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Oral S_X
By John R. Diggs, Jr., MD Why is there sudden attention to oral sex? Sex educators like it because they think the worst thing that can happen to a teen is to have a baby and, they say, oral sex is a sure-fire way to avoid pregnancy. The Clinton scandal brought talk of the activity into our living rooms for months during the evening news. Even prostitutes like it – it cuts down on the overhead – no need to rent a room. Attitudes
toward oral sex have changed. One author says, “Young people
are very casual about oral sex. To me, oral sex was more intimate
than intercourse. Kids today absolutely don't see it that way.”[1] Several high profile articles
document casual oral sex even among middle school students![2] Several national
organizations have worked hard to craft the
message that oral sex is the acceptable way for
single people to have sex that is a safe
alternative to the sexual relationship within
marriage. This viewpoint treats sex as a mere
mechanical act to be mastered. The
Journal of the American Medical Association says that oral genital
contact isn’t really sex.[3] This
was not a scientific conclusion but a political statement. The editor
was fired from the journal shortly after endorsing such a silly
notion.[4] After all, it is called oral what?
Sex. Case closed. Both
Planned Parenthood and Sexuality Education Council of the United
States have told our youth that oral sex is one way not to get STDs.[5] Is
this statement true? Standard medical textbooks say “no.”
Gonorrhea of the throat has been recognized and treated for decades.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) say “no.” A recent
study of HIV-infected men practicing homosexuality documents that
8 percent or more appear to have contracted HIV through oral sex.[6] Your
common sense says “no.” It doesn’t take a doctor
to know that herpes is spread by oral sex. The
American Social Health Association says dental dams are the answer.[7] They carefully describe how a
condom can be slit to use as a protective shield.
Can you to put a potato chip in your mouth but not chew?
Of course not. ASHA knows this too. The temptation is too much to
bear. The end result – the potato chip gets crunched. In the
heat of the moment, the plastic wrap gets tossed and the risk of
STD ensues. A
Change Since 1960 There
have been some changes over the last few decades in the prevalence
of oral sex. The best research indicates a generational change occurred
with those who came of age in 1960.[8] Research
performed with adults indicates only 44 percent of those born before
1942 report ever participating in this act, while 72 percent born
after that year make the same claim. Data reflecting the number
of teens involved in oral sex is sparse. In fact, to collect such
statistics in minors would be an unethical invasion of their modesty. While oral sex does not
cause pregnancy, it is likely to lead to further
“experimentation” that does cause
pregnancy. Note that the highest rates of
unmarried teen parenthood are found in the recent
generation that more often engages in oral
sex. Why do we find more oral sex
in the younger generation? There are a number of
reasons. Comprehensive sex educators, who have
wormed their way into schools across the nation
say “avoid pregnancy at all cost.”
Therefore, Debra Haffner while head of SIECUS
(Sexuality Education Council of the United
States) encouraged “outercourse” which
includes oral sex, supposedly a “safe”
activity. Hmm. Check out this list: Human
Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis A, B, and
probably C, Herpes, Chlamydia, Human Papilloma
Virus, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Chanchroid, Giardia
and other parasites, Cytomegalovirus, and even
Typhoid. All can be spread by oral
sex. Because people have a
general dislike for condoms, oral sex is one area
where they can have some real skin-to-skin
contact without risk, they think. Popular culture
including network television, MTV, movies, and
songs contribute to the peer pressure to explore
“going downtown.” Goes With Tongue Cancer This
generational change in sexual activity has even more startling consequences.
The increase in oral sex matches the higher rates of tongue
cancer found in those under age 40 starting in 1973. Tongue cancer
is still most common in the aged but a new spike in the statistics
was noted by researchers at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary to
mostly “involve(s) young white adults.” Not coincidentally,
oral sex is 84 percent more prevalent among whites than blacks.[9] The
causative organism, human papilloma virus (HPV), is the same one
that causes cervical cancer in women. A study of nearly one million
Scandinavians demonstrated that those with HPV type 16, a common
genital infection, were more than twice as likely to have throat
cancer as others. In fact, half of all throat cancers contained
this virus.[10] Practice
for Divorce The
damage doesn’t stop at the physical. All of the emotional power
that makes the marital act wonderful, awe-inspiring, and special
is still attendant in the casual oral cavity ‘hook-ups’
but dampened by a reversal in polarity:
jealousy, pain, and commonness.
