For example, in unveiling the GLMA "low risk" policy last year, GLMA Policy Committee chair Alvin Novick wrote: "Pushing condom usage for oral sex may actually be counterproductive in some cases. It may make some people feel that they have so few options that they don't want to use condoms, period."

At the same time, GLMA executive director Ben Schatz wrote in a press release that "mixed messages" around oral safety "are harming our efforts to encourage gay men to make rational choices about truly risky behavior."

In a widely cited Village Voice article, AIDS reporter Mark Schoofs reported that some AIDS experts "…insist that overstating the danger of oral sex, or 'erring on the side of caution,' might actually cost lives. [Epidemiologist David] Ostrow argues that 'glorifying' fellatio can help men redirect their desire for 'unprotected, uninhibited, mucous-membrane contact' away from anal sex. Ostrow acknowledges that this educational philosophy would result in some infections, (my emphasis) but he believes it would prevent a greater number."

That's a key point. Since oral sex clearly transmits HIV sometimes – very low risk in most situations, but much higher in others - and since it clearly transmits a host of others STDs, several of which facilitate HIV transmission, the "oral sex is safe sex" policy only makes sense if one can clearly show that concern about oral sex leads to increased unsafe anal sex. Or put another way, that increasing gay men's confidence in unprotected oral sex will result in reducing unprotected anal sex.

This theory has never been tested before in American gay men. Now it has. Georgia State University AIDS researcher Seth C. Kalichman and colleagues have just published a relevant study in the Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (Vol 1., No. 3, 1997).

Using anonymous questionnaires, they divided a group of 348 gay men into "oral-sex anxious" and "oral sex non anxious," based on how much they worry about oral sex. One third of the group was found to be "anxious," two thirds were not. The questionnaires also asked about their actual behaviors.

The study found that men who are "oral sex anxious" are no more, or less, likely to have unprotected anal sex than men who are not oral-anxious. BUT, they are much more likely to use condoms during oral sex.

In essence, men who are concerned about oral sex are at lower risk both for HIV and several other STDs than those who are not concerned, since they don't have any more unsafe anal sex, but are much safer during oral sex.

The study says: "...our data do not support the conclusion that increased fears of oral sex risks will result in abandonment of self-protective behaviors altogether. To the contrary, men who were oral sex anxious did not appear to engage in any sexual practices differently from nonanxious men, with the only exception of condom use during oral sex."

This seems to challenge the underlying premise of the "oral sex is safe sex" philosophy. Yet Ben Schatz of GLMA, whose own journal peer-reviewed and published the study, wrote in the accompanying press release: "This study lends credence to the hope that...informing gay men that oral sex is low risk...may encourage them to take fewer risks with other sexual behaviors, such as anal sex."