---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:34:19 -0800 (PST)
From: "L. McDermott" 
To: Psychology 210 Students 
Subject: news-item:  oral sex


Clinton scandal has Americans talking oral sex

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The sex scandal in the White House has Americans
talking publicly about oral sex as never before. 

TV anchors can't seem to stop talking about it on the nightly news. Magazines,
newspapers and the Internet are filled with references to it and comedians vie
for attention with one-liners about it. 

At the center of the controversy swirling around President Clinton, is former
White House intern Monica Lewinsky, 24, whose alleged taped conversations
telling of performing oral sex on him are grist to one's mill. 

Almost anywhere one goes there's somebody making a joke about a sex act that
was a taboo subject in Puritan America until the 1970s and a hit pornographic
movie called "Deep Throat." 

While experts say that Americans are no strangers to oral sex in their private
lives, the current scandal is different -- suddenly there is a political
twist. 

"The thing that's funny about the 'supposed shock' at the president having
oral sex shows how far behind politics and the legal system are to the sexual
mores of the time," said Susie Bright, author of "The Sexual State of the
Union." 

Bright said that three recent conservative Christian sex manuals give oral sex
the green light. "They all recommend oral sex and reassure couples that there
is nothing in the Bible that could make them feel bad about this," she said. 

"It's only when it comes to politicians' lives that we imagine them not to
have sex or just the most traditional sex possible," she added. 

According to historians, oral sex has been around since the beginning of sex.
"It's prehistory," said Jim Petersen, author of Playboy's "History of the
Sexual Revolution" series. 

"You can find oral sex in almost every ancient culture from Egyptian paintings
to stone carvings in Indian temple walls," he said, adding that it made its
debut in mainstream movies in a 1930's German film "Ecstasy" starring Hedy
Lamarr. 

"It was a great legendary movie that shows her facial expression having an
orgasm reportedly from oral sex. You saw her having an orgasm and the question
was what the actor was doing off-screen," he said. 

Prior to that, oral sex was portrayed in one of the first stag films ever
made, a 1915 silent film called "Free Ride." 

Historians said World War I veterans returning from France brought home a
taste for what was then viewed as a French sexual pleasure. About half
surveyed in the famous Kinsey reports of the late 1940s said they had tried
oral sex, but it was not a major part of their sex lives. 

"By the 1970s, any number of sex surveys and magazines had found the
percentage of people who had tried it had gone up to the high 90 percent
range," Petersen said. 

He said about one-third of the people during the 1970s said oral sex was their
favorite way to reach orgasm, while half said they did it almost every time
they engaged in sex. 

"'Deep Throat' was the coming of age for ... oral sex," Bright said. "It was
discussed in newspapers and television. ... It became quite agreeable and
modern and an accepted adjunct to intercourse," she said. 

Perhaps the most surprising twist to come out of the White House scandal is
that many Americans agree with the claim that oral sex isn't really sex. 

"We (Playboy) did a college survey two years ago and 50 percent of the
students surveyed said oral sex is not real sex," Petersen said, adding:
"Everyone seemed to acknowledge it was not as intimate as intercourse. This
distinction ... allows politicians deniability." ^REUTERS@