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Open-Mouthed WonderWas oral sex always normal?

By William SaletanPosted Friday, May 30, 2008, at 8:04 AM ET

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Two days ago, I wrote that oral sex was becoming destigmatized and normalized, thwarting parents who had hoped they could "stick to the basics" in talking to their kids about sex. Many of you wrote back, dismissing my assumptions as prude, antiquated, and out of touch. You argued that oral sex has always been more basic and common than vaginal sex and that the idea of recent stigma against it is a myth.

When I said "basics," I meant the facts of life from a parental perspective. In other words, procreation: teaching your daughter how babies are made, not how to go down on the kid next door. But let's set aside semantics and morals. Let's look at the data, starting with a review of the scholarly literature, published last year in the Journal of Sex Research by Wendy Chambers of the University of Georgia.

Historically, fellatio or cunnilingus, hereto referred to as oral sex, were perceived among heterosexual couples as not only more intimate than intercourse but also to be reserved for those who were married (Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, & Kolata, 1994). It took Kinsey's studies to reveal the greater prevalence of oral sex; though it was not until the 1970s that societal attitudes began to perceive it as acceptable for unmarried couples as well (Michael et al., 1994). Thus it is a historical reversal that oral sex has become more common than intercourse among heterosexual, White, and better educated samples as well as a precursor to intercourse (Billy & Tanfer, 1993; Michael et al., 1994; Prinstein, Meade, & Cohen, 2003; Schwartz, 1999). … [S]tudies indicated a rise in oral sex among adolescents (Newcomer & Udry, 1985), university students (Woody et al., 2000; Grunseit, Richters, Crawford, Song, & Kippax, 2005), and adults in general (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994).

The 1994 study by Laumann et al. surveyed 3,432 Americans aged 18 to 59. According to a Kinsey summary, the survey found that "90% of men and 86% of women have had sex in the past year," whereas "27% of men and 19% of women have had oral sex in the past year."

In 2002, the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed 505 teens aged 15 to 17. One question asked: "Please tell me how often each of these are part of a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend … almost always, most of the time, rarely, or almost never?" Among sexually active teens, 49 percent said intercourse was part of a relationship almost always or most of the time; 43 percent said the same about oral sex. When the question was changed to a "casual relationship such as a hook-up," the gap disappeared: Forty percent said oral was part of the relationship almost always or most of the time; 39 percent said the same about intercourse.

In 2004, AARP surveyed 1,682 Americans aged 45 and older. The survey found, "Compared to 1999, there is … a higher incidence of oral sex among men." Still, the trend was no match for intercourse. The survey asked respondents how often they had engaged in various sex acts in the previous six months. In every age bracket, among both genders, at least twice as many respondents said they had engaged in intercourse once a week or more often as said they had engaged in oral sex with similar frequency.

In 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics analyzed data from its 2002 survey of 12,571 Americans. Among teens aged 15 to 19, 55 percent said they'd ever had oral sex; 50 percent said they'd had vaginal sex. In every other age group, the balance was reversed: Vaginal experience was slightly more universal than oral experience.

One final note, posted by Tim Harford in Slate two years ago:

Johns Hopkins University Professor Jonathan Zenilman, an expert in sexually transmitted infections … reports that both the adults and the teenagers who come to his clinic are engaging in much more oral sex than in 1990. For men and boys as recipients it's up from about half to 75 to 80 percent; for women and girls, it's risen from about 25 percent to 75 to 80 percent.

That's a pretty good variety of samples and age groups. Let's recap the overall patterns: Oral sex was stigmatized. The stigma has faded. Oral sex is becoming more commonly reported, through some combination of increased activity and decreased stigma. Nevertheless, vaginal experience remains more universal, and vaginal sex is far more frequent. Furthermore, as we learned from the timing data in Wednesday's piece, teens aren't starting with a "basic" oral stage followed by an "advanced" vaginal stage. They're losing both kinds of virginity around the same time.

