A Teen Twist on Sex

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But in almost the next breath, he admits that there's no way to prove that link or even to say for sure whether oral sex is on the rise. The study, he observes, "is the first baseline that we've had in these areas. It's difficult to identify trends if we've never had confirmed data." What he and others can say for sure, however, is that oral sex carries plenty of dangers of its own, including syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes, as well as papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer. "Since we have evidence that kids are engaging in oral sex," says Rachel Jones of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York City, "we need to provide them with information about the public-health consequences and how they can avoid them." And that can happen without waiting for any more studies. --With reporting by Carolina A. Miranda/New York