Oral sex: varied behaviors and perceptions in a college population

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

Thus, whereas virgins and nonvirgins tended to endorse similar patterns of relationship comfort with respect to giving and receiving oral sex, more nonvirgins were comfortable with giving and receiving oral sex in less serious relationships and more virgins were comfortable with giving and receiving oral sex in an engaged/married relationship, though the significant difference was very slight for the latter. Both virgins and nonvirgins were most comfortable giving and receiving oral sex in a committed relationship, but nonvirgins were significantly more so than virgins.

Although the majority of men and women in this sample were comfortable giving oral sex in a committed relationship, significantly more women (65.3%, n = 780) were comfortable with giving oral sex in a committed relationship than were men (54.8%, n = 402), [chi square] (1, N = 1,928) = 21.362, p = .000. Significantly more men (20.3%, n = 149) than women (7.0%, n = 83) were comfortable with giving oral sex in a noncommitted relationship, [chi square] (1, N = 1,928) = 76.515, p = .000. A similar pattern of percentages emerged for men (32.0%, n = 235) and women (9.4%, n = 112) for the primarily sexually based relationship, [chi square] (1, N = 1,928) = 157.816, p = .000. Finally, significantly more men (38.0%, n = 279) than women (20.9%, n = 250) indicated comfortableness with giving oral sex on an "it depends" basis, [chi square] (1, N = 1,928) = 66.550, p = .000. No significant differences existed between men (31.5%, n = 231) and women 29.7% (n = 355) for the engaged/married relationship. Concerning receiving oral sex, a highly similar pattern of significant and nonsignificant patterns emerged between the genders.

Thus, though the men and women felt similarly about engaging in oral sex in an engaged/married relationship, women were more comfortable than men in giving/receiving oral sex in a committed relationship. Men were more comfortable than women in giving/receiving oral sex in a noncommitted relationship or depending on the situation. Overall, therefore, women tended to express greater comfort giving/receiving oral sex in more serious relationships than men.

The most typical reason for giving/receiving oral sex according to the participants' oral sex experiences. When it came to the reasons for giving oral sex, patterns for virgins were very similar to that of nonvirgins. Pleasure for the receiver was the primary reason with 89.3% (n = 1069) of nonvirgins endorsing this option and 60.2% (n = 438) of virgins endorsing this item, [chi square] (1, N = 1,924) = 224.981, p = .000. Nonvirgins were also significantly more likely to endorse pleasure for the giver (23.0%, n = 275) in comparison to virgins (15.8%, n = 115), [chi square] (1, N = 1,924) = 14.330, p = .000. Although only a minority of either group endorsed power as the reason for giving oral sex, significantly more nonvirgins (8.9%, n = 107) than virgins endorsed this option (3.4%, n = 25), [chi square] (1, N = 1,924) = 21.413, p = .000. It was perhaps most surprising that somewhat similar percentages of virgins (16.4%, n = 119) and nonvirgins (12.4%, n = 148) selected "to avoid sexual intercourse" as the most typical reason for giving oral sex, though this slight difference was significant, [chi square] (1, N = 1,924) = 6.068, p = .014. Very similar patterns of significance/nonsignificance emerged for the reasons for receiving oral sex, though the disparity for using oral sex to avoid intercourse further widened for receiving oral sex, with even greater numbers of virgins (14.7%, n = 107) and fewer nonvirgins (8.4%, n=100) endorsing this option.