Los Angeles Times - September 16, 2005
Thomas H. Maugh II

The study also found that 11 percent of women age 18 to 44 reported having at least one homosexual experience in their lifetime, up from 4 percent in the last study conducted in 1992.

Taken together, the two findings suggest a possible shift in sexual practices, in which females are using oral and gay sex "as a safer alternative than (vaginal) sex with men," said epidemiologist William D. Mosher of the National Center for Health Statistics, the study's lead author.

"If it is seen as a safer alternative, it is an interesting response to the campaigns to reduce teen pregnancy and to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and HIV," he said.

The study, however, found that only 9 percent of the teens reported using condoms during oral sex. Studies have shown that gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes and the human papillomavirus can all be transmitted in this manner.

"They have not been given a strong enough message about the health risks of oral sex," said Dr. Claire Brindis of UCSF.

James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a reproductive health organization in Washington, D.C., said the study showed that society was undergoing a social transition sexually, with women and girls becoming more sexually confident.

But Brindis cautioned that some of the apparent increases might simply represent an increased comfort level in discussing intimate behaviors rather than an actual increase in activity.

Some people may just now "be disclosing information that had probably occurred for decades," she said.

Economist M.V. Lee Badgett, a visiting scholar at UCLA and research director of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, echoed that sentiment, noting that "the world has changed in 10 years."

She noted that the 1990 census showed 150,000 same-sex couples in the nation, while the 2000 version found 600,000. In both cases, she said, the differences "are much more likely to be due to a willingness to report than to an increase in numbers."

The study, conducted between March 2002 and March 2003, involved in-home interviews of 12,571 people by trained female interviewers. The most recent study, conducted a decade earlier, involved 3,300 interviews.

The researchers asked a variety of health-related questions. Sex questions were presented on a computer so that the interviewees could respond while maintaining anonymity.

The exact form of the question itself is also crucial, noted epidemiologist Susan Cochran of UCLA. In the survey, women were asked, "Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with another female?" That question can encompass a variety of behaviors ranging from sexual intimacy to cuddling or a kiss, she said.

She cited an Australian study which found that 8.6 percent of women answered affirmatively to a question similar to that on the U.S. survey, but only 5.7 percent did so when the question specifically asked about genital contact.

"What's happening is that our definition of sexual behavior has broadened," she said.

Many of the same arguments can be made about the reports of teen sexual behavior, but most experts agreed that the numbers represented a real phenomenon.

There have been widespread anecdotal reports that teens are increasingly engaging in oral sex to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of sexual diseases, but the new survey is the first to actually document the incidence on a national level, Mosher said.

The data show that, among teens ages 15 to 19, 55 percent of males and 54 percent of females reported engaging in oral sex. Among those 18 to 19, the figure grows to about 70 percent for both sexes.

Overall, more teens had oral sex than vaginal sex: 53 percent of girls age 15 to 19 and 49 percent of boys reported that they had had intercourse.

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