The Book of Radical Answers

Introduction

When I was young, I had ten billion questions. I wanted to know everything about everything. 

I had questions about my body: “Will I have big boobs because Grandma AND Aunt Julia have them?” I had questions about rules we seemed to have for boys and girls: “Why do we say boys can’t cry?” I even had questions about how we were treating the planet: “Why don’t we recycle?” The most frustrating thing about having all these questions was that no one ever seemed really excited to answer them. The truth is, sometimes people acted downright annoyed by all my questions. 

Luckily, I didn’t let adults’ irritation with my list of curiosities stop my questions from coming. When they didn’t have an answer for me, I went looking for my own. I read books, watched the people around me, and, most importantly, I started taking guesses at answers. I used the information I saw in the world and my intuition (that hard-to-describe feeling inside all of us that helps us know what to do), and I came up with ideas. I always double-checked my answers by looking for more information in books, and from adults I trusted. But what I started to realize back then was that I was a smart human who already knew so much about life. 

Guess what? So are you, and I hope that after reading this book, you will feel more certain about that.

Today, I have lots of jobs. One of them is writing books like this one, but the most important job I have is the work of spreading the idea of radical self-love. Radical self-love is the love we had for ourselves when we landed on this big spinning rock we call earth. And that love is still with us. It is the energy that reminds us that we are already good enough, smart enough, awesome enough just as we are. Radical self-love is here to call our attention to the fact that we have massive knowledge already inside of us to tackle the big issues that may arise as we grow up.

After spending years doubting myself and being uncertain if I was good enough, I began asking the most important question of my life: “How can I learn radical self-love?” 

I have spent years exploring the answer to that question and the answer I came up with is . . . you don’t have to learn radical self-love! It is already inside of you. You were born with it! However, there are many messages we receive each day from the Internet, television, music, even school and businesses that tell us that we are not good enough, and we should buy something or look like someone else to be loveable and worthy. It takes daily practice to learn how to recognize those messages and tune them out. When we do, we can hear our own radical self-love guidance much more clearly. 

I can imagine right now someone is saying, “Hey Sonya, what are some tools we can use to better hear our own radical self-love?” Well, I am glad you asked! In the back of this book are 10 Tools for Radical Self-Love. These tools will help you avoid believing negative messages about yourself and teach you how to stay connected to your own loving inner guidance. So, if you are reading something in this book that tells you to listen to your radical self-love and you find yourself saying, “Great, but how do I do that?” turn to the back of the book and pick one or two tools to practice. I promise they will help you stay on track. 

The Book of Radical Answers was written to help you grapple with real-world issues—and the questions in this book were submitted by kids just like you! They were between the ages of ten and fourteen and mostly from the United States, with a few from other countries as well. Most importantly, these questions came from young people who were brave enough to ask about tough and complex subjects—topics some adults won’t even talk about. That bravery is how I know young people have what it takes to grow into brilliant, capable, and thoughtful adults. 
Some of you submitted questions that were outside of my experience, and I didn’t know enough to try to give an answer. While I think I’m pretty darn smart, I do not know everything.

Shocking! Thank goodness I have super smart friends from all walks of life. I recruited some of those smart friends to answer questions they had lots of experience in. Those answers are titled Ask an Expert. 

There are a couple of promises I want to make you about this book. First, I promise to give you honest answers that remind you of how powerful and full of possibility you are. Second, I promise to share all the ways growing up can be fun, complicated, silly, strange, sometimes difficult, and still wonderful. I won’t avoid the hard parts, but I promise to always remind you of the joyful parts. You are phenomenal and can get through this messy but magical life as long as you can access what’s inside of you already . . . knowledge and radical self-love.

BODIES

What can I say other than if you are reading this book, it’s probably a solid guess that you’re doing it in a body. That body includes your legs, arms, earlobes, belly, and brain. No, brains are not separate from our bodies, and when I am talking about bodies I am talking about our minds too.

Bodies are one of my favorite subjects and one of the things I most love to talk about! I love it so much, I’ve written a bazillion books (okay, just four) about our bodies and how learning to love our bodies is a powerful way to create a world of justice and kindness. 

Bodies are the BEST! Bodies can also be complex and challenging. They can be funny, smelly, hairy, big, small, and confusing on occasion, but they are without question an incredible gift that allows us humans to participate in this wonky ride of life. Whether you have questions about how your body works, how other people’s bodies work, or how to demand boundaries and respect for our bodies, here are some radical answers for you.

Content note: We will be honestly discussing sexual abuse in this chapter. We want to let you know in advance so you can prepare yourself and take some time out to protect your mental health if needed.

Puberty, Periods, and Penises

Question: What is puberty?

Puberty seemed to get tons of attention from adults when I was a young person. All my teachers, parents, and the other grown-ups in my life spent a lot of time making puberty seem extra dramatic. When I was upset about pretty much anything, my mother and grandmother would whisper-yell from the kitchen, “You know she’s going through puuuuuberrrtyyyyy!” I remember thinking, Maybe it’s puberty, or maybe my mother discussing my bra size aloud with the whole family is just legitimately embarrassing!

Eventually, I was able to see that puberty didn’t have to be a major drama. I came to understand that puberty is a natural part of having a body. Puberty describes the age at, or period during which, a young person’s body begins to mature and becomes capable of reproducing. The ability to reproduce, i.e., make a baby, is one of the signs that indicates your body has begun to move from childhood into adulthood. This process happens over several years. It involves changes so small you may not even notice, as well as some major shifts in your body, which can include growing taller, voice changes, weight gain, hair growth, breast development, and emotional changes. 