So, this notion that everybody's been going down on everybody all along, and that nobody's been embarrassed or secretive about it, and that it's obviously elementary and vanilla, is baloney. Yes, oral sex is common, and strikingly so among adolescents. But that trend is a novelty, and a story.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

The long tradition of oral sex being a precursor to vaginal sex is a long and storied one. It is forever enshrined as being '3rd base', the last step prior to scoring a 'home run'. Much of the increase in oral sex, IMO, can be ascribed to several things, the least important of which seems to be any stigma attached to the act itself.

If you were to ask 1000 college age students about how the stigma of oral sex impacts their sexual behavior, you would get 990 blank stares, 3 virgins with good vocabularies and 7 random hedonists with good vocabularies. Ascribing changes in oral sex to any stigmatizing effect seems just this side of surreal, when it should be clear that the leading reason is most likely the simplest explanation, it just feels good.

As far as teaching children about sex, a simple lecture and slide show about reproduction is not only a waste of time, but a terrible disservice to the young person in question and a horrible cop-out from the parent. Sex is NOT the sole domain of procreation and all sexual acts do not lead to progeny. There are other things that are intricately involved with sex, such as self esteem, peer pressure, consent, drug and alcohol use, disease and relationships that all should play a huge role in any parental discussion about sex, more than the reproductive aspects. If your child takes a high school biology course, the mysteries of reproduction will be thoroughly explained and if the child in question has access to the internet, any mysteries about what can be done with various and assorted orifices will have been long since dispelled.

To me, it seems, the main point in having the sex discussion with your child or children, is to demonstrate your openness and willingness to discuss a difficult and important subject with honesty, candor and thoroughness. If your child cannot talk to or turn to you about the subject of sex, who can and will they turn to? How many more babies will be carried in secret because the teen in question is afraid of their parents? How many more lives will be ruined by deliveries in bathrooms with the newborns left behind or killed?

Given the number of challenges facing both teens and the parents of teens today, it is risible to me that any importance is placed on the role of stigma in controlling the frequency of oral sex, or on the difficulties that alternative sexual activity may place on the hoary old tradition of 'The Talk'. If you cant look your teen square in the eye and say 'Blowjob' with a straight face and without blushing, you damn well better stand in front of a mirror and practice it till you get it right. To do anything less would be a disservice to both you and your child.

--William Diaz

(To reply, click here.)

I have spent a significant part of the last 20 years or so changing into a more tolerant, progressive thinking and generous human being/sarcastic ass. But, well, I have a daughter, and though I know its quixotic at best, I am going to address the above the old-fashioned way.

First, with respect to procreation, I'm going to explain to her how babies are made, how to avoid that, and why it's important to do so.

Second, with respect to the kid next door, I'm going to invite said kid next door over for a soda and calmly explain to him that the fleeting joy of the moment will be lost in the endless hours of agony and regret as he dies a slow death, castrated and duct-taped to a tree, miles from anyone who could hear his screams.

On second thought, who am I kidding? I am going to address the above the real old-fashioned way... and let my wife handle it.

--jbtowers

(To reply, click here.)

While it's nice of Mr. Saletan to respond to reader comments on his article on the study about oral sex, I feel he still missed some of the leading points made by myself and others. These are:

1) The current generation of teens and people in their twenties is so divorced from historical knowledge of how oral sex may have been seen back in the day it makes no difference in our view of oral sex. It simply doesn't matter what a historian says about how oral sex was viewed in the 1950s or the 1850s or under the rule of Catherine the Great to us. We don't consider this.

2) Who are Slate readers? The tenor of many articles here—and many I much enjoy—seems geared for educated young professionals in their twenties and early thirties. How many of these people really have teenage kids already? The tenor of Mr. Saletan's piece on oral sex however seemed more geared for the type of readership Time Magazine would have. What can we learn about oral sex from youngsters? Ummmm . . . we're young, man, so we don't need to learn anything really. That's like saying "what can the Pope learn about the Church from a bishop?". Many of my friends read the Slate and none have kids over the age of ten.

3) The article and most of the comments in response were biased towards heterosexual relationships and, like many many studies and articles before it, missed the large demographic of homosexuals engaging in oral sex. I feel this was a great oversight.

--TheCloudBoy

(To reply, click here.)

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