Teen sex is all up in my Google Reader this week and not because the characters in Glee were getting it on.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention released new statistics that the U.S. teen birth rate is declining. Between 2009 and 2010 the rate dropped nine percent to a record low. It’s dropping not because less teens are having sex (it’s staying about the same), but because — surprise, surprise — because teens that are having sex have started using contraceptives.

And for all you pro-lifers out there, relax, because teens are not only having less babies, but they’re also having less abortions. Being able to prevent pregnancies means teens are less apt to put themselves in a situation where they would want an abortion.

While cross-country the teen birth rate average is dropping, the University of Georgia released a study showing the correlation to higher birth rates and abstinence-only education. Fact: when people know how to use contraceptives (and have access to them) they are no more likely to have sex, they’re just less likely to get pregnant. So can we all just agree that abstinence-only isn’t work. Please.

Sticking to the topic of teen sex, concerned parents of American can stop fretting that popular culture is hurting their children. The Associated Press and MTV combined forces to do a study on teen sexting. Survey says only one percent of kids 10 to 17 are sending racy photos of themselves (either online or via text). A similar survey done in August showed that five percent of 14 to 17 year olds had sent nude photos of themselves.

While it does get higher for older youth, it still isn’t representative of the ALL TEENS ARE SEXTING message which is often painted. Parents, what you might want to be asking yourself, is why your 10 year old needs a cellphone with a camera. Or have their own laptop. Seriously.

What’s a political campaign without sex? A McCain campaign ad once accused Obama of trying to pass a bill incorporating sex ed into kindergarten classrooms. Of course, Obama doesn’t even need to utter the “s” word when McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, has the poster family for the need for sex education.

Maybe Palin’s daughter should’ve been given a sex ed lecture in kindergarten. Maybe, in the wake of the Gloucester school girls and celebrity teen momdom, we should consider revamping our sex ed policies, rather than letting Ellen Paige serve as an instructor when Juno comes out on DVD. I took sex ed. And now, I have sex. Sometimes quite freely.

There’s still a lot that I don’t know, and some stuff I know now that I wish I’d learned in sixth grade sex ed class:

-Sex is NOT synonymous with love. It can be, but it isn’t always. Sex is synonymous with physical attraction, hormones, and judgment (note that I didn’t specify “good” or “bad” judgment).

-Sex changes everything. It can burn bridges, create awkward situations, and ruin friendships. However, it can also take a relationship to the next level, or allow you to see your partner in a completely different light. It can be good, it can be bad, but either way, once you’ve crossed that line… there’s no going back.

-Sex can be fun. Why don’t they talk about Kama Sutra, tantra, sex toys, or kinky fantasies in sex ed? It’s all “have sex and get pregnant,” or “have sex and get herpes” talk. But if you’re safe and consenting, sex can turn into an amusement park with all of the different rides it has to offer.

-Sex doesn’t always work. There’s sloppy sex. There’s the sex that just isn’t going to end in mutual orgasms. There’s sex that you thought you wanted to have, until it happens. Shake it off — we can’t all be stars in a Brad Pitt love scene.

-Sex can be good for your health. The endorphins released when a female orgasms acts as a powerful painkiller*. Cramping from killer PMS? Mild exercise (like sex) can help ease the pain as well.

-Sexually active does NOT mean slutty (or stupid!). Did you know that women with college degrees are more likely to enjoy giving and receiving oral sex than high school drop outs*? How about that women with PhD’s are twice as likely to seek a one-night-stand than those who stopped at the Bachelors*?

I still feel like I’m coming up short here, ladies. All of our sex ed regimes were different– what did your teachers neglect to inform you during 5th period Health Class?

*Facts courtesy of The Sex E-Zine. Learn all you wanted to know (and a lot you didn’t want to know) about knocking boots here!

[This story was originally posted by Kathryn S.]

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I wear push-up bras and high heels. I go gaga for lip gloss and lipstick, nail polish, and heavy eye-make up . And I’m not even going to lie, I’m a sucker for pouty boys that call me ma’am. But besides my affinity for sundresses, pearls, and men in ties, I’m a feminist. In fact, I’ve always considered myself to be one. But despite my own declaration in the fight for gender equality, this doesn’t seem possible to people.

“How can you be a feminist?” I’m asked all the time. “Do you even know what that means?”

