Study Shows Need To 'Speak Plainly' When Discussing Sex, Columnist Writes

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 10 Mar 2010 - 5:00 PDT


"A new study suggests that what people mean when they say they've had sex -- or haven't -- depends on whom you ask," St. Petersburg Times columnist Colette Bancroft writes in an opinion piece about new research from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction and the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention. The study, published in the journal Sexual Health, examined how men and women in various age groups classify whether various physical acts constitute "having sex."

Bancroft writes that the researchers asked respondents, whose ages ranged from 18 to 96, "Would you say you 'had sex' with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was..." The question ended with one of 14 possible scenarios, such as manual-genital contact, oral-genital contact, penile-vaginal intercourse and penile-anal intercourse, with variations related to whether an act was performed or received, performed with a condom or performed for a brief period of time, according to Bancroft.

Participants' responses varied by age and sex. For example, only 9.7% of men ages 18 to 29 thought that receiving manual-genital stimulation was "having sex," and only 40% thought that receiving oral-genital contact was sex, Bancroft writes. "Across all age groups, fewer than 50% of respondents thought manual-genital contact was 'having sex,' about 70% classified oral contact as sex, and only about 80% counted penile-anal intercourse," she adds.

"The researchers point out that such differences in definition affect the responses of people being polled on the effectiveness of abstinence education or questioned by doctors about their exposure" to sexually transmitted infections, Bancroft writes. She asks, "So what do we take away from this study ... ?" According to Bancroft, "[M]ost of us are much more likely to talk about sex in our personal lives, and this may be a reminder that when we talk about it with our children or our parents, our spouses or potential spouses, as uncomfortable as it might make us, we should speak plainly" (Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times, 3/7).

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