Oh My

Last week we reported, tongue in cheek (so to speak), about the new survey that shows a significant number of teenage girls, aged 15-19, are noshing on other teenagers because they don't consider oral sex to be be real sex.

That, it turns out, was only part of the story. Time Magazine reports this week that the study also shows that a growing number of the young women are noshing on each other.

"A new survey says many U.S. teens have engaged in oral sex--and it's not just boys on the receiving end," Time says.

Ohmigod! Bar the doors. Bad enough you had to protect your precious teenage girls from the raging harmones of the boy next door but now you have to worry about his sister as well?

This of cource will send the rabid right wing into stroke territory. The conservative movement in this country is dominated by homophobes and this is just the kind of news that will send the Jerry Falwells to the pulpits to preach about the downfall of humanity.

Which is bullshit. Kids have been exploring their sexuality for generations and, for some, that exploration has including an encounter with the same sex. I'm a flaming heterosexual and the concept of making it with another man has never crossed my mind but I've known others -- men and women -- who say they either thought about or actually had sex with a same sex partner even though they eventually ended up in male-female relationships.

As Time reports:

More than half the adolescents surveyed, for example, said they had engaged in oral sex (and their claims are fairly credible, since the questions were posed not face to face by an adult interviewer but through a specially designed computer program). That proportion was about the same among boys and girls. And although you may assume that girls mostly perform and boys receive, the numbers show the give and take is again about equal.

Another surprise: about 11% of girls 15 to 19 say they have had at least one same-sex encounter--the same percentage that was found in women 18 to 44. (The biggest proportion, 14%, was among women 18 to 29.) You would expect the numbers to rise steadily, if slowly, as women have more opportunities to have such encounters. That they don't suggests that same-sex behavior is more acceptable among teenagers than it used to be.

Is this immoral? Depends on your upbringing and beliefs. For many, myself included, it is not. Is it unhealthy? As with heterosexual activity, it depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it. Unprotected sex is never safe and sexually-transmitted diseases can, in some cases, be passed on through oral contact.

But the moralists who try and control our lives will never see it from that perspective. They will wail and moan about sin and crimes against God and nature.

But they won't stop it.

Never have.

Never will.