1. Oral sex is linked to throat cancer.
Cancer? Yes, you can get throat cancer from oral sex, says American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD.
It's not oral sex, per se, that causes cancer, but the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can be passed from person to person during sex, including oral sex.
Researchers have found that some cancers of the oropharynx (the middle of the throat) and tonsils are probably caused by a certain type of human papillomavirus (HPV).
HPV is common, but it doesn't always cause cancer. If you aren't
exposed to HPV during oral sex, you're not at risk for cancer.
Brawley says that hints of a link between HPV and
oropharyngeal cancer came in the late 1980s and early '90s. Researchers
noticed an increase in this kind of cancer among people who hadn't been
very prone to it before.
It began to affect increasing numbers of people
around the age of 40 that didn't smoke or drink, whereas in prior
decades these cancers were usually found in older people that smoked
cigarettes and heavily drank hard liquor.
2. Oral sex enhances some adult relationships, strains others.
Among adults, oral sex causes stress for some couples and enhances intimacy
for others, says sex therapist Louanne Cole Weston, PhD, of Fair Oaks,
Calif. She says stress about oral sex often has to do with one partner's
concerns about hygiene.
"One person will not want to receive it because he or she worries about the partner's reaction," Weston says.
Some people may also be anxious about their
performance -- doing it well enough to please a partner -- or about
responding appropriately to receiving it. "Some people can't just let go
and receive," Weston says.
Sexual power dynamics may be part of it, too.
"Some people resist doing it because they feel a bit
subjugated," Weston says. Her advice for those people: "They have a
very important body part between their teeth; and after all, who is in charge in a position like that?"
Other people, Weston says, experience oral sex as a
"relationship strengthener" and "a very intimate connection" shared with
a partner. "It's being able to look at the partner and see them going
into really very personal space," Weston says.
3. Unprotected oral sex is common, but has risks.
Several sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, HPV, and viral hepatitis can be passed on through oral sex.
"Oral sex is not safe sex," says Terri Warren, RN, owner of Westover Heights Clinic in Portland, Ore., a private clinic specializing in STDs. "It's safer sex, but it's definitely not safe sex."
The risks depend on a lot of different things,
including how many sexual partners you have, your gender, and what
particular oral sex acts you engage in.
Using barrier protection can reduce the risk of getting an STD. A barrier can be a condom covering the penis, or a plastic or latex "dental dam" placed over the vulva or anus. Instead of a prepackaged dental dam, a condom cut open to make a sheet is also an acceptable barrier.
But most people don't use protection for oral sex.
That's common wisdom, and it's also shown by large-scale surveys of
sexually active teens and adults.
4. Oral sex is common among teens.
Many U.S. teens have oral sex before they have
vaginal sex. And they don't view it as very risky, says Bonnie
Halpern-Felsher, PhD, a pediatrics professor at the University of
California, San Francisco.
Compared with vaginal sex, "They really don't consider
it as big of a deal," Halpern-Felsher tells WebMD. Past surveys
Halpern-Felsher conducted showed that most teens thought that engaging
in oral sex would not put them at risk for social, emotional, or health
problems. Other surveys she has performed showed teens who said they
only had oral sex were less likely than those who had vaginal sex or
vaginal and oral sex to report STDs.
Still, there were STDs among all three groups of
sexually active teens. Just under 2% of teens who said they'd only had
oral sex said they caught an STI, compared with about 5% of those who
had vaginal sex only, and 13% of those who had vaginal and oral sex.
The oral sex-only teens were also less likely than
other sexually active teens to report getting into trouble with
parents, experiencing negative feelings, or having a worsening
relationship with a partner because of their sexual activity.
But there was a gender gap in how teens felt about oral sex.
Males were more likely than females to claim
social and emotional benefits. Females were more likely to report
feeling used or guilty, or that oral sex had hurt a relationship.
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