By age 18, what percentage of men have had oral sex with another male

1. What the major surveys actually measure — and why that matters

National data sources differ in question wording, age bands and timeframes: the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and CDC reports often ask whether respondents “ever” had specific sexual acts or partner sexes across wide age ranges (e.g., 15–44), yielding headline lifetime prevalences, whereas youth summaries tend to report “sexual experience” or behaviors among 15–19‑year‑olds without always separating oral from other same‑sex contact; that mismatch in measurement means direct comparisons (for example, a figure for “by 18” versus “ever in adulthood”) can mislead unless the source and question are specified ^{[4] [5] [6]}.

2. The short answer from representative US surveys: roughly 3–6 percent

A consistent picture emerges from authoritative reporting: older NSFG tabulations and CDC summaries reported about 6% of men (across broader adult age ranges) had ever engaged in oral sex with another man, a figure that has been cited in multiple summaries and specialist sites ^{[2] [3]}. When the focus is tightened to teenagers, youth‑oriented data indicate lower rates of same‑sex sexual experience among males: one CDC‑linked youth summary reports about 3% of males age 15–19 had any same‑sex sexual experience, a figure that likely captures oral as well as other forms of contact but does not isolate oral sex alone ^[1].

3. Why “by age 18” must be reported as a range and not a point

There is no single published statistic that asks “what percent of males have had oral sex with another male by their 18th birthday”; available reports give either lifetime measures for broad adult cohorts or grouped teen prevalence of any same‑sex sexual experience ^{[2] [3] [1]}. Because teen surveys combine different acts and because self‑reporting of same‑sex acts is sensitive to question framing and social context, a defensible, transparent answer is a range: roughly 3% (based on teen surveys of any same‑sex experience) up to about 6% (based on lifetime oral‑sex measures reported for broader adult samples) ^{[1] [2]}.

4. Differences by age bracket, cohort and method inflate apparent change

Younger age bands (e.g., 18–24) sometimes show higher percentages of same‑sex or oral‑sex reporting than older cohorts in cross‑sectional data, but that can reflect cohort differences, greater willingness to report, or survey design rather than real changes in behavior over the teen years; some sources report near‑10% figures for oral contact with male partners among 18–24 year olds in non‑government summaries, which highlights how sampling and question wording push estimates upward or downward ^{[7] [8]}.

5. Caveats, alternative interpretations and what remains unknown

All estimates rest on imperfect measures: social desirability bias can suppress reports of same‑sex acts among teens, question wording varies (e.g., “sexual experience” vs. act‑specific queries), and many summaries do not disaggregate “giving” versus “receiving” oral sex or isolate age‑at‑first‑same‑sex‑oral; consequently, the safest phrasing is that only a small minority of males report same‑sex oral contact by late adolescence, with credible national benchmarks clustering in the low single digits for teens and around 6% in lifetime adult samples ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

6. Reporting implications and where to dig deeper

Journalists, clinicians and educators should cite the underlying NSFG/CDC tables when making claims about teens and same‑sex oral behavior and avoid extrapolating lifetime adult percentages to “by 18” without qualifiers; targeted questions about age at first same‑sex oral contact in future national surveys would resolve the ambiguity, but until then the best-available evidence supports describing the phenomenon as uncommon but measurable — on the order of a few percent by late adolescence, increasing modestly in adulthood ^{[5] [6]}.