CDC Survey: Oral Sex Substitutes for Intercourse With Many Teenagers

September 15, 2005 08:40:42 PM PST
About 12 percent of males and 10 percent of females aged 15-to-19 have participated in oral sex with a member of the opposite sex, possibly to delay sexual intercourse, a new federal survey has found.

The findings, released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, disclosed that these teenagers had not had vaginal intercourse.

But by the time they are 22 to 24 -- when most individuals have already had intercourse -- those having only oral sex drops to 3 percent, suggesting to experts that young people are using oral sex to postpone vaginal sex.

"This is the first time we've had data on use of oral sex by teenagers, particularly teen females," said the study's lead author, Bill Mosher, a statistician with the CDC's National center for Health Statistics (NCHS.) "It appears that the levels of oral sex are higher among white teens than among Black and Hispanic teens. That's one possible reason for the somewhat later age of first sex among white teens."

These findings are just a small part of the research that involved more than 12,000 participants interviewed in 2002 across the United States.

The new report, Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002, was published by the NCHS, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC).

The findings were not altogether unexpected, experts say.

"It's nothing that is surprising to me," said Dr. James Allen, president and CEO of the American Social Health Association (ASHA). "It confirms the fact that, despite what our Washington leaders think and want, our youth are sexually active, and adults are sexually active and a lot of it appears not to be within a marital setting."

However, the data was disturbing to some.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group Child Trends did its own analysis of the data and found that almost one in four teens who has not had sexual intercourse has engaged in oral sex.

"That reflects about 10 percent of all teens, and that represents more than 2 million teens in the U.S., which is certainly a public health issue," said Jennifer Manlove, senior research associate at Child Trends. "A substantial proportion of teens abstaining from intercourse are placing themselves at risk for STDs [sexually tansmitted diseases] by engaging in oral sex."

ASHA estimates the direct medical costs of the 9.1 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in 2000 among youths aged 15 to 24 at $6.5 billion.

"Comprehensive sexual health information -- so that people are educated about sexual health issues, about themselves and know about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and how to prevent them -- is a very important function," Allen added.

The new NCHS report was based on data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. That survey, in turn, was based on in-person, face-to-face interviews with 12,571 males and females aged 15 to 44 across the U.S. The interviewers collected demographic information but the interviewees entered answers to questions on sexual behavior into a laptop computer so as to ensure their privacy.

Some more highlights from the study:

• Ninety-seven percent of men and 98 percent of women aged 25 to 44 have had vaginal intercourse.
• Ninety percent of men and 88 percent of women reported having had oral sex with an opposite-sex partner.
• Forty percent of men and 35 percent of women have had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner.
• Men aged 30 to 44 reported an average of six to eight female sexual partners so far while women reported about four. This is similar to studies conducted in the early 1990s.
• About 6.5 percent of men aged 25 to 44 have had oral or anal sex with another man. Three percent of males 15 to 44 years have had oral or anal sex with another male in the last 12 months (1.8 million people).
• Eleven percent of women aged 25 to 44 reported having had a sexual experience with another woman. Four percent of females reporting having a sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months.
• Six percent of males and 11 percent of females had had same-sex contact in their lifetimes. While this percentage remains relatively unchanged for men since the early 1990s, the proportion of women has soared unexpectedly from 4 or 5 percent to 14 percent among women aged 18 to 29. "We may want to consider the possibility that women are trying to reduce their risk of STDs," Mosher said.
• Ninety percent of men aged 18 to 44 thought of themselves as heterosexual, 2.3 percent as homosexual. 1.8 percent bisexual and 3.9 percent "something else" while the rest did not answer the question. The numbers were almost exactly the same for women.
• Twenty-nine percent of men who had ever had sexual contact with another man were tested for HIV in the past year compared with 14 percent of men with no same-sex contact.
• Seventeen percent of men who had ever had sexual contact with another male had been treated for a non-HIV STD, compared with 7 percent of those who had never had male-on-male sexual contact.
• Among men 15 to 44 who had at least one sexual partner in the last 12 months, 39 percent used a condom at their most recent encounter. The figure was 65 percent among never-married males and 24 percent among married males. Ninety-one percent of males who had ever had sexual contact with another male used a condom the last time they had sex, compared with 36 percent of men who never had sex with another male.

More information

View the report at the National Center for Health Statistics.