This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The stories, it turns out, are true: Teens today are more likely to engage in oral sex than sexual intercourse.
And the stories also are untrue: Not everyone is doing it.
A new report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that 55 percent of boys and 54 percent of girls ages 15-19 across the country have engaged in oral sex. By comparison, 49 percent of boys and 53 percent of girls had engaged in intercourse.
Among teens participating in oral sex: Nearly one in four has not had sexual intercourse, according to the report.
The report is based on an analysis of data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.
The health statistics are drawn from surveys of young people across the nation - although Utah does not participate. By legislative mandate, Utah educators and researchers are prohibited from asking teens about their sexual behavior.
Inexperienced teens may view oral sex as a way to retain "virgin status" and as a less intimate activity than intercourse, the campaign said. They also may mistakenly believe they cannot contract sexually transmitted diseases through oral sex.
It also found that nearly all teens - more than eight in 10 - who have had intercourse also engaged in oral sex. And the older a teen gets, the more likely he or she is to engage in the behavior.
"After years of provocative headlines and breathless stories based mostly on anecdote, we finally have some solid data to help us separate fact from fiction," said Sarah Brown, campaign director, in a news release. "The news is probably not as bad as adults might have been led to believe, but it is likely not as good as most parents might wish."
What the news means for parents: Sex talks need to go beyond intercourse.
"If parents want their teens to abstain from sex, they may need to be specific about exactly what they want their children to abstain from," the campaign's report suggests.
That's a challenge, it notes, because many parents feel awkward discussing the subject while at the same time underestimating their ability to influence a child's behavior.
Utah, like much of the nation, offers teens programs that stress an abstinence-only until marriage philosophy and avoid discussion of contraception. That's inadequate, something borne out by the new report, according to one Utah expert.
"We've been hearing about this for quite a few years now and what is so distressing about it is that those who don't want to do comprehensive sex education believe that if you just tell kids you can't have intercourse and don't talk about it further that kids won't find a way around that," said Karrie Galloway, director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
"You've got to be willing to really discuss teens and sexuality. You've got to be able to discuss urges and all issues of sexuality with young people," she said. "And if we're not talking in abstinence programs about oral sex specifically, kids don't have the information."
One piece of information teens may be missing is that it is possible to get a sexually transmitted disease through oral sex.
The last survey of Utah teens' sexual behavior occurred more than a decade ago, as part of a task force set up by former Gov. Norm Bangerter to look at teen pregnancy, Galloway said.
That info indicated rates of sexual activity among Utah teens was lower than the nation's.
But they weren't zero - and still aren't, based on requests for contraception, sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy tests, Galloway said.
"When you put such a high price on virginity and you also withhold information from people you are putting them at risk," she said.