How about surges and urges

These teenagers don't want us to stop with attention to facts. Their quest goes further. It has to do with feelings as well. Especially the swift surge of body feelings that flood through them. This is concern number one.

"Do girls have the same sexy feelings that boys have?" . . .

"Do your own thrills run into a girl when you hold her hand?"

. . . "Is it normal to feel those ruffles down your back?" . . .

"What on earth do they do at nudist camps where they can't hide anything? Or is it more legal for nudists to feel the way they do than it is for us?"

"Why are thoughts more forceful than a cold shower? You take the shower to take away the thoughts but it does no good. Am I a sex maniac, do you suppose?"

"When I look at those big boys in the senior class with their broad shoulders and all, they look so beautiful I melt. I get all goose-pimply and I wonder if I'm one of those terrible nymphs or whatever they call it."

The more they talk, the more apparent it becomes that these boys and girls have a great deal of anxiety tied up with their body feelings. They may act wise and knowing. But underneath they are uncertain and tense.

Ted is fifteen, on the short side, a shy boy, having difficulty in concentrating on school subjects. His teachers report that he is often off in the clouds and that he has an anxious, tense look.

Yes, he is worried, he confides to the psychologist. He is worried about his size. He'd grown some, but would he ever grow big enough? Lots of the fellows were bigger. Especially in certain parts.

Then, reddening up to the roots of his hair, he voiced a question that had long been troubling him. "Can you get yourself stunted by things you've done that are 'bad'?"

Long ago he'd had sex play with some neighborhood children, furtively and with fear of discovery, until one day he was found and beaten. And now when he looked at a pretty girl, the same sort of body feelings surged through him. They reminded him of his earlier "badness" and they brought in anew the old fears.

It so happened that Ted's parents had answered his questions quite factually. But they had never answered his worries.

In consequence, they had left out of his sex education what he was most desperately seeking--surcease from pain.