Study debunks myths about teens and oral sex

According to a study which looked at teenage sexual practices, contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not commonly engage in oral sex as a way of preserving their virginity.

A government survey in the U.S. has found that of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19 polled, more than half reported having had oral sex - however those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

The researchers say there is a popular perception that teens are engaging in serial oral sex as a strategy to avoid vaginal intercourse, but their findings suggest that is a misperception.

Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute, who led the study says there is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners.

Ms Lindberg says the research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth.

The researchers found about 55 percent of the teens said they had engaged in oral sex but that this practice was far more common among those who also had engaged in vaginal sex.

About one in 10 of the teens said they had engaged in anal sex and these teens were far more likely to have also engaged in vaginal sex.

The researchers say teens of white ethnicity and higher socioeconomic status were more likely than their peers to have ever had oral or anal sex.

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 which means only one teenage virgin in four has practiced oral sex.

Lindberg says the new findings illustrate that the Bush administration's emphasis on school programs teaching sexual abstinence until marriage "does not give teens the skills and information they need to be safe."

According to recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease and the birth rate for U.S. teens rose in 2006 for the first time since 1991.

The Guttmacher Institute is a private, nonprofit research organization based in New York, which studies sexual and reproductive health issues.

The research is published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.