Adolescent

Sketch of an adolescent girl being caned. Artwork by Simon Kirby.

An adolescent is a person who is in puberty or has gone though puberty but is still considered a minor. Adolescence is a transition period from childhood to adulthood, with changing expectations and capabilities that are not always in-line with each other. Expectations include both self expectations, and the expectations of others.

The term adolescent overlaps to a great degree with teenager. Strictly speaking, a teenager is between 13 and 19 years old (the numbers that end in -teen in the English language).

The ages of adolescence vary by culture. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines adolescence as the period of life between 10 and 19 years of age. In contrast, in the United States, adolescence is generally considered to begin around age 12 or 13, and end at 19 or 20. In other cultures, adolescence is thought to end at the age of majority, often 18.

Adolescents and spanking

Spanking is generally considered a child's punishment, so for an adolescent who is striving to be accepted as an adult this can be humiliating. However, some parents consider that it is a particularly appropriate punishment for childish behavior. Also in some countries adolescents were, or are still, subject to spankings (e.g. birchings, canings or paddlings) at school and in other educational and/or penal institutions, including work houses, reformatories and boot camps.

Adolescents and judicial corporal punishment

In some countries that executed or still execute judicial corporal punishment, adolescents could or can be subject to judicial corporal punishment. Usually their maximum sentence was or is is limited by law to a milder punishment compared to maximum sentences for adults.

Sometimes, by law only male adolescents were or are subject to such punishment, but not female adolescents.

Adolescents and ageplay

Many adults who like to engage in ageplay assume the role of an adolescent. This role with its still-subordinate status and the exploration of sexuality and the testing of limits often associated with adolescence is very attractive to some ageplayers.

There are also adolescents who are ageplayers themselves, for example teen babies.

See also

• Ephebophilia
• Adolescence on Wikipedia

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Adolescence. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Spanking Art, the text of Wikipedia is available under a copyleft license, the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike license.