Ask Sam

Hello,

Thank you for your letter. It’s completely normal to have questions about puberty and it can be a confusing time but you’re very welcome to ask me whatever you want.

I can hear that you’re feeling confused about when erections normally happen. Erections are your body’s way of getting ready to have sex, so they often happen when you’re thinking about sex or something related. But they can also happen at odd times. Most boys have an erection when they wake up in the morning and sometimes when they’re not expecting it during the day. Sometimes they happen with no warning at all, even when you’re not thinking about sex

While you’re going through puberty, your body is still working out when it needs to have an erection, so you might find that they are happening a lot more than you’d like! Once puberty has finished, you should find erections are usually a bit less random.

It may be that some of your friends are having similar experiences too but you haven’t spoken about it with them just yet. I wonder if there is a friend you’d feel able to talk about this with, or a brother or male relative?

If you’d like to talk to a Childline counsellor about this further you can ring our free phone number (0800 1111) or log in for a 1-2-1 chat. You could also check out the information about puberty for boys in Explore.

Take care,

Sam