What I Wish I Knew at 13: Puberty, Hormones, and Becoming a Man

Everything we’re about to go through I’ve tried to share with my son, who is 13 as I write this. I didn’t feel like anyone tried to help me through this time, so I am trying to be open and honest with him. As I put time and effort into the subjects I would discuss with him, I believe more young men may not have anyone talking to them about their bodies, sex, and how weird this time may feel.

I am going to keep this as age-appropriate as I can so it is easy to share with anyone in your life. I am writing mainly for young men, but I think young women should also know what guys are going through, and the same the other way around. I am a heterosexual male, so I am writing from that perspective. My hope is that this helps whoever reads it, even if it does not fit everyone perfectly.

Use the comments below to deepen the conversation. There’s no way I can wrap up all my thoughts in one article, and personal stories help others see themselves in others’ struggles. This shouldn’t glamorize someone’s struggle, but it should allow us to know what the true meaning of normal looks like.

Puberty is normal, and it’s also a weird time

Puberty is a process. It is a time when your body changes. It starts on the inside with little to no visible changes. As you get older and move through puberty, you start to see more on the outside. Your voice gets deeper, you grow more body hair, your shoulders get wider, and you have random erections. This is weird and can feel extremely awkward. You are not broken, and you are not secretly attracted to every single female, even if it feels that way sometimes.

Tip: Use the waistband of your pants or shorts to hold a random erection in place. You might get caught adjusting it, but that is still better than everyone seeing it pressed against the front of your clothes.

Another fun one is voice cracking. Testosterone is being released from your testicles and that makes your vocal cords and larynx grow. Your vocal cords get longer and thicker, so they vibrate more slowly and your voice gets deeper. The crack in your voice happens because the muscles that control your voice are still getting used to the bigger vocal cords. They do not always have smooth control yet. So yes, you might sound weird while you are trying to talk and hide a random erection at the same time.

As an adult male, your body is built to lift, carry, throw, climb, and fight. Your shoulders widen so you can have more strength and capacity in these areas. You are also built to protect and to defend others in your family and community. Wider shoulders can make you look more intimidating and they also give more space for muscle. Most males grow to be bigger and stronger than most females. This is something to be aware of, because looking intimidating and being intimidating are two different things. Your size is not there so you can tower over and dominate people who are smaller than you. It is there so you can defend and protect the people who want or need that.

We will talk more about body hair in the manscaping section. It’s as weird as you think.

Hormones are not an excuse; they’re an explanation

The process we talked about above, puberty, is controlled by a bunch of hormones. Some of them have names that are hard to type and even harder to say out loud. The one you will hear about the most is testosterone. We will keep these hormones high-level so we can focus more on what you feel and less on memorizing terms.

Your body starts to wake up your testes and tell them it is time to get bigger, make testosterone, and get ready to mass-produce sperm. This happens around the same time as your other body changes, like a deeper voice, more muscle, and body hair. You are becoming an adult, and with this new body you are being prepared for sex and making babies. That is what sperm are for. They are how a man can fertilize an egg inside a woman. We will put the details to the side for now.

Something else is going to happen that almost nobody talks about. The girls and women in your life will start to look different to you. Some will not just look different, they will make you feel different. That is your hormones at work too. They turn on attraction so that, at a basic biological level, you would think about reproducing with someone. At the most basic level, that is what humans are wired for. From a life and values point of view, though, your life is about a lot more than that.

As men, we cannot walk around giving googly eyes to every girl we feel attracted to. You might catch yourself sneaking an extra glance because you think someone is really attractive. That is normal. At the same time, some people will find staring creepy. Wider hips and larger breasts on a woman are classic signs of health and fertility, which is why your brain flags those features as important. Your body is quietly whispering, “maybe she is the one.” The one for what? In this case, sex and reproduction. That is what your biology is pointing at, even if that is not what you are actually going to do.

Your eyes are not failing you. They are just following what your hormones are telling you to notice. Your job is to get comfortable in your own skin so you can feel all of this and still stay in control. You do not have to act on every impulse your body sends you. Women are not objects for you to collect or stare at. They are whole people, funny, smart, strong, loving humans, who deserve your respect and attention, not your silent obsession from across the room.

Learn to manscape sooner rather than later

Deodorant. Use it. You did not need it as a pre‑pubescent young dude because you did not create the same smells you do now. Once puberty kicks in, your body starts making thicker, oilier sweat. That gives the bacteria on your skin more to chew on, which means they can create smells that nobody in your life actually wants to smell.

