Medical Institute for Sexual Health

About the author: The Medical Institute for Sexual Health is a medical education organization that provides health information to parents, students, and educators that emphasizes the consequences of irresponsible sexual involvement.

Some public health leaders and organizations maintain that mutual masturbation and other forms of "outercourse" are safe alternatives to penetrative sex and that young people should be taught about these options as a means of reducing the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). However, medical researchers have found that the organisms that cause STDs are present in the sexual secretions of men and women and can be transmitted from one person to another by sexual activity that does not include vaginal or anal intercourse. Educators should not teach adolescents that mutual masturbation and similar...