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Key messages
- To answer student questions, provide small amounts of information at age and stage appropriate levels.
- Scripted answers provide different levels of detail on specific topics.
- Providing parents with resources to have conversations at home can help address curly questions.
- Referring students to reliable websites is a strategy for questions that can not be answered in class.
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Early years
Middle primary
Upper primary
High school
- Can tampons break a hymen?
It is a myth that the hymen is a membrane covering the entrance to the vagina that will be ‘broken’ by a tampon or first sex.
The hymen is made up of thin elastic folds of tissue just inside the entrance to the vagina. Hymens come in different shapes and sizes and cover varying amounts of the vaginal opening. A common shape is like a ring or crescent shape around the edges of the vagina, so these days it is often called the vaginal ‘corona’, meaning ‘crown’.
The hymen stretches and the opening usually gets larger as a young person matures.
The opening may be big enough for a tampon to go in easily. If the tampon (or anything else that is put in the vagina) is bigger than the opening, the hymen will stretch. Sometimes when it stretches there may be some small tears. Going slowly and using lubricant may help.
- Is my penis size normal?
During puberty most penises get longer and thicker. Usually by the age of 17 or 18, the penis will reach its full adult size. There is a wide range of normal penis sizes and shapes. The size of a penis when it is soft does not necessarily relate to the size it will be when it is hard (erect). There is a lot less difference in penis size from person to person when the penis is hard (erect) than when their penis is soft.
Additional information:
People may compare their bodies to those seen in pornography. It is important to know that porn has been made, and just like all movies, it often shows things that we don't see in real life.
Additional information:
Research that gives average penis length and circumference (girth) varies greatly and the internet and magazines are not always accurate sources of information.
A 2015 study of 15,521 men reports the following measurements:
soft (flaccid): length 7.59cm - 10.73 (average 9.16cm); circumference 8.41cm - 10.21 (average 9.31cm)
hard (erect): length 11.46cm - 14.78cm (average 13.12cm); circumference 10.06cm - 12.76cm (average 11.66cm)
(Reference: Veale, Miles, Bramley, Muir and Hodsoll. Am I normal? A systematic review and construction of nomograms for flaccid and erect penis length and circumference in up to 15,521. BJU Int. 2015 Jun;115(6):978-86. doi: 10.1111/bju.13010. Epub 2015 Mar 2.)
