The long tradition of oral sex being a precursor to vaginal sex is a long and storied one. It is forever enshrined as being '3rd base', the last step prior to scoring a 'home run'. Much of the increase in oral sex, IMO, can be ascribed to several things, the least important of which seems to be any stigma attached to the act itself.

1) The increasing frequency of sexual activity among unmarried individuals

2) The rise in dyadic, homosexual relationships

3) The increase in demand for pleasure and orgasms during sexual activity

4) Convenience and 'portability' (the 'fast food' version of sex)

5) Inability to cause conception via this practice

6) Increased resistance of the oral mucosa to pathogenic organisms when compared to vaginal (or anal) mucosa, and

7) Stigma associated with oral sex.

If you were to ask 1000 college age students about how the stigma of oral sex impacts their sexual behavior, you would get 990 blank stares, 3 virgins with good vocabularies and 7 random hedonists with good vocabularies. Ascribing changes in oral sex to any stigmatizing effect seems just this side of surreal, when it should be clear that the leading reason is most likely the simplest explanation, it just feels good.

As far as teaching children about sex, a simple lecture and slide show about reproduction is not only a waste of time, but a terrible disservice to the young person in question and a horrible cop-out from the parent. Sex is NOT the sole domain of procreation and all sexual acts do not lead to progeny. There are other things that are intricately involved with sex, such as self esteem, peer pressure, consent, drug and alcohol use, disease and relationships that all should play a huge role in any parental discussion about sex, more than the reproductive aspects. If your child takes a highschool biology course, the mysteries of reproduction will be thoroughly explained and if the child in question has access to the internet, any mysteries about what can be done with various and assorted orifices will have been long since dispelled.

To me, it seems, the main point in having the sex discussion with your child or children, is to demonstrate your openess and willingness to discuss a difficult and important subject with honesty, candor and thoroughness. If your child cannot talk to or turn to you about the subject of sex, who can and will they turn to? How many more babies will be carried in secret because the teen in question is afraid of their parents? How many more lives will be ruined by deliveries in bathrooms with the newborns left behind or killed?

Given the number of challenges facing both teens and the parents of teens today, it is risible to me that any importance is placed on the role of stigma in controlling the frequency of oral sex, or on the difficulties that alternative sexual activity may place on the hoary old tradition of 'The Talk'. If you cant look your teen square in the eye and say 'Blowjob' with a straight face and without blushing, you damn well better stand in front of a mirror and practice it till you get it right. To do anything less would be a disservice to both you and your child.

You're absolutely right, but the parents probably won't really be teaching kids about anything more than procreative sex. The way it generally (stereotypically?) works is kids ask "where do babies come from?" and parents answer with simplistic explanations and then real explanations as the kids get older. Parents try to honestly explain procreative sex, making sure to use anatomically correct terms and such. This is reinforced by sex ed/health class in late elementary and middle school. As pre-teens become teens, they find out about sexuality and the culture surrounding it (such as slang, techniques, pornography, etc.) the same way kids always have: their peers and the Internet. ;) Eventually, parents come to accept that their kids are having sex and tell them to use protection, maybe discuss it with them. There's that gap and I don;t think it's necessarily a bad thing that it exists. Parents should certainly try and honestly answer any questions their kids have, but they're no substitute for socializing and a peer group. I know it seems heretical to suggest that peers are and should be more influential than parents, but that's the reality.

I agree with you completely. If we cannot explain sex openly and honestly with our children then we are dooming them to confusion, heartache, and even embarrassment if they do it wrong. This is why my husband and I answer any question our 7 children ask completely and without embarrassment. And we make sure that they understand that if they are ever in trouble to please tell us and we will help them. We don’t care what they did or whom they did it to, just call. If they ask what something is, how it works, or how to do something so that they do a good job at it, we tell them. We make sure that they understand that we would prefer that they wait till marriage for sex, but if they decide that they don’t want to wait then they need to use protection and how to get that protection.

Cassandra

My mother shared her secrets concerning quality sex, how to turn a man on, and how to help him turn me on if my future husband ever needed it. She explained how men think, what their needs are, and how to satisfy those needs. I believe that when everyone involved gives himself or herself to everyone else involved that the sex is wonderful. Good lovers aren’t born, but rather they’re made when a man or woman gives themselves completely to their lover/s.

I believe that “the basics” are just aren’t enough and I encourage them to learn as much as they can. Peers are only more influential than parents if the parents are lame, at least in my opinion.

