[afro-nets] Oral sex safe and not really sex - study

[A. Odutola <chpss_abo2@yahoo.com>]

Oral sex safe and not really sex, say U.S. teens
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Source: Yahoo Health. Copied as "fair use"


CHICAGO (Reuters) - One in five U.S. teenagers say they have en-
gaged 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 per-
cent 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 pe-
riod. 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 teen-
aged 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 signifi-
cantly less with oral sex than with intercourse but is likely
underestimated by teenagers, said the report in the journal Pe-
diatrics.

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 trans-
mitted 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 vagi-
nal sex," wrote lead author Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a pediatri-
cian 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.

Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1413&e=10&u=/nm/20050404/hl_nm/health_sex_dc&sid=95832301


A. Odutola
mailto:chpss_abo2@yahoo.com