TY - JOUR T1 - Age pattern of sexual activities with the most recent partner among men who have sex with men in Melbourne, Australia: a cross-sectional study JF - BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health JO - BMJ Sex Reprod Health DO - 10.1136/bmjsrh-2020-200720 SP - bmjsrh-2020-200720 AU - Alex Kilner AU - Christopher K Fairley AU - Sam Burrell AU - Catriona S Bradshaw AU - Marcus Y Chen AU - Eric P F Chow Y1 - 2020/08/31 UR - http://jfprhc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/08/30/bmjsrh-2020-200720.abstract N2 - Background Sexual behavioural studies among men who have sex with men (MSM) are predominantly focused on penile-anal intercourse. Other non-anal sexual activities are under-studied. This study aimed to examine the age pattern of a range of sexual activities among MSM with the most recent male sex partner.Methods We conducted a survey among MSM attending the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre in 2017. This survey asked about nine different sexual activities with their most recent regular and casual partner. A Chi-square trend test was used to examine the age patterns of each sexual activity.Results A total of 1596 men answered the survey and their median age was 30 (IQR 25–37) years. With casual partners, kissing was the most common activity (92.4%), followed by performing penile-oral sex (86.0%) and receiving penile-oral sex (83.9%). The least common activity was insertive rimming (38.1%). Young men were more likely to engage in kissing (ptrend<0.001), receptive rimming (ptrend=0.004) and receptive penile-anal sex (ptrend<0.001) but they were less likely to have insertive penile-anal sex compared with older MSM. With regular partners, the most common activity was kissing (97.4%), followed by touching penises (90.0%) and performing penile-oral sex (88.3%). Age was not associated with most types of sexual activity with regular partners except mutual masturbation and receptive penile-anal sex. Younger men were more likely to masturbate mutually (ptrend=0.028) and engage in receptive penile-anal sex (ptrend=0.011).Conclusions The pattern of sexual activities shows age-related differences with casual partners but less so with regular partners in MSM. ER -