Bonding still occurs. The bottom line is that the ‘lowered
bar’ for engaging in oral sex (as opposed to genital intercourse)
inevitably leads to more frequent regret for having become sexually
involved. After such an event, a teenage girl from Virginia lamented,
“I realized pretty soon that it didn't make him like me.”
Others feel degraded. “Even today, it shocks me so much that
I put myself at that level. I can't believe I was so weak.”[11]
The
current chic of oral sex is just one more
wave in the sea of sex without commitment. Across
time and across all cultures, serious commitment
is expressed through marriage. Some young
adults respond that “marriage is too serious
a thing to consider now.” If full legal and
public commitment for a lifetime is too much to
ask, I submit that sex play is too much to ask
also. Abstinence-until-marriage is the only
logical, consistent, healthy message for us. It
is not “abstinence until you are older,”
or “abstinence plus,” or “abstinence
but.” The sex games played in youth can
undermine the serious adult undertaking of
marriage due to the physical, emotional and
spiritual consequences. The pattern of
establishing and breaking bonds through casual
sex is practice for divorce. The current
disruption of so many marriages is due, in part,
to unbridled premarital sexual experience.
Despite the manifest shakiness of marriage in
today’s society, it is still the most stable
coupling arrangement in the human experience.
Marriages
have structural integrity only as strong as that
of the men and women who form them. Training our
youth in the casualness rather than the
uniqueness of the marital act has the termites
eating away at the building materials before the
marriage is even constructed. The
“comprehensive sex” nuts-and-bolts
lessons teach only mechanical actions while we
crave real relationship. Having a series of
“special relationships” makes none of
them truly special. All of the “comprehensive
sex ed” technical know-how will not change
that basic fact. The truth is that oral sex
outside of marriage is not physically safe. Nor
is not emotionally healthy for future
marriage. The
“E” that the “comprehensive sex”
educators have taken out of the word sex
represents the Essence they have removed. The
essence of sex is the relationship. It naturally
flows from the totally committed relationship
between a husband and wife. Etch that ancient
wisdom on the permanent hard drive of your
mind. Dr. Diggs is a resident
of South Hadley. He has appeared on national
television programs and is co-chair of the
Massachusetts Physicians Resource Council and an
Executive Committee member of the nationwide
Physicians Consortium. As a physician, Diggs has
16 years of clinical experience in caring for
ethnically and socio-economically diverse
patients in communities from New England to
California.
[1]Stepp LS. Washington Post, July 8, 1999 “Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex.” [2]Ibid. [3]Sanders SA, Reinisch JM. Would you say you “had sex” if . . . ?, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).1999; 281(3):275–277. [4]Davies TO, Drummond R. Independence, governance, and trust. JAMA. 1999;281(24):2344-6. [5]Planned Parenthood website: http://www.teenwire.com/index/asp. Type ‘oral sex’ in the search window. (Confirmed 7/17/01) [6]Dillon, B. “Primary HIV Infections Associated with Oral Transmission.” Abstract #473. 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, San Francisco, January 2000 [7]ASHA website: Type ‘dam’ in the search window. (Confirmed 7/17/01) This site recommends dental dams to prevent a variety of infections including hepatitis A (relatively trivial) and HIV (fatal). [8]Michael RT, Gagnon JH, Laumann EO, Kolata G. “Sex in America” (Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1994) p 140. [9]Ibid, p. 141 [10]Mork J, Lie AK, Glattre E. Human Papilloma Infection as a Risk Factor For Squamous-Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck. New England Journal of Medicine, 344(15):1125-31. [11]Stepp LS. Washington Post, July 8, 1999 “Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex.” xii Bonfield T. Cincinnati Enquirer, April 26, 2001. “Typhoid traced to sex encounters.” Available online at: |
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