10 Things You Didnt Know About Oral.sex

The truth about oral sexual practice, from cancer adventure to what teens say about it.

By Martin Downs, MPH
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Marina Katz, Md

People who came of age earlier the Clinton years tin remember when oral sex nevertheless seemed edgy, even taboo. Now, we're as likely to hear well-nigh oral sex on the evening news as on late-night TV.

National statistics show that about Americans have some experience with oral sex, beginning in the early teen years. About half of teens and nearly 90% of adults aged 25-44 accept ever had oral sex with someone of the opposite sexual practice, according to a CDC survey washed between 2006 and 2008.

Oral sexual activity can be an enjoyable, healthy part of an developed relationship. Just there are some things that many people don't know about oral sex. Hither are four facts that might surprise yous.

1. Oral sex activity is linked to throat cancer.

Cancer? Yes, you can get throat cancer from oral sex, says American Cancer Order Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, Doctor.

It's not oral sex, per se, that causes cancer, but the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can be passed from person to person during sex, including oral sex.

Researchers have found that some cancers of the oropharynx (the middle of the throat) and tonsils are probably caused past a certain type of human being papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is common, but it doesn't ever cause cancer. If y'all aren't exposed to HPV during oral sex, yous're not at run a risk for cancer.

Brawley says that hints of a link betwixt HPV and oropharyngeal cancer came in the late 1980s and early '90s. Researchers noticed an increase in this kind of cancer amidst people who hadn't been very prone to it before.

It began to affect increasing numbers of people around the historic period of forty that didn't fume or drink, whereas in prior decades these cancers were usually found in older people that smoked cigarettes and heavily drank hard liquor.

In the early on 2000s, scientists were able to use avant-garde Deoxyribonucleic acid testing to find HPV sixteen in many of these newer cancers.

Brawley determined that sexual activity must exist involved.

A written report published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 showed a greater adventure for oropharyngeal cancer in people that had had oral sex with at least six different partners. The DNA signature of HPV type 16 was often establish more oftentimes in the cancers of people who had multiple oral sex partners.

It's still unclear how many people get HPV pharynx infections by oral sex, or how many of them get oropharyngeal cancer, Brawley reports.

Both men and women can have an HPV infection in the throat. "Information technology doesn't discriminate by gender," Brawley says.

"The population that I thought would exist to the lowest degree likely to get it was the first population to accept this problem," he says. That population was heterosexual men aged 40-fifty.

Doctors know, however, that oropharyngeal cancers caused past HPV are easier to treat than those caused by factors like smoking and drinking.

Brawley says the all-time prevention method is however unclear, but "in terms of public awareness, this information certainly should exist available to people," he says.

Expanding the use of the HPV vaccine could be ane approach, but Brawley says, "I'thousand non certain that we have studies plenty to brand a blanket assertion that this is a reason to vaccinate boys for HPV." The FDA has approved the HPV vaccine Gardasil for males aged ix-26 -- but merely to assistance prevent genital warts in those boys and young men, not every bit a way to curb HPV infection in their partners. The CDC's Informational Commission on Immunization Practices allows merely doesn't crave boys every bit young as 9 to get Gardasil.

2. Oral sex enhances some developed relationships, strains others.

Among adults, oral sexual practice causes stress for some couples and enhances intimacy for others, says sex therapist Louanne Cole Weston, PhD, of Fair Oaks, Calif. She says stress near oral sexual practice oftentimes has to do with 1 partner's concerns about hygiene.

"One person will not want to receive it because he or she worries about the partner's reaction," Weston says.

Some people may as well be anxious virtually their functioning -- doing it well enough to please a partner -- or most responding accordingly to receiving it. "Some people can't just let go and receive," Weston says.

Sexual power dynamics may exist part of it, likewise.

"Some people resist doing information technology because they experience a bit subjugated," Weston says. Her advice for those people: "They take a very important body part betwixt their teeth; and subsequently all, who is in charge in a position like that?"

Other people, Weston says, experience oral sex as a "human relationship strengthener" and "a very intimate connection" shared with a partner. "It'due south being able to expect at the partner and see them going into really very personal space," Weston says.

iii. Unprotected oral sexual activity is mutual, merely has risks.

