But as Stammers is a leading spokesman for the Family Education Trust, an organisation that rails against contraception, divorce, promiscuity, pornography, and so on, such an outlook is to be expected. I favour the former. Dr Stammers, on the other hand, believes that couples who have only ever had sex with each other are more likely to be contented and secure. You have to wonder what he makes of the latest news from the USA, which suggests that ingenious youth have found a way to enjoy sex while conforming to abstinence advice. A new report published in the journal Family Planning Perspectives , describes an increase in 'noncoital' sex among teenagers.
Oral sex is apparently the in thing right now.
The article suggests that teens who have come of age in the time of AIDS considered oral sex 'to be a far less dangerous alternative, in both physical and emotional terms', than vaginal intercourse. The issue has been under discussion for some time. Sexual health professionals are now concerned that teenagers are confused about what constitutes sexual activity and what is meant by abstinence. Forty percent of teens surveyed by one young women's magazine did not consider oral sex to be sex, while 18 percent of girls in another survey said that oral sex was 'something you did with your boyfriend before you are ready to have sex'. Some commentators blame the Monica Lewinsky scandal for confusing national dialogue on this subject, pointing to President Clinton's denial that he perjured himself by denying 'sexual relations' with Lewinsky, on the grounds that vaginal intercourse was not involved.