A birth control update, a family mistake
Breaking down some news headlines of the week
Hey horny readers! Next week, we’re celebrating one year of this newsletter! I’m feeling nostalgic and preparing some personal stories. This week, I’m breaking down some important current events, like over-the-counter birth control, and a misguided family who moved to Russia.
As always, thank you so much for reading the ADULT SEX ED newsletter! If you’re enjoying it, please share with friends, so they can be hilariously informed.
Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
Ready to get a little smarter? Okay, let’s go!
A BIRTH CONTROL UPDATE
In the next few weeks, the first non-prescription birth control will be available in the United States online and at stores like CVS and Walgreens for $19.99 a month. Approved by the FDA last year, Opill will be the most effective birth control method available without a prescription (more than condoms, spermicides, etc). This is a groundbreaking update for people who previously had to deal with time, transportation, costs or other logistical hurdles.
This update actually faced only a small amount of backlash. Maybe because Opill is not a new medication — it was approved for prescription use 50 years ago! This is the latest update in the long history of birth control, which I covered in the first newsletter I wrote last year. Birth control methods have been around since the beginning of time. Also prevalent since ancient times - the belief that preventing pregnancy is a woman’s responsibility. Since next week is the one-year anniversary of this newsletter, let’s revisit that first post today.
The Ancient Greeks used pomegranates. Egyptians stuffed themselves with a paste of crocodile dung and honey. Whenever men invented it, it was usually just poison. You can read it here:
ANOTHER STORY I’M READING: THE ONE ABOUT THE FAMILY WHO MOVED TO RUSSIA TO ESCAPE THE GAYS
A friend sent me a news story (you can read it here), both hilarious and depressing, about a right-wing Canadian family who picked up and moved to Russia to “escape LGBT ideology” and is now upset with their choice for various reasons. To escape the gays, this homophobic couple, a farmer and his wife, moved their family of ten to the epicenter of ballet. The headquarters of figure skating. A country where an arched-eyebrowed dictator kills his opposition with poison, like a flamboyant Disney villain.
Joking aside, Russia has enacted policies like policing the “demonstration” of LGBTQ “behavior” in recent years and has positioned itself as a bastion of "traditional" values. They’ve even been courting Conservative Americans and Canadians who a Russian immigration lawyer claims would want to move there because, “today they have 70 genders, and who knows what will come next.” So this family was tricked into giving up their personal freedoms and moving to Russia because they were seeking protection from gay ideology that they apparently couldn’t get on their rural farm. They were in for a rude awakening when then posted a video criticizing the country that angered the Kremlin.
Many Americans, myself included have a false sense that Canadians are our liberal neighbors up north (I think it’s the healthcare). But Canada also has a right-wing and sex ed in Canada is having the same reckoning as it is in the United States. Similarly, it’s not regulated nationally, but provincially. In reality, there’s no secret gay or trans agenda being taught in schools. There aren’t “70 genders” either.
Challenge your beliefs. Ask yourself important questions. If you don’t, you might end up in a Russian village mourning your old life.
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Hey
The birth control news has been making me so happy! A little bit of hope in the quagmire of bad news that never seems to go away.