Who Gives and Who Gets: Why,When, and with Whom Young People Engage in Oral Sex

Surprisingly little is known about oral sex experiences among emerging adults, including the motives behind their participation in this sexual activity. The current study examined the characteristics of emerging adults’ most recent oral sex experience. A total of 431 young people (M age = 21.7 years; 71.7% female) completed an on-line survey assessing their sexual history, context (partner type, co-occurring sexual behaviors), and motives (physical, emotional, goal attainment, and insecurity) for engaging in their most recent heterosexual oral sex interaction. The majority of oral sex encounters occurred within the context of a committed relationship and during an interaction that also included intercourse. Cunnilingus was rare unless reciprocated with fellatio. Overall, both males’ and females’ reports indicate that they were motivated to engage in oral sex by sexual desire and attraction to their partner, or to enhance an emotional connection with their partner. Insecurity and goal attainment motives were uncommon. Males reported more physical motives than did females, and females reported more emotional and insecurity motives than did males. The findings provide insights into youths’ oral sex experiences, and make clear how essential it is to understand the broader sexual and partnership context in which a given sexual activity occurs. These findings have implications for policies aimed at the development of effective sexual health education programs.     

Educational and Vocational Exploration in Vulnerable Youth

Though numerous studies indicate that youth and young adults who are involved in one or more social service systems have poor educational and employment outcomes, little is known about the pathways to employment and education in this population. In this qualitative study of educational and employment exploration in vulnerable youth, 11 individuals participated in a series of research meetings over the course of several months as they engaged in a work or school transition. The participants’ progress toward self-defined educational or vocational goals during the study period was characterized as steady progress, planned exploration, accidental exploration, and frustrated aspiration. This article discusses findings for the participants whose experiences fit into each of these groups and presents policy recommendations for supporting vulnerable youth through educational and employment transitions.     

The Zapatista uprising of 1994 and the move towards a post-postmodern Agrarian political economy

This article reviews the most recent monograph to be published on agrarian conflict in the state of Chiapas since the Zapatista uprising of 1994. In it, the author combines discursive and structural analysis from the disciplines of history, anthropology and geography to understand the response of regional landed elites to the agrarian mobilizations of 1994–1998. The result is an agrarian political economy which, besides being a useful analysis of contemporary events, constitutes a history and ethnography of land tenure, landed production and agrarian struggles in Chiapas from the liberalism of the late nineteenth century, through the revolutionary, post-revolutionary and neo-liberal eras of the twentieth century.     

Book reviews

The following books are reviewed.

Between the lines: letters and diaries from elsie inglis's russian unit AUDREY FAWCETT CAHILL, 1999 Edinburgh: The Pentland Press. x + 372 pp., ISBN 1 85821 630 3, £17.00

For Freedom's Sake: the life of Fannie Lou Hamer CHANA KIA LEE, 1999 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, xvi + 225 pp. ISBN 0 252 02151 7

To Keep the Waters Troubled: the life of Ida B. Wells Linda O. McMurry, 1998 New York: Oxford University Press. xvi + 400 pp., ISBN 0 19 508812 3

Telling Women's Lives: narrative inquiries in the history of women's education KATHLEEN WEILER & SUE MIDDLETON (Eds), 1999 Buckingham: Open University Press. x + 166 pp., ISBN 0335 20173 3, paperback, £16.99

Remaking Women: feminism and modernity in the Middle East LILA ABU-LUGHOD (Ed.), 1998 Princeton: Princeton University Press. xi + 287 pp., ISBN 0 691 05792 3, paperback

Women's Writing of the First World War: an anthology ANGELA K. SMITH (Ed.), 2000 Manchester: Manchester University Press. xii + 340 pp., ISBN 0 7190 5072 3, hardback, 0 7190 5073 1, paperback