U.S. sex study reveals changes after two decades

WASHINGTON – Sexually speaking, Americans are mixing it up a good deal more than they have in the past.

The first comprehensive snapshot of Americans’ sexual activity in almost two decades suggests a social landscape changed by HIV and AIDS and by an increasingly open national conversation about sexual acts other than plain-old intercourse.

Across the lifespan – although less early than popular culture might have us believe – Americans report they are masturbating, alone or with a partner, engaging in oral sex and experimenting with same-gender sex more often than they owned up to in the 1980s, according to a study released Monday.

“The sexual repertoire of Americans has sort of expanded,” said Michael Reece, director of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion and a leading author of the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, published Monday in a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

“We’ve always looked at these other sexual activities as foreplay, with the notion that ‘That’s not really sex,’ ” Reece said. But amid a din of messages selling safe sex, pregnancy prevention, female empowerment and sexual pleasure, acts once seen as the starter course have not only become an essential ingredient in our sexual diet: They are frequently the main course.

Though men were more likely to report orgasm during vaginal intercourse, women told researchers they were more likely to have orgasms from a variety of sex acts, including oral sex and vaginal intercourse.

The survey suggested some ongoing miscommunication between the sexes when it comes to satisfaction. All told, 64 percent of women reported having achieved orgasm in the course of their most recent sexual “event.” A higher proportion of men – 85 percent – reported that their partner had experienced orgasm during their most recent sexual encounter.

Among 14- and 15-year-olds, roughly one in 10 said they were having sex with a partner.