Oral sex: varied behaviors and perceptions in a college population

Journal of Sex Research, Feb, 2007 by Wendy C. Chambers

Overall frequency of giving/receiving oral sex between men and women. A significant sex difference emerged in the perception of the frequency of giving and receiving oral sex. Although fairly equal numbers of women perceived themselves as giving or receiving more or giving and receiving equally, significantly more men perceived themselves as receiving more and significantly fewer men indicate giving more. Thus, the difference emerged for giving and receiving with more women indicating that they give more and more men indicating that they receive more, [chi square] (3, N=1874) = 84.690, p =. 000 (Table 6).

The most typical reasons for giving/receiving oral sex according to the participants' oral sex experiences. Pleasure for the receiver was the most popular reason for giving oral sex, 78.4% (n = 1,511), as well as receiving oral sex, (78.3%, n = 1,509; see Table 7 for details). Less than 4.0% (n = 67) typed in other answers for most typical reasons for giving oral sex, most of which were clustered into the following categories: to foster or celebrate intimacy, mutual pleasure, feeling of obligation, foreplay, desire for reciprocity, and increasing chance of intercourse. The greatest endorsements were for mutual pleasure (n = 20) and reciprocity (n = 14). Close to 1.0% chose to type in their own answer for most typical reason for receiving oral sex, which fit under the categories of obligation, mutual pleasure, and intimacy, with fairly equal dispersion, though the most (n = 9) endorsed mutual pleasure.

Assessment of knowledge about transmission of STIs via oral sex. Pertaining to the health risks of oral sex, certain items revealed some uncertainty of knowledge in the participants. The participants were most confident in their knowledge of herpes--nearly 93.0% (n = 1,791) correctly answered yes, that they could get herpes from oral sex. The majority chose the correct answers to all of the items, but a significant minority (over 20.0%) was unaware of the health risks of oral sex (see Table 8 for details).

Knowledge of protection and how often protection is used during oral sex. How often participants protected themselves during oral sex could not be analyzed because of a misunderstanding of the question. On the basis of their reporting of what type of protection was used, it was abundantly clear that they interpreted the question to pertain to intercourse and not to oral sex. This could be due to the fact that the previous question pertained to the intimacy of intercourse. The correct answers for the item regarding protection during oral sex were male condom, Saran[TM] wrap, and dental dam. Although the female condom could be cut open to more thoroughly cover the vagina and thus adequately protect oneself during oral sex, its original form incompletely protects the outside of the vagina. Furthermore, if the female condom were not cut, the large size of the female condom would make this unwieldy and unlikely to be used during oral sex, where stimulation is most easily perceived through material that would not fall loosely over the genital area, as the female condom would. Thus, the positive endorsement of this contraceptive device as proper for oral sex protection is questionable and thus was regarded as an incorrect answer.