QUESTION

Condoms are the all-time protection from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Run across Respond

Several sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, HPV, and viral hepatitis can be passed on through oral sex activity.

"Oral sexual practice is not condom sexual activity," says Terri Warren, RN, owner of Westover Heights Clinic in Portland, Ore., a private clinic specializing in STDs. "Information technology's safer sex, but it's definitely not safe sex."

The risks depend on a lot of different things, including how many sexual partners yous accept, your gender, and what particular oral sex acts you lot appoint in.

Using bulwark protection can reduce the risk of getting an STD. A barrier tin be a condom covering the penis, or a plastic or latex "dental dam" placed over the vulva or anus. Instead of a prepackaged dental dam, a condom cut open to make a canvass is also an acceptable barrier.

But most people don't use protection for oral sex. That'due south mutual wisdom, and it's also shown by large-scale surveys of sexually active teens and adults.

That's probably considering many people don't know that STDs tin be spread orally. Or if they do, they don't see the health risks as existence very serious, Warren says.

The risks of getting an STD from unprotected oral sex are typically much lower than the risks posed by having unprotected vaginal or anal sex activity, Warren says.

Warren's communication well-nigh using barrier protection for oral sex depends on whom she's talking to. Typically, performing oral sex on a male partner without a condom is riskier than other forms of oral sexual activity, she says.

For example, Warren says she might stress the importance of prophylactic utilise for a man having oral sex with multiple male partners.

"If a male is giving oral sexual activity to a woman, I consider that to exist a low-adventure exposure," Warren says. But if a woman'south regular partner has oral herpes, "that's a whole dissimilar give-and-take," she says.

iv. Oral sexual practice is common among teens.

Many U.S. teens take oral sex activity earlier they have vaginal sex. And they don't view information technology as very risky, says Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, a pediatrics professor at the Academy of California, San Francisco.

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Compared with vaginal sex activity, "They really don't consider it as large of a deal," Halpern-Felsher tells WebMD. Past surveys Halpern-Felsher conducted showed that most teens thought that engaging in oral sex would non put them at risk for social, emotional, or health problems. Other surveys she has performed showed teens who said they only had oral sexual practice were less probable than those who had vaginal sex or vaginal and oral sex activity to study STDs.

Nonetheless, at that place were STDs amid all three groups of sexually agile teens. Simply under 2% of teens who said they'd only had oral sexual practice said they caught an STI, compared with near five% of those who had vaginal sexual activity only, and 13% of those who had vaginal and oral sex.

The oral sex-only teens were also less probable than other sexually agile teens to report getting into trouble with parents, experiencing negative feelings, or having a worsening relationship with a partner because of their sexual activity.

But at that place was a gender gap in how teens felt virtually oral sex.

Males were more probable than females to claim social and emotional benefits. Females were more than probable to written report feeling used or guilty, or that oral sex activity had hurt a relationship.

In another survey, 425 ninth-graders from the same grouping were asked open-ended questions virtually why they thought that people their age would have oral sex activity.

The thought that it'southward less risky than vaginal sex was their No. five reason. Here are their top four reasons : 1) seeking pleasure, 2) improving relationships, 3) gaining popularity, and iv) marvel.

That list differed between males and females. Pleasance was the No. i reason cited by males; females said their main motivation was to improve a relationship.

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References

SOURCES:
Otis Brawley, Doc, chief medical officer, American Cancer Gild.
Terri Warren, RN, ANP, Westover Heights Clinic, Portland, Ore.
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, professor of pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco.
Louanne Cole Weston, PhD, licensed marriage and family therapist , board-certified sex therapist, Fair Oaks, Calif.
National Center for Health Statistics, National Survey of Family Growth, 2002.
D'Souza, K. New England Journal of Medicine, May 2007; vol 356: pp 1944-1956.
CDC.
American Social Health Association.
Halpern-Felsher, B. Pediatrics, April 2005; vol 115: pp 845-851.
Brady, S. Pediatrics, Feb 2007; vol 119: pp 229-236.
Cornell, J. Journal of Boyish Wellness, March 2006; vol 38: pp 299-301.
Reviewed on September 05, 2011
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