While feminism can mean different things to different people, I’ve often felt like I didn’t fit the mold — like I wasn’t the ideal. Like I couldn’t claim it. And then it hit me: Feminism can be whatever you need it to be. And sometimes, what you need it to be will change from time to time.

This powerful realization hit me as an 18-year-old young woman sitting in on my first Women’s Studies class at a small, private, all-women university. This moment of feminist clarity has always stuck with me, and now as a 23-year-old post-grad, I am constantly revisiting feminism and its applicability in my ever changing life. Although feminism, even in 2011, often still sounds like a dirty word with a negative connotation, I’m constantly surprised at the way feminism finds itself in my day to day life — it really does come in all shapes, sizes, issues, prospects, and in all kinds of different people. And despite being so diverse and so varying from time to time, I’m still relieved that I can make feminism something all my own.

I like to think that I’ve been a feminist from the beginning. When I was seven years old, wearing overalls and pigtails, I remember raising my hand over and over again in class to answer the questions being asked by my teacher. I’d sit up as straight as possible and inch my hand higher and higher into the sky. I had something to say. I wanted to be heard. But instead, the boys in my class would always be the first called on. I would often come home and cry. “My teacher doesn’t like the girls, she doesn’t listen to us like she does the boys.” At the time, I didn’t have the words for it, but I knew it wasn’t fair. Instead of sitting back and taking it, though, I went with my parents to the annual parent-teacher conference and asked my teacher, “Why do you only call on the boys?” She didn’t have an answer, but from that point on she never overlooked my eager hand. This made me realize that sometimes speaking up can make a world of difference, and I like to think of this as my first moment of personal activism.

In high school, I refused to participate in the abstinence only sex-education program. I may have been sixteen, but I couldn’t sit there without throwing up my hand. “What about condoms? What about STDS? What about things that will actually prevent pregnancy and keep us safe?” I was silenced and shushed, but it lit the fire in me — a fire that came alive the minute I stepped foot onto my college campus. In college, I was always changing as a feminist — always.

There was the year I spent reading nothing but feminist literature; everything from Helen Cixous to Katha Pollit, Gloria Steinem to Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, and Bell Hooks to Ingrid Musico. There was the summer I spent interning for two of my favorite feminist authors in New York City. There was the year I ran the speakers’ bureau chair on campus and hosted the transgendered performance artist Kate Bornstein and the quick-witted blogger and author Jessica Valenti. There was the year I rejected all Women’s Studies classes — after I was told that I didn’t look feminist enough — and just spent time focusing on defining my gender and social beliefs through my own lens, even if that means sparkly pink nail polish and writing letters to my congressman by myself.

There were so many feminist discoveries throughout the last few years. Like the time I posed nude as Miss January 2009 for a feminist charity calendar. And there was the time I sold carrot cake cupcakes for a Wage Gap bake sale that charged men $1 and women only 72 cents. There were times when I was tired of talking about feminism and women’s issues, but at a women’s college it was inevitable. And then there were times when I couldn’t get enough and I didn’t understand why there wasn’t room for discussion about this in a quantitative reasoning class. Sometimes I would feel like a super feminist, and other times, not so much. Some days, feminism would be on my mind. And of course, some days, it won’t even cross my thoughts.

And while this fickle romance of always trying to work towards what I believe in isn’t perfect, it’s my journey. It’s ever-changing, but it’s exactly what I need it to be — when I need it to be. Feminism fascinates me in the way it’s solid but fleeting in my life. For example, my beliefs on abortion, breaking the glass ceiling, sexual assault, women’s education, contraceptives and abstinence-only education haven’t changed throughout the years, but how I apply feminism into my day-to-day life, whether it’s a job or in a romantic relationship, is constantly changing and evolving.

I’m not a perfect feminist (is anyone, really?), and I’m never claiming to be, but this is how it works for me. Some days, I’m ready with an iron-fist to protest and shout…in my heels and lipstick. And some days, I’m quiet and passive and just want to think about what Bell Hooks truly meant in Communion. But I personally want this feminist juxtaposition; the constant reminder that feminism is here, it’s mine, and it’s something I can always make my own just clicks for me, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

[Check out the Feminist Portrait Blog Carnival to read other women's inspiring stories of their feminist "click" moments.]

