Most teens who engage in oral sex for the first time will have vaginal intercourse within six months, and half the teens who initiate oral sex in ninth grade will have vaginal intercourse before the end of junior year, researchers have found.
The three-year study of 600 high school students by researchers at the University of California - San Francisco and University of California, Merced has found that schools need to provide more comprehensive sex education to teens if they want to be more effective in preventing them from engaging in unsafe sex practices associated with riskier sex. The now-proven association between oral and vaginal sex underscores the need for a more open and honest dialogue about sexual activity.
The study, partially funded by the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, has been published online November 1 ahead of print in the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine. The researchers say it is the first to track teens' sexual behaviour over time to determine whether oral sex increases the likelihood of having sexual intercourse or acts as a protective measure delaying the onset of further sexual activity.
"Our study demonstrates that through its relationship with intercourse, oral sex contributes to the total risk associated with sexual activity among teens, including sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy," said Anna Song, PhD, first author of the study and an assistant professor of psychological sciences at UC Merced. "Understanding teen sexual behavior is so important because incorrect assumptions about how and why teens engage in sex can undermine interventions that aim to curb these negative outcomes."
Between 2002 and 2005, Song and a colleague, Bonnie L Halpern-Felsher, a professor in the division of adolescent medicine at UCSF surveyed students attending two northern California public high schools. About 630 participants completed an initial sexual behaviour survey at the start of ninth grade, when they were 14 years old. Nearly 75 percent continued to respond to subsequent surveys every sixth months thereafter, up until the end of 11th grade.
Of the initial survey group, about one-fifth had initiated oral sex and 71 students had had vaginal intercourse before the start of ninth grade. But for all ages, oral sex was twice as likely to precede the initiation of intercourse rather than the other way around.
According to Halpern-Felsher, this indicates oral sex is influencing the onset of riskier sexual behaviour, underscoring the need to encourage open, honest discussion about sexual activity. "We need to make sure teens know that if they do choose to have oral sex, certainly it does involve less risk than intercourse, but it's not risk-free," Halpern-Felsher said. "We also have to be sure to ask teens if they have any questions. It sounds simple, but it is a very important step that parents and healthcare providers should be taking."
About four in 10 never–married US teenagers ages 15–19 have had sexual intercourse at least once, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released in earlier in June this year. And most parents don't think their teens are the ones having sex, another similar study had found.
