Oral Sex Among Adolescents

25 Pages 6314 Words

sor such controversial research into the full range of noncoital behaviors among adolescents.* For example, the highly charged political debate in 1992 over federal financing of comprehensive sexuality studies had a chilling effect on adolescent sexuality research.1 The Senate's decision, prompted by pressure from a small group of conservative senators, to deny funding for the American Teenage Study of adolescent sexual behavior still reverberates in the scope of research on teenagers. (An amendment sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms [R.-NC] prohibited the funding of that survey, along with one of adults, "in fiscal year 1992 or any subsequent fiscal year."2 Despite warnings that ideology was dictating science, the conservative leadership succeeded in casting these endeavors as "reprehensible sex surveys" only undertaken "to legitimize homosexuality and other sexually promiscuous lifestyles."3)
It has become increasingly clear, however, that the narrow focus on sexual intercourse in research that does get funded is missing a major component of early sexual activity. There is growing evidence, although still anecdotal and amassed largely by journalists, not researchers, that adolescents might be turning to behaviors that avoid pregnancy risk but leave them vulnerable to acquisition of many STDs, including HIV.
The reports in the popular press that oral sex has become widespread among adolescents cannot be confirmed or refuted because the data to do so have never been collected. Moreover, adults do not really know what behaviors teenagers consider to be "sex" and, by the same token, what they consider to be its opposite, abstinence. All of this leaves health professionals and policymakers without the means to effectively address these issues.
The tendency to equate "sex" with intercourse alone represents long-standing cultural norms of acceptable sexual behavior and certainly applies to adults as well as to adolescents. It also reflects ...