What if Bristol Palin wasn’t getting child support from the sale of nude photos of her uber-hick baby daddy?

What if Sarah Palin taught her daughter about contraception before Levi put his P in her V?

What if Bristol didn’t have a team of hair stylists with a Bump-It arsenal?

What if they couldn’t see Russia from their house?

What if Bristol didn’t spend her life complaining about being a mom and telling the world how much she regrets having a child?

Yeah, we get it: being a teen mom is hard. But maybe it’s time to stop bitching about it and start doing something, anything, else*.

*Excludes running for office/starring in a reality TV show about your Alaskan life. We’ve had enough of the Palin family, thankyouverymuch.

For my 20th birthday last year all my friends congratulated me on surviving teen pregnancy. Although we had a little chuckle, teen pregnancy is a huge issue that is only getting worse. Honestly, with shows like I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant holding marathons every weekend I’m completely baffled as to why young girls are still getting knocked up. But they are. A lot.

Clearly these young ladies need a real lesson in Sex Ed, because whatever they’ve been taught is not sinking in. So being the baby fearing girls birth control experts that we are, CollegeCandy has put together a few rock-solid ideas to preventing teen pregnancy in this here country. If teachers and parents do things our way, teen pregnancy would be a thing of the past. And MTV would have a few time-slots to fill during the week.

1. Give them the facts.
This may seem obvious, but science has shown that teens have less of an ability to think things through and see future consequences, so it’s time to spell things out for them: Pregnancy sucks. You will get fat, you’ll act like a bitch-on-wheels, and those perky teenage boobs? Forget about them. Pregnancy can also wreak havoc on every part of your body: you’ll sprout hair in weird places, your skin will break out, your back will ache and it can even put stress on your heart and lungs. Oh, and forget about all those tasty snacks you love so much. You can’t have caffeine (which is in chocolate), nutra-sweet (see ya later, Diet Coke), un-cooked food (TTFN, sushi and lunch meat) or booze (which you shouldn’t be drinking anyway!) for 9 freaking months.

Did I mention you poop on the table when you give birth?

2. Show them their future.
If any of that doesn’t sink in, maybe it’s time to show pics of a woman’s body before and after pregnancy. I’m sure most girls would jump on a bowl of condoms if they saw all those stretch marks or realized they may never fit into their favorite skinny jeans again. On average, women should expect to gain at least 25 pounds during pregnancy, but most gain more (way more) than that, and those pounds are extremely difficult to lose when you’re taking care of a baby 24/7.

3. Give them a dose of reality.
Why not show a few episodes of Teen Mom? Watching Amber move into a dirty motel with her baby had us running to Costco for jumbo packs of Trojans.

4. Educate them.
Let’s stop with the abstinence-only education and give these girls some real information. It’s 2010 in AMERICA, for god’s sake. Even if you believe in the whole “save yourself for marriage” stuff, it’s time to arm our youth with the facts (and the condoms) so they can protect themselves.

My roommate recently told me a story. It was a bit graphic in nature, so I won’t share the dirty details here, but it involved her, her boyfriend, and an orgasm so intense she actually experienced female ejaculation.  Yeah, maybe we share a little too much information.

I was intrigued. (And slightly interested in borrowing that BF for myself…)

Female ejaculation is an elusive experience held by many men to be the epitome of female orgasm.  Why? Because it’s viewed as proof of an orgasm, a job well done. Women don’t have to worry about whether our partner enjoyed himself or not – there’s something sticky to prove it. But men aren’t as lucky; most of us can convincingly fake an orgasm if need be, and men realize this.

Squirting, or female ejaculation, however, can’t be faked. It is also something new and exciting and who doesn’t want to experience a new level of physical pleasure?

As enticing as it may be, female ejaculation is still an experience most us only hear stories about or see in porn…or Sex and The City. There’s debate about whether it even exists. I don’t doubt it exists, but my question is how, how often, and for whom? In my entire internet search, I couldn’t find one trustworthy medical site with an article on female ejaculation. The best I could do was livestrong.org (weird, I know), which says:

“Female ejaculation is thought to be a release of fluid from the Skene’s glands…  The Skene’s gland is similar to the prostate gland in guys. It produces a fluid that is similar to the chemical composition of prostatic fluid, the fluid that makes up the majority of semen. Some women may produce greater amounts of fluid from these glands than others, which explains why some women release a large amount of fluid during an orgasm while others do not… Not all women have the capability of ejaculating and those who do cannot each time they have intercourse. It is also not something that takes place every time a female experiences an orgasm.”