Cassandra

William Diaz:

The long tradition of oral sex being a precursor to vaginal sex is a long and storied one. It is forever enshrined as being '3rd base', the last step prior to scoring a 'home run'.

At least where I grew up near Boston, '3rd base' was a handjob. My own experience (growing up in the 80's) was that teenage girls gave blowjobs as an alternate to vaginal sex. Boys did not perform cunniligus, the reasons for this probably split between the girls being uncorfortable with asking, being naked, etc., and the boys with performing.

Boys who are willing and are known to be willing to perform cunnilingus get more sex. Additionally, I knew back as far as 1979 that if a girl wasnt going to put it in her mouth, she likely wasnt going to put it anywhere else. In my close to 30 year history of 'naughty' behavior, I have only known 1 female who went all the way without oral, the only one that refused, IIRC. If it happened back in the days of the Carter administration, that doesnt seem new to me....

"The long tradition of oral sex being a precursor to vaginal sex is a long and storied one. It is forever enshrined as being '3rd base', the last step prior to scoring a 'home run'."

Yeah? Sez who? Still, it's a wide wide world.

Some of us have NO ihibitations, per se, yet still find oral sex boring, limiting on the recieving end, and distastefull to give.

We are allowed our personal taste.

With only one exception the ladies in my life seemed uninterested in oral themselves, relieved I was indifferent, and our sexual relations were...excellent.

I guess this is like anything else. Everybody just has to promote their personal favorites, and like to think their preferences the best.

I think the "modern" baseball analogy is 1) Petting over the clothes, 2) Petting and manual stimulation under the clothes, 3) Naked play, cunni, fellatio, 4) Vaginal, anal sex.

There are heterosexual people who put anal before vaginal, and I just don't get what they are thinking (it's a much more emotionally and physically vulnerable position). On the other hand, I'm the type of gal who wouldn't even consider fellatio unless I had already experienced a proper vaginal orgasm from my partner. Guys can be incredibly lazy, so if you give them the world before they learn how to make the sex good for you, you're never going to get good sex.

Where I grew up all this was personal discovery, but the same just eliminate cunni, fellatio, anal. . no one missed those in my experience.

I always thought the baseball analogy went like this:

1st base: square dancing

2nd base: the lambada

3rd base: stirring the swizzle stick in the dewy pool fed by the eternal spring

home run: rockets. Lots of rockets.

I can’t imagine not giving and receiving oral sex as a very important part of foreplay, afterplay or even just for the hell of it. Distasteful and limiting do not belong in the same sentence as oral sex and if it’s boring then someone isn’t doing it right.

A man or woman that doesn’t love oral sex has never had good oral sex.

Cassandra

I’m not into anal sex, as I do not believe that the anus was designed for penetration.

I’ve always believed that 1st base was kissing, 2nd was petting over or under the clothes, 3rd was petting while naked and oral sex, and home plate was vaginal sex, at least for me anyway.

I’m the type of woman that considers oral sex as a part of foreplay leading up to all the way. If he was satisfied with just oral sex or he wouldn’t give back in return he was not the guy for me. For me the foreplay builds me up for more intense orgasms later on. Some guys can be incredibly lazy, but then the same is true of some girls. If they’re lazy then they’re lame and if they’re lame you’re wasting your time with them. Fortunately I found a husband that feels exactly the same way that I do. It’s been 10 years and 7 children now with absolutely no regrets and we still act like newlyweds.

Cassandra

Love and rockets even.

Cassandra

I prefer Peter Murphy, myelf...

To the person up there who states the belief that somehow there is some attempt by me to enforce orthodoxy in sexual behavior, I assure you, you are wrong. A person's sexual preference is as individual, personal and intimate as their wardrobe. No two people have the same set of experiences and preferences. It is good when 2 partners are similar in tastes and needs and not so good when they arent.

I am not touting the superiority of any one group of individual sexual mores over any other. I do object when private matters become public interest. I sympathize with fundamentalist Mormons to have as many wives as they can con into it, but I draw the line when people who are below the age of consent become involved, either as partners or victims.

Sex, oral, anal, homo or heterosexual should be your concern, your potential partner's concern and noone elses
(unless you have a website or something...) I am not sure I understand the author's point anymore, other than I believe he is wrong.

William Diaz:

I prefer Peter Murphy, myelf...

Ghods yes. Going to see him on the 29th and the 30th of this month!