Most Teens Not Having Oral or Anal Sex as a Substitute for Vaginal Intercourse

A new study by the Guttmacher Institute has debunked the myth that heterosexual teens have increasingly engaged in oral and anal sex as a way to "technically" remain virgins. In fact, straight teens are much more likely to engage in oral and anal sex after they've had vaginal intercourse.

The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

"There's a popular perception that teens are engaging in serial oral sex as a strategy to avoid vaginal intercourse," said Rachel Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization based in New York, who helped do the study. "Our research suggests that's a misperception."

Instead, the study found that teens tend to become sexually active in many ways at about the same time. For example, although only one in four teenage virgins had engaged in oral sex, within six months after their first intercourse more than four out of five adolescents reported having oral sex.

"That suggests that oral and vaginal sex are closely linked," said Jones, whose findings will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. "Most teens don't have oral sex until they have had vaginal sex."

A criticism of abstinence-only sex education has been that it defines virginity as having abstained from vaginal intercourse, and therefore may lead teens to engage in other sexual activity that puts them at risk for STDs. But there are in fact many other criticisms of abstinence-only education -- and as supporters of comprehensive sex ed have noted, oral and anal sex do carry a risk of STD transmission, and the study shows that teens are engaging in these acts at high rates. So the findings actually further prove that the need for proper education about safer sex is increasing.

"More than half of our teens are having sex -- vaginal and oral," said James Wagoner, president of the group Advocates for Youth. "We can't afford the luxury of denial. Abstinence-only programs are the embodiment of denial. They have been proven not to work, and it's time to invest in real sex education, including condoms."

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"More than half of our teens are having sex -- vaginal and oral," said James Wagoner, president of the group Advocates for Youth. "We can't afford the luxury of denial. Abstinence-only programs are the embodiment of denial. They have been proven not to work, and it's time to invest in real sex education, including condoms."

There definitely are teens engaging in oral and anal sex before having had vaginal sex. Twenty-three percent of straight teens who did not report having vaginal intercourse did report having oral sex, and one percent reported having anal sex. But those numbers are very drastically lower than among those who have engaged in vaginal intercourse.

The study had other important and interesting findings. Researchers found that the longer the amount of time since a teen had first engaged in vaginal intercourse, the more likely he or she was to report having had oral or anal sex. They also found that many more teens of both sexes reported receiving oral sex than giving it, with male and female teens reporting having receievd oral sex at similar rates, but with more females having reported giving oral sex. This indicates that performing heterosexual oral sex is seen as more taboo than receiving it, particularly when it comes to oral sex performed on female partners. Differences in willingness to report having given oral sex also fall along racial lines.

You can read the full results here (pdf). One thing seems certain: teens are engaging in a wide variety of sexual activity, and that means they need more than abstinence-only education, or even pregnancy prevention education, in order to keep themselves safe and make informed choices.