Last updated on August 12, 2020
Question:
Why do boys get spontaneous erections?
Answer
Once your body develops enough to have erections, you will initially experience a large number of them, often several per day and often when you would rather not have one. To young men it appears that the penis has a mind of its own, getting hard when it wants to for no apparent reason.
The reason is that your body has developed a new capability. It is like a new switch suddenly appearing in your room, so you flip it a few times to see what it does. In a similar way, there are new connections to your brain that causes erections and your brain is flipping the switch to see what happens. Initially, nothing in particular is needed to cause an erection. As your brain learns the new wiring, the triggers become more refined. A touch might trigger it or getting nervous or excited. Any general sexual thought might bring on an erection, such as taking a shower in the locker room where others might see you or seeing someone without clothing. Even though you are not sexually attracted to men, your brain is still learning and anything even remotely sexual in the least way will trigger a response.
As you grow older, your brain becomes more refine. Instead of any touch or any potentially sexual sight or thought, it will focus only on the touch of a girl. The brain continues to focus throughout your teenage and early adult years. Eventually your sexual responses will focus on your wife. As you reach your mid-twenties, the number of spontaneous erections will decrease dramatically.
All men experience erections while they sleep. You will usually have four or five each night, though you won’t notice most of them because you are asleep.