We won’t cover all the details of puberty in this book because there are tons of great books that talk about the specifics (I even wrote one already! It’s called Celebrate Your Body (and Its Changes, Too!)). But what I want you to really get is that puberty is not a high-drama event at all. Instead, puberty is all about you becoming a wiser, usually bigger, more mature version of yourself. And I for one think that is pretty cool.

Question: What is a period and why do we call it that?

Hello, a period is the end of a sentence! We all learned that in English class! 

Okay, okay, I know you don’t mean that kind of period. And I’m glad because I was awful at grammar in school. I believe you’re talking about that other kind of period, the one that involves eggs, blood, and monthly cycles, right? 

Let me start from the beginning. A period is the term many people use to informally describe the bodily experience of menstruation. Over the course of about twenty-eight days, people who have a uterus build up a lining of tissue and blood in their uterus. This lining is meant to nourish a potentially fertilized egg. If that fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall and grows, it will become a human. If the egg goes unfertilized, the body releases the lining of tissue and blood through the vagina over the course of three to seven days. 

This release of what looks like mostly blood happens about once a month and we call it a period. Folks started calling it a period because it happens periodically, or over a period of time each month. The cycle from the day someone first sees blood until they see blood again the next month is a full menstrual cycle. Most people see the period as just the time when blood is visible. However, the menstrual cycle is happening all month long inside the body. 

For a more detailed conversation about how periods and the menstrual cycle work, there are some great books and onlineresources. If you want more on the nitty-gritty details of puberty, periods, and reproduction, visit one of my favorite websites for all things bodies and growing up:www.amaze.org. They are amaze-ing!

Question: When will I get my period, and what is the best age to start learning about it?

Story time! My family’s summertime trips to the amusement park were a guaranteed delight between June and September when I was a kid. I would wake up at the crack of dawn on the days I knew we were going, and it always seemed like those days were the ones where my mother took the absolute longest time in all of life to get ready so we could leave the house. 
She would be infuriatingly slow. Slow like she was trying to torture me. But eventually she would finish getting dressed and we would hop in the car and get to the park. Once I rode that first ride, I would forget all about how outrageously long it took my mother to get dressed and ready to go. 

I say all of that to say, your period can be like a mom who takes a long time to get dressed. Or it can be like a younger sibling barging into your room without knocking. Both can be a bit annoying and out of your control. Bodies are smart and they operate on their own natural clock, ensuring our bodily changes happen on the schedule that is best for us as individuals. Your period’s arrival depends on your brilliant body’s divine timing. In general, a person’s period usually arrives about two and a half years after they begin breast development and about six months after they notice vaginal discharge, fluid or mucus that keeps a vagina clean and moist and protects it from infection. It is normally white or clear and has minimal smell. The average age of menstruation is around twelve years old but can come as early as eight and as late as fifteen years old. 

This is all to say that there is never a bad age to start learning about your body. If you have questions today, then today is a great day to start asking!

Question: What is menopause and how old do you have to be to get it?

No, menopause is not when the teacher tells all the guys in class to stop talking and stand still (men-o-pause, get it?). 

Bad dad-jokes aside, menopause is the time of life when a body that has experienced menstruation (psst . . . that whole thing I just talked about in the question above, a.k.a. a period) stops menstruating. If menstruation marks the period when a body can make a baby, menopause describes the period of time when the body can no longer make a baby. While menopause is not a part of puberty, it is part of the reproductive journey, and that journey begins in puberty. 

It is hard to say exactly how old a person will be when they enter menopause because bodies are complex, and everyone’s body is different. There are some bodies that never menstruate, while there are others that begin and stop suddenly for various medical reasons. In general, most menstruating people will enter menopause between forty-five and fifty-five years old. However, people can go into “early” or “premature” menopause. “Early” menopause happens before forty-five and “premature” menopause occurs before forty years old. Various medical conditions can impact when menopause begins. You may have adults in your life that are going through menopause now. It is just another reminder that our bodies continue to change throughout our lives. 

Question: How big will my penis grow?

I have no idea! That is a conversation between you and your penis, but I can tell you that whatever size it is, that is the right size for you. There are tons of myths floating around about penises and they often make it seem as if there is such a thing as a perfect-sized penis. Some of those myths make it seem like bigger penises are better than smaller penises, which I personally think is silly. That would be like thinking that a bigger elbow is a perfect-sized elbow. Hey, all elbows are good elbows. Movies, television, and pornography can make it seem like having a large penis is what makes someone “manly” or better at sex. Again, all of these are myths, and it is important that we separate the myths from the facts. 

Here are a few facts: The first is that penises change size. An erect penis, or a penis that is hard because of blood flowing to it, will be bigger than a flaccid or soft penis. The blood flow to that area causes the penis to stiffen and grow larger and longer. How large and how long depends on a few factors, but the biggest factor is genes. 

Yup, genes, and not the denim kind. Basically, our bodies already have a map for how tall, wide, hairy, short, light, or dark we will be. These traits are passed down through biology. Our bodies will usually look like our birth (or “biological”) parents or their birth parents, who look like their parents, and so on. Folks with penises will likely have a similar size penis to the other penises in their biological family. 

This is true for you too. On average, erect penises are about six inches in length and soft penises are about three and a half inches in length. And those sizes will vary depending on your unique body. No matter what, I promise your penis will be the perfect size for you!