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CHICAGO (Reuters) - One in five U.S. teenagers say they have engaged in oral sex, an activity that some adolescents view as not sex at all and certainly less risky than intercourse, a report released Monday said.
The survey of 580 children with a mean age of 14-1/2 found 20 percent said they had engaged in oral sex, compared to 14 percent who said they had engaged in sexual intercourse.
In addition, one-third of the multi-ethnic 9th graders surveyed said they intended to have oral sex within the next six months and nearly one-fourth planned to have intercourse during the period. It was more common for boys to have performed oral sex on girls than vice versa, the report said.
Previous studies and numerous campaigns aimed at deterring teenaged sex have focused on intercourse, but as many as half of adolescents experience oral sex first, the report said.
The risk of transmitting infections, including HIV, is significantly less with oral sex than with intercourse but is likely underestimated by teenagers, said the report in the journal Pediatrics.
Youngsters who engage in oral sex rarely used condoms or dental dams, even though herpes, hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis as well as the virus that causes AIDS can all be transmitted orally, it added.
"Given the suggestion that adolescents do not view oral sex as sex and see oral sex as a way of preserving their virginity while still gaining intimacy and sexual pleasure, they are likely to interpret sexual health messages as referring to vaginal sex," wrote lead author Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a pediatrician at the University of California, San Francisco.
"Adolescents also believed that oral sex is more acceptable than vaginal sex for adolescents their own age in both dating and non-dating situations, oral sex is less of a threat to their values and beliefs, and more of their peers will have oral sex than vaginal sex in the near future," she wrote.
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Common perception these days is that Bill Clinton popularized oral sex amongst American teens, promoting the belief that it's not really sex.
I recently printed an article that showed teens who took a vow of abstinence were actually more likely to engage in oral and anal sex.
Could it be that the religious right and Bill Clinton inadvertantly aligned to promote oral and anal sex among America's teenagers?
Please discuss.
<font color="#FFFFAA" size="1">[ April 05, 2005 09:05 AM: Message edited by: craig. ]</font>
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Don't forget cigar sex. With the increase in the number of places where you can't smoke, Billy gave us something else to do.
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Of course this was NEVER the prevailing attitude when I was in High School.
Now I'd be looking at 5-10 out in 3 with good behavior!
Oh...and this also goes to show you that most kids nowadays are just this shy of morons!
<font color="#FFFFAA" size="1">[ April 05, 2005 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Jumper69 ]</font>
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Still having a little trouble figuring out which person decided it was safer to put things in your mouth instead of downstairs.
Wasn't it Ice Cube who said it best...
"putting dicks in your mouth is bad for your health"
Without pointing the fin ger at one group of people, I would suggest that it is more dangerous. If you consider the rate of aids amongst homosexual males who either enter through the mouth or ass you might tend to think the same way.
By the way, I will always keep the same stance about homo's. To each his own, but I cannot figure out why any many would want anything crammed in an orifice of his body.
