The questions about engagement in genital heterosexual activities were asked in a questionnaire that the teenagers answered themselves rather than telling the interviewer. An earlier round in 1988 surveyed 1,880 boys. The survey of adolescent boys was based on in-person interviews with 1,297 nationally representative males ages 15 to 19 in 1995, including an oversampling of black and Hispanic youths. The issue includes a report on the policy implications of oral sex among young people. The report of findings from the National Survey of Adolescent Males is being released today in the latest issue of Family Planning Perspectives, a publication of the Alan Guttmacher Institute. ''These behaviors put kids at risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases, which compromise their health.'' Sonenstein, director of the Population Studies Center at the Urban Institute and one of the study's authors. ''While 55 percent of teenage males say they've had vaginal sex, two-thirds have had experience with noncoital behaviors like oral sex, anal intercourse or masturbation by a female,'' said Freya L.
Although most researchers say H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, is not easily transmitted through oral sex, they caution that such transmission is possible.Īccording to the study, many teenage boys are engaging in sexual activities that include oral and anal sex.
Most sexually transmitted diseases - whether viral, like herpes and hepatitis B, or bacterial, like gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia - can be transmitted orally or genitally.