Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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Apparently Canada's teen pregnancy rate has dropped 37% over the past decade. I have to say I'm pretty proud of my country.

In Ontario, we have a mandatory sex education unit in gym class our freshman year of high school. It covers everything from safer sex to birth control to abortions. In my class we mostly just watched movies, read textbooks and pamphlets, and wrote tests, although I heard in my younger sister's class they even did that whole condoms-on-a-banana thing. I remember being sick for one of the days, but my friend told me our gym teacher was willing to frankly discuss sex, the clitoris, and even her favourite positions to use with her husband. I imagine this doesn't exactly happen in America.

Seriously, everything is covered in that grade 9 class. Biology, terminology, every method of birth control you could think of.. The lucky ones even watched the Miracle of Life video in 9th grade science class... yeah, you know the one.. where you witness an honest-to-god birth and the whole class cringes and chokes back vomit in unison.

In college it gets even better. My university offered entire in-depth semester-long courses in Human Sexuality (in fact it was my major), gave out condoms and pamphlets about HPV during frosh week, and offered an incredible discount on the Gardasil shot for female students. To get birth control or the Plan B pill (for free!), all you had to do was walk into the walk-in clinic on campus, talk to a nurse, and there you go. No fuss, no misinformation, no shame (although of course they do like to give you a million pamphlets while you're in there).

Canada's system may not be perfect - there's a lack of education on the social/emotional side of sex for sure - but it's damn near close. I hope some day soon American teenagers will also be provided with the education they deserve to make informed decisions about their sex lives the same way we are.