The myth according to which teenagers engage in oral sex in order to preserve their virginity is now broken by a new survey, which sustains the opposite.

The survey made by New-York-based Guttmacher Institute, a private non-profit research organization that studies sexual and reproductive health issues, based its results on the answers of 2,271 females and males aged 15 to 19 who were questioned in detail for the federal government’s 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

The research found that about 55 percent of the teens had participated in oral sex, but that the practice was far more common among those who had already engaged in vaginal intercourse.

Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute, lead author of the study said “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,” Reuters reports.

She also added that the “supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth.”

Only 26 percent of virgins had engaged in oral sex, the survey found. Also, by six months after first having vaginal sex, 81 percent of the participants had also engaged in oral sex and by three years after first intercourse, 92 percent had done so.

These results lead to a clear conclusion, meaning that teenagers are clearly engaging in some risky sexual behaviors, as they expose themselves to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections. In fact, a study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released no further than March this year, revealed that more than one in four American girls seems to be carrying at least one sexually transmitted disease, with the highest rate in African –American. This translates in an estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls ages 14 and 19 having a sexually transmitted infection such as human papillomavirus or HPV, Chlamydia, genital herpes and trichomoniasis.

The results stress once again the importance of accurate sexual education through which teenagers can understand the risks they are exposing once they begin their sexual lives.

“The federal government’s exclusive emphasis on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs does not give teens the skills and information they need to be safe,” Lindberg concluded.