're getting to know one another using your hands and mouths (which should also involve hours of kissing).

The last thing that nobody's mentioned is to practise being flexible (yoga, stretching). And do some cardio. And strength training. You'll be surprised to see how being able to move easily can enhance some of the more unusual positions.

Good luck and a very happy and enjoyable first time (and more)!

The last thing that nobody's mentioned is to practise being flexible (yoga, stretching). And do some cardio. And strength training. You'll be surprised to see how being able to move easily can enhance some of the more unusual positions.

And be a vegan, just like the bearfucker's partner.

One more thing I HAVE to know: Did the dead bear have a thumb in his butt?

@NEWB everyone's first time involves fumbling and awkwardness. ;-)

Girls (straight) are into: dick. Girls are not into insecurity. Good news for you is you have the first and you can drop the second.

Unless you've gone for it already hold off from fucking her for now and take your time doing the shit you're confident about that you know turns her on. Find her spots that drive her crazy to be kissed and touched. Wait just a little longer than you both can handle it and tell her you can't wait to explore her body. Then when you're ready tell her confidently that it's your first time and you're cool with the fact that it's going to be awkward, and you want her to help you find what feels good. Tell her figuring out her body will make every bit of awkwardness worth it. And don't freak out when there's a lot of fumbling. There just is.

Good luck ;-)

@37 scorpio of id: Thanks! Sorry I missed seeing your post.
Unless it's a topic I truly can't relate to, personally (meaning that I have no advice or comments to offer), you'll see a post of mine (and others) in Savage Love online. I love Dan's column, and his advice is usually pretty straightforward and spot on.

Seriously, when's the sequel to BGA's letter? LOL!!!
I can see it now: out for bloody revenge after getting shot by the gung-ho hunter, BGA, and after an unexplained "disappearance" (the disgusted younger boyfriend, after catching BGA humping the dead bear, tossed the fake fur rug into the trash), the strap-on bear rises (ha ha!) from the dead at a toxic waste dumpsite, this time wearing a hockey mask much like Michael Myers in the slice-n-dice "Halloween" flicks, and with glowing red glass eyes and a malevolent grin, stalks BGA's vegan boy around inside an abandoned cabin in the woods!! Stay tuned for BGA2: Shagged!
Game, set, and match, Dan! This is a new "HTH" classic!