Spring Break
Safe practices more important than the definition of sex
Rose Hansen
Issue date: 2/3/09 Section: Forum
"I did not have sex with that woman."
So said the president.
According to Bill Clinton, letting Lewinsky blow him really shouldn't have been that big a deal. After all, oral sex isn't really sex. As my buddy Miles puts it, sex means "penis-in-vagina."
Health professionals disagree. Their standard definition of sex includes oral sex, vaginal intercourse and anal penetration. There's really no wiggle room according to science.
In 2005, more than 50 percent of 15 to 19 year old boys and girls regularly engaged in oral sex, according to the Center for Disease Control. The statistic is dated, but if you think about it, most of us were 15 to 19 years old in 2005. Those boys and girls are you and me.
Blowjobs, going down - dirty as the slang sounds, practicing oral sex didn't mean we were bad kids. It was a way to stay pure. We were good kids. We weren't having "real" sex. Unless there was "penis-in-vagina" action going on, we considered ourselves virgins - biologically speaking, that is. After all, you can't get pregnant from a blowjob.
Now that we're in college, we should have adopted the health professional's definition of sex, but we haven't. Ask the average student, and they'll tell you it doesn't hold a candle - emotionally, ethically or physically - to intercourse. Most males don't consider their first blowjob as losing their virginity. You don't participate in oral sex then go home and tell your roommate you got laid. When we say sex, we mean intercourse. Period.
Why don't we think oral sex counts as sex? Maybe, it's because - as a culture - we place enormous emphasis on associating our genitals with primarily sexual activities. For example, vaginas serve only the purpose of copulation and childbirth. But we use our mouths for all sorts of things: eating, speaking or breathing. No one talks or eats or whistles out of their vagina.
Linguistically, we even distinguish oral sex from what most refer to as regular sex. "Sex" means intercourse, "oral sex" means using your mouth. With that in mind, it's easy to disregard your partner's 20-plus number of oral sex partners in lieu of their generally lower number of intercourse partners.
So said the president.
According to Bill Clinton, letting Lewinsky blow him really shouldn't have been that big a deal. After all, oral sex isn't really sex. As my buddy Miles puts it, sex means "penis-in-vagina."
Health professionals disagree. Their standard definition of sex includes oral sex, vaginal intercourse and anal penetration. There's really no wiggle room according to science.
In 2005, more than 50 percent of 15 to 19 year old boys and girls regularly engaged in oral sex, according to the Center for Disease Control. The statistic is dated, but if you think about it, most of us were 15 to 19 years old in 2005. Those boys and girls are you and me.
Blowjobs, going down - dirty as the slang sounds, practicing oral sex didn't mean we were bad kids. It was a way to stay pure. We were good kids. We weren't having "real" sex. Unless there was "penis-in-vagina" action going on, we considered ourselves virgins - biologically speaking, that is. After all, you can't get pregnant from a blowjob.
Now that we're in college, we should have adopted the health professional's definition of sex, but we haven't. Ask the average student, and they'll tell you it doesn't hold a candle - emotionally, ethically or physically - to intercourse. Most males don't consider their first blowjob as losing their virginity. You don't participate in oral sex then go home and tell your roommate you got laid. When we say sex, we mean intercourse. Period.
Why don't we think oral sex counts as sex? Maybe, it's because - as a culture - we place enormous emphasis on associating our genitals with primarily sexual activities. For example, vaginas serve only the purpose of copulation and childbirth. But we use our mouths for all sorts of things: eating, speaking or breathing. No one talks or eats or whistles out of their vagina.
Linguistically, we even distinguish oral sex from what most refer to as regular sex. "Sex" means intercourse, "oral sex" means using your mouth. With that in mind, it's easy to disregard your partner's 20-plus number of oral sex partners in lieu of their generally lower number of intercourse partners.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Sk8r Gramma
posted 2/03/09 @ 11:02 PM PST
1. Is this column direct at Kathy Greaves and how she often puts 'oral sex' under the same umbrella as 'sex' in her columns?
2. Has political correctness taken a new backseat this millennium? Is it STD instead of STI?
2a. (Continued…)
Dave599
posted 2/04/09 @ 8:50 AM PST
"No one talks or eats or whistles out of their vagina."
Rose has obviously never been to Tijuana!
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