The National Center for Health Statistics has reported that half of all 15- to 19-year-olds have had oral sex, with the percentage rising to 70%

The National Center for Health Statistics has reported that half of all 15- to 19-year-olds have had oral sex, with the percentage rising to 70% by the time they turn 19, and equal numbers of boys and girls participating. A 2007 Guttmacher Institute study found that slightly more than half (55%) of 15– to 19-year-olds have engaged in heterosexual oral sex, 50% have engaged in vaginal sex and 11% have had anal sex, and that the prevalence of both vaginal and oral sex among adolescents has remained steady over the past decade.

This data indicates that many teens, particularly those from middle- and upper-income white families, don't consider oral sex to be as significant or meaningful as older generations do. Almost half of boys (47%) and fewer girls (38%) believe that oral sex is "not as big of a deal as intercourse", and 55% of teens believe that it is "very important" to be in love before engaging in oral sex. Despite this, "there is discrepancy when it comes to willingness to perform oral sex [with] 22% of sexually active girls say[ing] their partner never performs oral sex on them, while only 5% of boys say their partner never does."

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco believe that some teens, and particularly girls, engage in oral sex as a way to avoid vaginal intercourse.[31] A study released in 2008 by the Guttmacher Institute disputed this substitution theory. "There is a widespread belief that teens engage in nonvaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that technically, they are virgins," says study author Laura Lindberg. Their "research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth."

New York Times columnist David Brooks has written, "Reports of an epidemic of teenage oral sex are .. greatly exaggerated" Researchers believe that oral sex may have become more popular than intercourse for adolescents because teens believe it carries fewer physical and emotional risks, a claim one study supports.