Contemporary Sexuality - September 2008 - (Page 5)

oral sex allows teens, especially girls, to engage in sexual relations while reducing or avoiding the risk of pregnancy or STIs. We found little evidence of serial oral sex among adolescents who had not had vaginal sex. Instead, most adolescent virgins who had ever had oral sex had only one sexual partner in their lifetime.” Other non-coital findings Oral sex wasn’t the only behavior analyzed in the report. Researchers also uncovered data on anal sex among teens. According to the study, 1 in 5 teens who had vaginal sex also had engaged in anal sex. This finding prompted Jones to encourage sexuality educators to talk frankly with teenagers about this difficult-to-discuss topic. But what about teens who had never had vaginal sex? Some health professionals worried that in the age of abstinence-only sex education classes, some teens may be substituting anal sex for vaginal sex because it wasn’t technically “sex.” That doesn’t seem to be happening. The Guttmacher study found that only 1 in 100 teen “virgins” had engaged in anal sex. Still, the more important statistic for sexuality educators may be these numbers: 10 percent of all teens have experimented with anal sex and 21 percent of sexually active teens have engaged in anal sex. “I don’t think kids are getting a lot of education about anal sex,” Jones said. “When providing sex education, it’s important to provide information about the full range of sexual behaviors and how [teens] can protect [themselves].” Researchers also identified these ethnic and gender differences regarding anal and oral sex: • Hispanic male teens are more likely to engage in anal sex than their white male counterparts (16 percent to 10 percent) • White teens practice oral sex more frequently than Hispanic teens (57 percent to 50 percent) • White teen girls are “more likely than white males to indicate that they had given oral sex and also significantly more likely than their Hispanic and [African-American] counterparts to have done so.” Despite the plethora of new data, the findings also piqued several new questions for Lindberg, Jones and Santelli. “A better understanding of non-coital activities among teens is needed,” they wrote. “It would be useful to know how these activities fit into larger patterns and correlates of sexual activity for teens.” In addition, “Should certain populations of adolescents be targeted for messages about the relevant STI risks posed by these behaviors and ways to engage in these behaviors more safely? The STI risk posed by non-coital sex is also dependent on the number of oral (and vaginal) sexual partners a teen has. Thus it would be useful to know if sexual partnership patterns vary by involvement in these behaviors.” Hopefully, we won’t have to wait for another surge of “moral panic” before researchers find the answers. — Todd Melby “We found little evidence of serial oral sex among adolescents who had not had vaginal sex. Instead, most adolescent virgins who had ever had oral sex had only one sexual partner in their lifetime.” — Laura Duberstein Lindberg, Rachel Jones and John Santelli, “Non-coital sexual activities Asking about sex Asking people about sexual activities isn’t easy. Questions must be precise and easy-to-understand. They must be colloquial and clinical, which is tough to pull off. Here’s how researchers from the Centers for Disease Conrol and Prevention asked teens about oral and anal sex in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. (No questions were asked about gay/lesbian experiences.) Questions for females • Has a male ever put his mouth on your vagina (also known as cunnilingus or oral sex)? • Have you ever put your mouth on a male’s penis (also known as fellatio or oral sex)? • Has a male ever put his penis in your rectum or butt (also known as anal sex)? Questions for males • Has a female ever put her mouth on your penis (also known as oral sex or fellatio)? • Have you ever put your mouth on a female’s vagina (also known as oral sex or cunnilingus)? • Have you ever put your penis in a female’s rectum or butt (also known as anal sex)? among adolescents.” September 2008 Vol. 42, No. 9 | www.aasect.org Contemporary Sexuality 5 http://www.aasect.org

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Contemporary Sexuality - September 2008 Contents The Myth of Teen Promiscuity Member Spotlight Book Reviews News of Members Quick Hits: Sex in the News Reflections on AASECT's Annual Meeting

Contemporary Sexuality - September 2008

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