You also do not need to ignore your facial hair just because a thin little attempt at a mustache is showing up. It will take a while before a mustache or beard looks “grown man” instead of “forgot to wash his face.” Until that happens, do not run around like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. You might think it looks cool, and maybe a few other weird teenagers do too, but it mostly looks like you tried to not try. Put in some effort and either trim the facial hair or grab a razor.

As you get older, and girls become a less awkward part of your life, you can start paying attention to the rest of your body hair too. You do not need to do anything fancy when you are 13. The main job right now is to keep things clean and not smell like a locker room that lost a fight with a wet dog.

Later on, as an actual adult, learning how to manscape your pubic region is worth it. One, it shows you take care of your body, which usually means you care about your health. Two, you will not find out the hard way that nobody is excited to meet a full‑size woolly mammoth in your underwear.

When I was going through puberty, I did not give two thoughts to how I smelled or what I looked like naked. The truth is, these are things guys should think about. You live in your body every day. Learning how to clean it, trim it, and take care of it is part of becoming a man, not just part of getting ready for sex.

Porn is not what sex in real life is like

Pornography ruined me. It gave me a false idea of what sex is and it changed how I saw women. I do not want the same thing to happen to you.

Porn is made for entertainment and for making money. That might not sound terrible on its own, but a lot of it is just easy-access videos of women being treated like sex toys. Porn is also very performative. It is filmed and edited to look like the people in the video are there just for you. They know sex sells, and they do everything they can to keep you watching and keep you coming back.

The “formula” in most porn videos is not how sex works in real life. If you try to treat real women the way male performers act in porn, it will not go well. One, the woman you are with might feel scared or pressured and not know how to tell you to stop or slow down. You can push her past a boundary without even knowing it. Two, a lot of the positions and acts in porn are picked for the camera, not for real pleasure or connection. Running around the room trying to copy what you saw online might feel exciting, but it is also a good way to ruin what could have been a real, intimate moment.

This is why talking with your partner matters so much. You need to know what they like and what they do not like, just like they need to know that about you. You both need to know what you want from those moments so you can actually take care of each other. When sex is emotional and intimate, it becomes more than just a physical act. It becomes a way to deepen a relationship in a way you probably cannot fully understand yet.

Porn also does a bad job of showing safe sex. As we talked about earlier, puberty is when your body is getting ready to make babies. Using a condom might feel annoying at the moment, but having a baby before you are ready will change your entire life. Condoms help protect against unplanned pregnancies and they help lower the chance of getting or passing on sexually transmitted diseases. Nobody likes to talk about STDs, but they exist, so we have to be honest about them.

I never thought I would be the person who says “wait until marriage,” but I feel that way more and more. Sex brings a lot of emotional weight and responsibility that most young teenagers today do not want to carry, and probably should not have to. The reason I say “wait until marriage” is because then you can give yourself to someone fully, both physically and emotionally. The rewards there are much better than a few quick hook-ups or one-night stands.

The men in your life are on your side

Lately it can feel like being a guy is a problem. You hear that men are too aggressive, too emotional, too strong, not strong enough, or just “too much.” If you are a young man, that noise can make you question who you are and why you feel what you feel. It can start to make you feel broken, like you are wrong just for being you.

Here is what you need to know. The good men in your life are on your side. Dads, uncles, coaches, grandpas, older brothers, friends’ dads. Most of them want you to have a safe place to talk about the stuff guys actually go through. There will always be people and ideas trying to pull you in different directions. Your job is to get comfortable enough in your own skin to know when to bend and when to stand your ground.

If you were to boil this down, it might look like this:

• Be true to who you are, and support the people in your life.

• A lot of men are bigger and stronger than a lot of women. That does not mean you overpower them. It means you protect and respect them.

• Sex feels good, but it should not be the only thing a relationship is about.

• Your friends will sometimes want to do dumb stuff. It is okay to say no.

Learn who you are and what you stand for before you try to push your ideas onto everyone else.

Your body is changing, and even though it feels weird and different, it is changing for the better. You are becoming a man. With that comes responsibility for what you say and do. As a man, you will have a lot to offer the people around you. But if you act like a little boy in a grown man’s body, you will keep hearing “grow up,” and it will sting every time.

You do not just need to “grow up.” You need to let go of the version of you that was only thinking about himself. The boy you were is not the man you are becoming. Your job now is to figure out who that man is, and then show up in the world as him, on purpose.

Share your story in the comments. What sucked most about puberty? Dads: what’d you wish you’d known?