By MadameA   mary aseer's photostream

When President Clinton said he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, he did more than boast his affinity for verbal games: He prompted a discussion on whether or not oral sex was actually sex. Swallowing sperm sometimes precedes acts of procreation but – in the Biblical sense of the term - receiving fellatio doesn’t constitute having sex. Curious teenagers and experienced adults alike often act according to this concept. A little tongue-to-genital action seems like a healthy alternative to a loss of innocence or a possible pregnancy.

It’s neither unusual nor unreasonable to use condoms during intercourse. When Jack*, a single, sexually active 24 year old discussed a recent hook up, he said, “I would have slept with her, but I didn’t have a condom.” When the girl offered unprotected intercourse, Jack regretfully declined and opted instead for unprotected oral sex. “I do not have sex without condoms. I didn’t know where that girl had been and I’m not getting herpes.” Differentiating oral sex from sexual intercourse allows us to overlook the issue of STDs: We don’t take the same precautions because we aren’t technically having sex.

Oral sex is considered a “low-risk sexual activity,” according to Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, director of the STD Prevention and Control Services section at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, but only in relation to HIV transmission. While it’s extremely uncommon to contract HIV from oral sex, Dr. Klausner holds that other STDs are “definitely transmitted through oral sex.” Women can contract Chlamydia, gonorrhea, Hepatitis A, Herpes, HPV, shigella and syphilis from giving condom-free blowjobs, and men can contract Chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes and syphilis from receiving them. Going down on a woman involves no known risks of contracting an STD, and only a possible risk of contracting herpes if the recipient has an outbreak or the giver has cold sores. Oh, the irony.

A report released by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2005 concluded that more than half of American teens ages 15 to 19 have engaged in oral sex. The results of the survey, administered in 2002 and 2003, showed a tendency to delay intercourse with blowjobs and box-munching. Claire Brindis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco, thinks teens “may not have been given a strong enough message about the risks of oral sex,” and that “we need to do a better job of showing them they need to use condoms.” A 2004 survey administered by NPR found that 27% of parents considered teaching safe oral sex as part of sex education “inappropriate.” More than two thirds of American parents feel differently but most schools still haven’t instituted sex education programs that address the reality of teen oral sex and the importance of oral sex safety.

Fortunately, websites like scarleteen.com offer teens the sexual knowledge that the classroom often fails to impart. The mission statement asserts, “While we…do not hold to the notion that telling young adults to go have sex is a better solution, we strongly feel that belying judgment and furnishing them with the facts they need to know…readies them to make their own choices.” The reactions to information posted by Scarleteen’s volunteer sex educators supports the site’s claim that sexually educated teenagers are more likely to use contraception. The subject line of a May 10 posting by Scarleteen Volunteer Kitchen Goddess reads, “One more good reason for condoms during oral sex”; the body includes a link to a newscientist.com article that identifies unprotected oral sex as a potential cause of throat cancer. One Scarleteen member responded, “OMG! that’s so scary!” and another wrote, “My jaw hit the keyboard when I read that.”

Not all teens are sexually responsible enough to seek sex ed on the internet, so sub-par sex education in schools can be blamed for their ignorance of oral sex safety. But it doesn’t explain why so many adults have unprotected oral sex after they’re aware of the risks involved. A seventh grade girl might not know she has more to fear from giving a blowjob than the effect of her braces on her boyfriend’s naked penis. But shouldn’t an 18 year old college student should know that getting head without a condom can get him an STD as easily as it gets him high-fives from his buddies? Most college health centers not only distribute free condoms but also offer pamphlets that specify the do’s and don’ts of safe vaginal and oral sex. Columbia University’s Health Q&A internet service “Go Ask Alice” suggests using dry or flavored condoms or dental dams during oral sex to protect against STDs on the grounds that “there’s no way of knowing for sure if someone is free of disease.”

The infrequency with which men return the favor combined with the rarity of contracting an STD from cunnilingus makes the suggested use of dental dams as a means of protection more laughable than practical. Paul Joannides’s “A Guide To Getting It On!” shrewdly affirms, “Using a dental dam or plastic wrap over a woman’s vulva while giving her oral sex…makes sense, but nobody is going to do it.” According to The Guide, using condoms is a more realistic way to ensure safe sucking and “makes a lot of sense if you are not in a long-term relationship.”

So why do unattached adults still scrimp on condom usage for oral action? Some sexually active singles defend having oral sex without condoms in the same way they might justify having unprotected intercourse: It feels better without one. During her college years, Louise*, 22, gave only one protected blowjob. The recipient was a guy whom she describes as “totally paranoid.” She said, “He was like ‘Before we do anything, let me put on a condom,’ so we used one of those flavored things. It tasted so awful, we had to stop.” Louise was as turned off by the effect of the condom as she was by the taste. “Have you ever tried to suck on a deflating water balloon?” she asked. “One of the things that’s great about giving head is seeing how turned on the other person is. That doesn’t happen with condoms.”

Guys who enjoy going downtown have similar concerns. “There’s a special connection with flesh to flesh interaction,” said Mike*, 23. “I want to be able to taste her.”

It’s noble to forgo safe oral sex for the sake of your partner’s enjoyment but the overwhelming majority of people contacted for this article view protected oral sex and unprotected vaginal sex in the same light: It’s as taboo to want protected oral action as it is to want unprotected intercourse. Jack turned down risky intercourse with a willing girl because he wisely suspected that he wasn’t the first guy she’d offered to boff sans condom. The socially acceptable nature of unprotected oral sex makes protected oral sex seem as circumspect.

When asked how he’d respond if a girl asked him to wrap it up for oral sex, James*, 23, said, “I wouldn’t say anything. I’d just point to the door.” Mike’s response was similar. “I’d come first, then I’d tell her to leave.” Drew*, 24, said, “I’d probably ask myself, ‘Should I have taken this girl home?’ I might even think she had an STD if she wanted to blow me with a condom on.”

These guys’ unsympathetic responses are entirely hypothetical: None of them have ever been asked by a girl to wear a condom for oral sex. Casey*, 23, confided that she’d never used condoms when performing oral sex and probably never would. When asked why, she said, “It would just be weird.”

The idea of using a condom for oral sex is still too weird for many sexually active adults to grasp. But the recent study that found individuals with one to five unprotected oral sex partners were 3.8 times more likely to have throat cancer than people with no unprotected oral sex partners might serve as a wake up call for those who’d rather put their health at risk than risk looking weird to a new partner.

Out of fifteen guys interviewed for this article, only one responded in a way that encouraged safe oral sex. When Al*, 24, was asked what he’d do if a girl asked him to wrap it up before she blew him, he said, “I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I mean, if I really liked her, it really wouldn’t matter.”

If you fool around with partners who genuinely like you, it shouldn’t matter to them that you’re a stickler for sexual safety. And if a potential partner does reject you for initiating protected oral sex, he or she probably isn’t the kind of person you want to share anything with, let alone STDs.