More Than Half of All Teens
Have Engaged In Oral Sex

More than half of all teenagers aged 15 to 19 have engaged in oral sex - including nearly a quarter of those who have never had intercourse according to a recent national survey.

The National Center for Health Statistics released the government's most comprehensive survey of American sexual practices and reproductive health on September 15 delving for the first time into such sensitive areas as the prevalence of oral sex among teenagers and same-sex activity among adults.

The new statistics confirm the study's findings that oral sex is very much part of the teenage sexual repertory. "After years of provocative headlines and breathless stories based mostly on anecdote, we finally have some solid data," said Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

The proportion of teenagers who have given or received oral sex was slightly higher than the proportion who have had intercourse, the survey found, with 55 percent of the boys and 54 percent of the girls having given or received oral sex, while 49 percent of the boys and 53 percent of the girls have had intercourse.

"One thing that surprised me is that we expected, based on anecdotal evidence, that girls might be more likely to give oral sex and boys more likely to receive it, but we didn't find that at all," said Dr. Jennifer Manlove, of Child Trends, which, like Ms. Brown's group, released an analysis of the data, "There's more gender equality than we expected."

The government data does not provide any indication of the age at which oral sex first occurred, how often it occurred, or how many partners a teen had had. But the survey found that nearly all teenagers who have had sexual intercourse have also had oral sex: 88 percent of the boys and 83 percent of the girls.

"A very significant proportion of teens has had experience with oral sex, even if they haven't had sexual intercourse and may think of themselves as virgins," Dr. Manlove said. "We're not sure whether these teens who have not had sexual intercourse are engaging in oral sex because they view it as a way to maintain their technical virginity or even because they regard it as an easy method of birth control."

Among the findings in the new study, "Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures," were the following:

Men age 30 to 44 have had a median of six to eight sexual partners in their lifetimes; women's median was about four.

Among both men and women age 15 to 44, about two-thirds have had only one sexual partner in the last year. Ten percent of the men and 7 percent of the women have had three or more partners in that time.

About 4 percent of men and women described themselves as homosexual or bisexual, but in a finding that surprised the researchers, 14 percent of the women aged 18 to 29 reported at least one homosexual experience, more than twice the proportion for young men.

The report offers new information about homosexuality in the United States. Among adults ages 15 to 44, almost 3 percent of men and 4 percent of women reported having a sexual experience with a member of the same sex within the past year, and over their lifetimes, 6 percent of men and 11 percent of women had such experiences. About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women had had both male and female sexual partners in the previous 12 months.

Nearly 6 percent of all men ages 15 to 44 reported having oral sex with another man at some time in their lives, and nearly 4 percent reported having anal sex with another man.

The data comes from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, a survey of 12,571 men and women ages 15 to 44. The survey contractor was the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, which trained more than 200 women to collect the data by having the subject answer sensitive questions on a computer, without revealing the answers to the interviewer.

Although the National Center for Health Statistics has periodically conducted that survey among women for 32 years, the 2002 version was the first to include both sexes, and to move beyond fertility and child-bearing into broader questions of sexual behavior and sexual orientation.

While many of the findings in the government report parallel those of the last large-scale study of American sexual behavior, a 1992 study of 18- to 59-year-olds by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, the lead author of the new study said it found a new and unexpected increase in lesbian activity among young women. It may not be such a surprise among those of college age, who speak of LUG's - lesbians until graduation.

"There are signs of change among 15- to 29-year-old women, a group of women too young to have been be included in the 1992 study," said William Mosher,lead author.

When asked, "Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with any female?" 14 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old women said yes, compared with slightly under 10 percent of the 30- to 44-year-olds. That difference was surprising, Dr. Mosher said, since on questions about lifetime experience, older people usually report more than younger ones.

The study also asked about sexual attraction. Among men 18 to 44, 90 percent said they thought of themselves as heterosexual, 2 percent as homosexual, 2 percent as bisexual and 4 percent as "something else," findings similar to those in 1992.

Among women, 86 percent said they were attracted to only men and 10 percent "mostly to males." In the 1992 survey, only 3 percent said they were "mostly" attracted to males.

Condensed from an article by Tamar Lewin in the New York Times.

Royal Navy Actively Recruiting Gays

Once run by “rum, sodomy and the lash,” the British Royal Navy last February began actively encouraging gays to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do.

The navy announced that it had asked Stonewall, a group that lobbies for gay rights, to help it develop better strategies for recruiting and retaining gay men and lesbians. Commodore Paul Docherty, director of naval life management, said the service wanted to change the atmosphere so that gays would feel comfortable working there.

Last year, Parliament passed the Civil Partnership Act, which gives marriage-style rights to British gays who have registered as couples. The entire military is subject to the legislation, and starting this fall, gay couples in the military who have registered under the act will be allowed to apply for housing previously reserved for married couples.

The new effort continues a pattern of changing official attitudes in the navy - once derided as running on rum, sodomy and the lash, in a phrase attributed to Winston Churchill.

Until a European court ruled in 1999 that Britain's ban on gays in the military violated European human-rights laws, the navy, along with the rest of the country's military, followed a no-exceptions policy of dismissing service men and women who were found to be gay, often after long and intrusive investigations.

After the court ruling, it had no choice but to reverse its policy. Beginning in 2000, the military said gays would no longer be prohibited from serving. It also stopped monitoring its recruits' sex lives, saying that sexuality, as long as it did not intrude into the workplace, should not be an issue one way or another.
Recently, gay men and women in the British services have lived and fought in Iraq alongside heterosexuals without problems, according to military officials.

Most European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Denmark, have lifted their bans on gays in the military. Gays in the British military are subject to the same rules of sexual conduct as heterosexuals: no touching, no kissing, and no flaunting of sexuality.

Since 1991, women have been allowed to serve with men on ships, which operate under strict "no sex" rules, and sailors in such close quarters have relied on what one naval official said was "common sense and good manners."
Condensed from an article in the NY Times last February by Sarah Lyall.