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- Title
Oral Sex Among Adolescents: Is It Sex or Is It Abstinence?
- Authors
Remez, Lisa
- Abstract
This article focuses on the adolescent sexual activity and the risk associated with it. More recently, infection with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly with HIV has fueled further public and scientific interest in teenage sexual behavior. There is widespread agreement that oral STD risk in adolescent populations has yet to be adequately measured and screened for. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that many of the adolescent patients involved have not yet initiated coitus and thus are unlikely to visit a family planning or STD clinic. When they do, several practitioners assert, more detailed sexual histories, despite the extra time involved, are essential to prevent misdiagnosis and to understand what the patient, rather than the provider means by "sexual activity." In the absence of an adequate screening protocol, unknowing clinicians might automatically assume that the patient has strep and prescribe antibiotics. Qualitative and quantitative data on sexual behaviors other than intercourse are clearly needed to close the gaps in knowledge about practices that may expose young people to emotional and physical harm.
- Publication
Family Planning Perspectives, 2000, Vol 32, Issue 6, p298
- ISSN
0014-7354
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.2307/2648199