Oral sex among adolescents: is it sex or is it abstinence?

Family Planning Perspectives p a red with private households, become even more inflamed when the questions go into behaviors “beyond” intercourse. Another reason is the federal government’s reluctance to sponsor such cont roversial re s e a rch into the full range of noncoital behaviors among adolescents.* For example, the highly charged political debate in 1992 over federal financing of c o m p rehensive sexuality studies had a chilling effect on adolescent sexuality res e a rc h .1 The Senate’s decision, pro m p t e d by pre s s u re 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 re s e a rch 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 fis c a l y e a r. ”2 Despite warnings that ideology was dictating science, the conservative leadership succeeded in casting these endeavors as “re p rehensible sex surveys” only undertaken “to legitimize homosexuality and other sexually pro m i s c u o u s lifestyles.”3) It has become increasingly clear, howe v e r, that the narrow focus on sexual int e rcourse in re s e a rch that does get funded is missing a major component of early sexual activity. There is growing evidence, although still anecdotal and amassed l a rgely by journalists, not re s e a rchers, 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. More o v e r, adults do not really know what behaviors teenagers consider to be “sex” and, by the same token, what they consider to be its opposite, abLisa Remez is associate editor of Family Planning Per s p e c t i v e s . The preparation of this special report was made possible by a grant from the Marion Cohen Memorial Foundation. Oral Sex Among Adolescents: Is It Sex or Is It Abstinence?