Lindsey: I wanna know what the difference is between your puberty experience and mine. [silent animated intro, L continues V.O] Because we were right there together.

Ben: Well, I don't really know your puberty experience, so I can't really speak to the differences.

[footage returns, chyron - "Ben - Lindsey's dear friend from middle school; Lindsey - Clinical Sexologist"]

L: You watched me go through it. My body change?

B: Yeah, I remember that.

L: For real?

B: Yeah, I mean, yeah like the difference between the beginning of 7th grade and the beginning of 8th grade in a lot of my classmate's bodies was noticeable.

L: Yeah, our classmates, but maybe not mine.

B: Yours, too. A little curvier.

L: A little curvier. Yeah, okay. A little curvier.

B: Enough to be on the radar, yeah.
 
L: To be like, "Oh, that's a thing."

B: Yeah.

L: "That can make babies."

B: Yeah.

L: Did you screech when you were going through puberty?

B: A little bit. [they chuckle]

L: I don't remember any of this. I do remember getting a hair in one armpit and not the other. It wasn't like you watch a hair grow slowly over time; all of a sudden, there's a giant hair.

B: [makes pinging noise] I had just turned 11 in 7th grade when everybody else was turning 12. Or had already turned 12.

L: So, you started puberty in 8th grade.

B: Yeah, I probably started late in 7th grade and then fully "puberterizing" in 8th grade.

L: So, did you get pubes when we were in middle school?

B: Yeah. And I remember masturbating for the first time - like, the very, very first experience of having an orgasm.

L: It was the first time you masturbated or it was the first time that you had an orgasm through masturbation?

B: I mean, all right I give you that. [L chuckles] So, there was some-, yeah, it was certainly not the first time that I had touched myself and felt like it was feeling good, but it was an extreme surprise to have an orgasm. This was a feeling that I had never experienced.

L: And orgasm or ejaculation or both?

B: Both. I had never experienced either, and they both happened at once.

L: While you're awake.

B: While I was awake. With my had around the very largest version of my penis that I had ever witnessed. [L chuckles] It was unbelievable, it was like, "This is so big," compared to what my previous experiences with my own genitalia.

L: And then what? It came out, and you were like, "Oh?!"

B: It was terrifying, actually, to have the orgasm because it was like I had no idea that the kind of pleasant-, like "I'll just keep having this feeling, like it feels kind of nice and feels good and under control," to then, "Gah! What's going on in my whole body?!" Like, this is happening and then, "Stuff's coming all over me!" and I'm like-, you know, it was a thing that I was actually a little scared of, like something had gone wrong. For a couple days, I'm like, "All right, I'm gonna try it again." [they laugh]

L: No, but that story is not uncommon.

B: Yeah. No, I can imagine that.

L: On our end of things, the "Ohmigosh, something has gone wrong," is usually related to menstruation, and it doesn't come with feelings of elation, that positively reinforce you doing a behavior; you have no control over the fact that you start bleeding. And if people don't know what's happening to their bodies, they think they're dying. Ugh, it's very bad.

You know, they talk about guys being so embarrassed that they're getting boners and their body hair and their voices - maybe it's just been so long ago that I don't remember, but I don't remember.

B: You don't remember feeling -

L: I just remember you guys just having your experiences, and we were having our experiences -

B: I mean, if you don't know to look for it, then you wouldn't notice.

L: Oh, we knew to look for it; I was obsessed with sex. Do you remember how-. Well, first of all, we had the pencil test where all the people with breasts, you had big breasts if you could hold a pencil under your breast.

B: Right.

L: Which I could not compute how that was even possible because my breast tissue just goes out. There's no hanging of my breast. And these could, their boobs fold-, were big enough that they folded over -

B: I remember specifically which ones you're talking about.

L: Yes, we know what we're talking about. [gasps] "Ookie-cookie!"

B: "Ookie-cookie?"

L: Yeah, remember that?

B: I don't remember that.

L: That was a game that all the girls though that you guys played where you put the cookie in the center and then you guys all raced to ejaculate, and the person who came the last had to eat the cookie with all the other guy's semen.

B: That is... absolutely... plausible. [they laugh] But also pretty, yeah, like I think that parents should get involved in their children's sexual education as well as peers maybe. [L laughs] But parents should, I don't want to tell people what to do -

L: Healthy adults.

B: But it's very easy for things to go awry when you're just relying on the uninformed leading the uninformed.

L: Thank you. It was perfect. We did puberty together, we're doing adulthood together, we're doing life, we've got this.

B: Thanks, Dr. Doe.

L: Thanks, Ben. [sync'd footage ends, slo-mo of B and L with L V.O.]

This episode of Sexplanations is sponsored by NordVPN; go to nordvpn.com/sexplanationsvpn. Right now they have a special holiday deal which is a 2-year plan plus four extra months.

[footage re-syncs]

Do you have a VPN?

B: I do.

L: Why should I have a VPN? Want me to tell you?

B: Why?

L: Because I live in Mexico and I can't get all the shows that all of you watch in America which makes me then feel like I'm missing out. And then sometimes they think my stuff is being stolen because I'm in another country.

B: Yeah. A VPN can serve a lot of different purposes. It can protect you against surveillance. A VPN is reasonable protection against a lot of snooping on your activities. It also can give you access to the internet as if you were in other places.

L: So my stuff doesn't all come up in pesos and Spanish.

B: Yeah, because they're using your IP to figure out where you are, and then they're assuming things about you.

L: And plane tickets. Did you know that? That depending on which country you buy a plane ticket from, the exact same route can be more or less expensive?

B: So, a VPN can get you great deals on VPN software.

L: [un-sync'd, V.O.] Go to nordvpn.com/sexplanationsvpn. [re-sync] It's a condom for the internet, you know? Because if you don't use a condom, then you could get pregnant, and then that is very expensive.

B: If you're worried about people stealing your personal information and using it to make things for themselves without your consent, then you might want to use a condom. [they laugh]

L: It's so good.

B: And, a VPN.

[ends]