About one in five 9th graders report having had oral sex and almost one-third say they intend to try it during the next six months, a small study of teens at two California schools reports.
The teenagers, whose average age was 14.5 years old, also say oral sex is less risky, more common and more acceptable for their age group than intercourse.
The researchers surveyed 580 ethnically diverse 9th graders in two California public high schools.
Girls and boys reported similar experiences and opinions about oral sex, which surprised the study’s lead author, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, associate professor of pediatrics at University of California San Francisco.
“I think the stereotypes don’t exist as much anymore,” she said. “Girls and boys both see oral sex as not being a big deal.”
The study appears in April’s edition of the journal Pediatrics, published Monday.
What’s known about the risk of oral sex is based largely on case reports and studies of HIV transmission in gay men.
The study, although limited by the small number of teenagers surveyed in only two schools, is interesting, said Dr. Robert Blum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was not involved in the research.
“Adults are sitting there yelling at each other about abstinence, condoms, oral contraception and abortion, and kids have found their own path,” Blum said. “That’s the most important issue that underlies these data: Adults are more clueless than we would like to admit.”
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Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Martin Gee (mtgee@tribune.com)
