Chapter One
10
About Teen Sex Today
A lot of teens are sexually active. That was true a decade ago,
and it remains true today. In 2003, when the CDC surveyed high
school students across the country, it found that 46.7 percent
had engaged in sexual intercourse. The last time the CDC con-
ducted that same survey, in 2013, the number was almost ex-
actly the same: 46.8 percent said they had engaged in sexual
intercourse. In other words, close to half of high school students
report that they have had sex at least once, and that number has
remained about the same for more than ten years. As these sta-
tistics show, sex is a topic that affects a large number of teens.
Teen Sex in the United States
The CDC is the most comprehensive source of information
about the sexual behavior of US teens. Every two years since
1991 it has been conducting a national survey of high school
students called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This survey
monitors some of the main types of behavior that put youth at
risk, including sexual behavior, and it provides details about
numerous sexual activities and trends among teens. In addi-
tion to showing that almost half of all high school students have
had sex, CDC statistics reveal that the number of females who
have had sex compared to males is about the same. Although
sexual activity does not vary much by gender, it does vary sig-
nificantly by age: older teens are more likely to have had sex
than younger teens. According to the CDC, about 64 percent of
twelfth-graders have had sex, 54 percent of eleventh-graders,
41 percent of tenth-graders, and 30 percent of ninth-graders.
