South African AIDS Group Provokes Debate With Oral Sex Idea

South Africa's foremost youth AIDS awareness campaign has provoked debate with its suggestion that the country's youth could practice oral sex as a way of avoiding the deadly disease. The LoveLife Campaign, which receives money from the government, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, defended its advertising campaign that encourages young people to try "sucking, licking and kissing a person's genitals" as an alternative to penetrative sex.

The proposal has sparked considerable raising of eyebrows for its advocacy of unorthodox sex. Responding to a request for his opinion on the campaign, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma was quoted as saying, "I can't answer on wrong things that people do that are unnatural. I can't talk about that." LoveLife CEO David Harrison said oral sex could save the lives of thousands of young people at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, which has already infected an estimated 4.7 million South Africans -- or about one in 10.

Half of all South Africans have engaged in full penetrative sex by the time they were 16 years old, Harrison said. HIV infections are normally transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids. In Africa, the illness is transmitted largely through heterosexual contact, and women are especially susceptible if the vagina has sores of any kind.

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