The sexual scripting of oral genital contacts

Abstract

There is evidence from a number of sources that contemporary cultural scenarios for sexual conduct are often very approving of oral genital sex. Two surveys of sexual conduct are analyzed to examine the changes in interpersonal sexual scripts for oral genital sex for cohorts of white and college-educated young people who entered young adulthood between 1928 and 1943 and 1963 to 1967. Males in the earlier cohort had an excess of fellatio during the premarital period from erotic contacts with prostitutes and transient partners. In contacts with potential marital partners and in marriage men and women had equivalent rates of oral sex indicating a greater sexual reciprocity in these affectional relationships. In the latter cohort male and female rates of oral sex before marriage are substantially greater than for the earlier period but are equivalent for the two genders. In both periods oral sex is most common among the coitally experienced and is initiated by males. Evidence is found for an increased amount of sexual activity unlinked to marriage, what might be labeled pre-premarital sex. Male participation in oral sex seems responsive to opportunity, lowered moral inhibition, and emotional commitment while females' participation seems more linked to features of the ongoing relationship. In a review of studies in the 1970s and 1980s a further major increase in the incidence of oral sex in the period before marriage can be found. From these data it appears that oral sex has become, over the last 50 years, part of the sexual scripts of many young people and is a common, though not necessarily a frequent, component of sexual relations in contemporary marriage.