Uncomfortable in my surroundings

[Hare]

I'm thirteen and found this site from a growing curiosity in sex and my body. But my family is not very open and my mom is pretty strict about having our bedroom doors open. How do I discover and experiment with myself if I don't have any privacy?

[Mo]

Hi Hare, and welcome to Scarleteen.

It can definitely be tough sometimes to find privacy if you don't have a family culture that prioritizes it. Do you share a bedroom with anyone else, or is that a place you'd be able to have privacy in if you were able to have your door closed? Some people find that it's easiest to do sexual exploration at night, maybe even when other family members are either asleep or have all gone to their own rooms, although that often means keeping quiet and not having any lights on.
If you have a bathroom space that you can use for any length of time with a reasonable amount of privacy, that might work too; if you said you were going to take a long bath, for example, would you be able to count on being uninterrupted during that time?

Is your mom flexible about having your door open at all? Are there times when she doesn't mind you having it closed? I'm wondering if this is something you could work with her to gradually change over time; if there are times, like if you need to focus while studying, that she's ok with having the door closed, maybe having that issue come up more often might help nudge things along a bit.