Gettin' some doesn't come cheap.

With the latest events surrounding Planned Parenthood, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much it costs to be responsibly sexually active. Birth control, condoms, PAP smears, STI tests, and Plan B — it adds up fast!

In Canada, the cost of medical tests are usually covered under our provincial health care. As far as birth control goes, my school’s health insurance plan covers the vast majority of the cost every month, leaving me to pay a tab that usually ends up anywhere between $3 and $5.

But for Americans without access to insurance or an institution like Planned Parenthood, the cost of having a healthy active sex life can be huge. Prices tend to vary from place to place, but according to the Planned Parenthood website, here are some ball-park figures of how expensive it is to get sexy:

Standard medical exam (needed in order to receive a BC prescription): $35-$250

The Pill: $15 – $50 per month

NuvaRing: $15 – $70 per month

Depo-Provera: $35 – $75 per injection (4 injections per year)

Ortho Evra (the patch): $15 – $70 per month Read More »

Talking sex with your doctor isn’t always easy. Whether you are afraid she or he will judge you,  you just don’t feel comfortable sharing the intimate details of your life between the sheets, or you can’t think straight with a speculum between your legs, many people get tight lipped in the doctor’s office. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have questions.

We thought we’d help and every Thursday our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin will be answering your questions. The ones you couldn’t ask your doctor in person and didn’t really trust the Yahoo community to answer for you. Just leave your questions in the comments, or send em over to us. (We’ll keep it all anonymous for you.) Dr. Lissa will answer anything – really, anything – about sex and other lady things. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: I am weighing my birth control options with my boyfriend. There are so many different choices now, so which is the least likely to fail? Any help would be appreciated!

A: In my opinion, the two reversible birth control options that are the most reliable are the Mirena IUD and Depo-Provera. Other hormonal contraceptives are also highly effective if used correctly.  Barrier methods, such as condoms and the diaphragm, are the least effective for pregnancy prevention.  To help you, I’ll go through each birth control method, one by one. Read More »

We talk a lot about birth control around here (a natural progression from our daily musings about sex). We think its ability to stop babies is pretty badass, but many of us aren’t sure if that is worth all the crappy side effects: headaches, bloat, moodiness, debilitating cramps….We seriously thought we had it pretty bad until we found out that all of our suffering was nothing compared to those unlucky ladies who opted for the birth control patch.

While it was marketed as every woman’s dream birth control option (“Lower estrogen! Lasts all month! No need to remember those pesky daily pills!”), it has recently become every woman’s worst nightmare.

“The patch actually delivered much higher doses of estrogen than the pill; Johnson & Johnson failed to reveal this to the public for six years. At least fifty deaths have been attributed to the patch because of this, with thousands more women reporting alarming symptoms.”

The people behind the patch have been dealing with major lawsuits from patch users who experienced blood clots, strokes and heart attacks! Read More »