By the time they are high school seniors, 66% of girls and nearly 63% of boys report they have had intercourse.

By the time they are high school seniors, 66% of girls and nearly 63% of boys report they have had intercourse. Among younger teens, the majority claim to be virgins, and this percentage has risen over time.

Among sexually active teens, "a majority of boys and nearly three-quarters of girls regard their own initial sexual experience unfavorably—as an event they wish they had avoided", and studies indicate that the majority of teens who have had sex wish they had waited. Among sexually active girls, two-thirds say they didn't want to lose their virginity when they did or that they had mixed feelings about it.


The younger an adolescent is when they first have sex, the more partners they are likely to have over their teenage years. Over a quarter of girls aged 15 to 19 who first had sex when they were younger than 15 have had seven or more partners. Only 6.5% of girls who first had sex between 17 and 19 have had seven or more partners. For boys, there is an even larger gap. More than 31% of boys aged 17 to 19 who had sex for the first time at age 14 or younger have had seven or more partners, but only 3.8% of boys who waited until they were at least 17 had the same number.

Percent Of Teens Who Claim To Have Had Sex, by Age[23] Age Boys Girls
14 7.9% 5.7%
15 14.6% 13.0%
16 25.3% 26.8%
17 39.4% 43.1%
18 54.3% 58.0%
19 65.2% 70.1%
Sixteen percent of adults first had sex before age 15, while 15 percent abstained from sex until at least age 21. The proportion of adults who first had sex before age 15 was highest for non-Hispanic blacks (28 percent) compared to 14 percent for both Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites. Six percent of blacks abstained from sex until age 21 or older, fewer than Mexican-Americans (17 percent) or non-Hispanic whites (15 percent).

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "Early timing of sexual initiation is important for two reasons. First, the younger the age of first sexual intercourse, the more likely that the experience was coercive, and forced sexual intercourse is related to long lasting negative effects."[25] Before age 15, "a majority of first intercourse experiences among females are reported to be non-voluntary."

Girls will most likely lose their virginity to a boy who is 1 to 3 years older than they are. According to one study, almost 14 percent of teens lose their virginity in June, the most common month. The teen's home, their partner's home or a friend's house is the most common place for virginity to be lost, with 68% of teens losing their virginity in one of those three places.The same study found that "the likelihood of a first sexual experience happening will increase with the number of hours a day teens spend unsupervised." Other research has found that teens from non-intact homes are more than 50% more likely to have had sexual intercourse.

Factors that increase the likelihood that a teen will become sexual active include:

"Individual--having a history of sexual abuse, depression, heavy alcohol or drug use.
Family--living in a single parent or stepparent household, living in a poor household, having parents with permissive values about sexual activity, having little supervision from parents, having siblings who are sexually active, feeling unloved, unwanted, or not respected by parents.
Community--having friends who are sexually active, having few positive experiences at school, living in a neighborhood with poor neighborhood monitoring."