IF you hit Tanner 5 does puberty end?

[CanadianCheese]

So I am confused, I am 15 and it feels that I am going to hit Tanner 5, I have hair on my thighs, my genitals are dark, and I have a snail trail, but I am just wondering if you hit Tanner 5 does development end or does it happen?

[Cats123]

I can assure you it doesn’t end suddenly at 5. Basically you keep maturing and getting hair in more and more places until you’re 20 or so. Then as you get really old you start growing hair in even more places- and you start loosing it where you want it. Your further development will likely slow down- but it’s definetly not completely done I’d say. Some people mature early or go through puberty rather quickly- but I would say no one is entirely done until age 17 at the earliest.

[Hermes]

By co-incidence we were discussing something similar in this thread in Puberty for All (http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3628371#post3628371)

I can see why you might think it would be the end of development because when I first came across the terms puberty and adolescence I came way with the idea that puberty was the physical stuff and adolescence was the mental adjustment. But the Wikipedia article on Puberty says:

Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction.

and the other part of the tanner scale other than the spread of hair is testicular volume which would be a good proxy for sperm production so it looks like that makes tanner stage 5 adult fertility and not the end of development.

So even after that you may continue growing in height, get an increase in muscle mass and more hair especially beard/chest.

[scott2002]

Basically you keep maturing and getting hair in more and more places until you’re 20 or so. Then as you get really old you start growing hair in even more places- and you start loosing it where you want it.
Having seen my dad naked, I have hair just on my head and right around my dick. My dad is hairy all over, as are my uncles, I probably will be like that eventually, too. But I think my dick is already as big as my dad's is (soft of course. I've never seen my dad erect thankfully!! :whoops:)