Who’s Doing It? Patterns and Predictors of Youths’ Oral Sexual Experiences

Oral Sexual Behavior: Harm Reduction or Gateway Behavior?

“…Oral sex was more common among non-Hispanic white adolescents than non-Hispanic African American or Hispanic youth, and higher SES was associated with greater rates of oral sex. Also utilizing data from the 2002 NSFG, with adolescents and young adults between 15 and 21 years of age, Brewster and Tillman [6] found similar results.…”

“…Based on these findings, Lindberg et al [5] concluded that the onset of oral sex and vaginal sex occurs close together, because by 6 months following initiation of vaginal sex, most teens have also had oral sex. In contrast, Brewster and Tillman [6], using data from the same NSFG data collection wave, showed that virgin youth with oral sex experience were less likely to have vaginal sex, thus concluding that oral sex appears to delay the onset of vaginal sexual behavior.…”

Oral Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infection—Are There Implications for HPV Vaccination?

“…Data on ever having oral sex (preformed or received) in 12-14-year-olds are from a study of urban seventh graders by Markham et al [1]. Data on 15-21-year-olds are from an analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle 6, by Brewster and Tillman [2], which distinguished between performing oral sex (data shown here) and receiving oral sex (data not shown).…”

“…In fact, 6.6% of 12-year-olds report having had oral sex, including 1.6% of virgins and more than half of sexually experienced 12-year-olds ( Figure 1) [1]. A nationally representative sample of slightly older teenagers showed that 32% of 15-17-year-olds and 69% of 20-year-olds had performed oral sex on at least 1 partner, that the proportion increased with every year of age, and that a similar proportion of males and females of each age had performed oral sex [2]. The majority of sexually experienced (nonvirgin) teenagers reported having performed oral sex (Figure 1).…”

Issues in Human Papillomavirus Vaccination in Adolescents

“…This suggests that tonsillar infections are likely associated with oral sex and not perinatal transmission. Furthermore the onset of oral sex is common in adolescents, so vaccination will also be important in young adolescents aged 11-12 years [6,7]. Clearly it will be difficult to assess the efficacy of the vaccine in clinical trials, because these HPV-positive oropharyngeal tumors are rare.…”