Great. So not only is the information hard to find, but the news isn’t so great, either. Some of us can do it and some of us cannot? Those of us who can do it can’t do it every time?  And there is no way of knowing how to make it happen?!

Despite the lack of scientific information, however, there are an abundance of first-hand accounts (like this one).  There are also guides like this one, claiming that any woman can learn how to ejaculate. But I’m skeptical; I’ve had plenty of g-spot stimulation in my life and never felt like I might explode. I have, however, had plenty of insanely intense orgasms. And that’s gonna have to be good enough for now.

You learn things from your teachers, parents, friends and peers that shape who you are as a person. People tell you to do this, to do that, that this is right, this is wrong, etc. But ultimately, when it comes down to it, what you do is your personal decision and you are going to do whatever you want, regardless of what other people are telling you. Right?

Right. And that’s the way it should be.

Sex is one of those things. If you want to have to sex, you’re going to have sex even if you are taught that abstinence is just, like, the best thing ever.

That’s why it only makes sense that federal funding for abstinence-only education was cut from the budget in the House subcommittee. The study ordered by Congress from two years ago proving that “students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not” has FINALLY been acknowledged and acted upon. Seriously, its about time.

We could have saved over a billion dollars if we had realized this before Bristol Palin got knocked up and started telling the world how terrible being a teen mother is, but what’s done is done. At least she’s helping to populate Alaska. Let’s just be happy that the decision has been made and kids in many parts of this country will not be exposed to “Keep it in your pants” lectures. Instead, these current funds once devoted to abstinence-only programs will be directed to “a new teenage pregnancy prevention initiative, with an emphasis on comprehensive sex education.” (Editor’s Note: Just show those kids an episode of 16 and Pregnant. That’ll teach them to wrap it up.)

But despite the vote on Capital Hill, some people still need a little convincing. Leslee Unruh, President of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse (sounds like a really fun place), is not so happy about the cuts. “We’ve got news for the condom worshippers, abstinence education is not going away any time soon. Taxpayers will not tolerate their money being used for ideological latex-only programs and the molestation of their children’s minds and future.”

Wow, looks like someone needs to get laid.

Abstinence and sex education was a hot-button issue in our recent election.  It was also a funny and ironic topic, considering the events that played out.  The Republican party was making grand speeches about abstinence-only education and the virtues of waiting until marriage (a la The Jonas Brothers) while Bristol Palin was out getting knocked up.  Hah.  Apparently she doesn’t watch Jon & Katie Plus 8 (or do any babysitting), ’cause that pretty much closes up shop downtown for me.

As long as people continue having sex before marriage, there will be people trying to stop them.  The best part about this (well, the only good part, actually) is the advertising.  Here are the Top 5 Funniest Abstinence Ads Ever. If these don’t make you want to change your sexy ways, I’m not sure what will:

I always knew deep down that engineers could never get laid, and now I know it’s true:

Do you think you get a thank-you note for that? (You know, besides the inability to sit for three days…)

Pretty sure abstinence isn’t a choice for the guy in the middle:

Old school, yet effective. Nothing like a little fear (and a cartoon dictator) to keep people’s legs closed.

Iowa’s abstinence mission tries so hard to be hip and with it. They get us, they really get us!

Americans are well known for their affection for, and addiction to, theme parks.  We have Disney Land, Disney World, Lego Land, Sea World, and a plethora of other immensely entertaining places.  What we don’t have is a theme park about sex.  Guess who else doesn’t have one?  China.

While that may sound like a no-brainer, China was recently set to open a theme park called Love Land.  It was meant to promote open sexual discussion in a society where tradition and conservatism still reign with an iron fist.  The park was to feature huge reproductions of male and female genitalia, how-to workshops and other fun activities and displays.  However, all of that was razed today after a weekend inspection by government officials deemed the park vulgar and sensational.  Well, duh, but how awesome is that?

The question is: where’s ours?  Don’t we as Americans, especially young and virile Americans, deserve a theme park dedicated to our favorite pastime?  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Mickey Mouse and friends, but I would much rather spend a hot summer day sweating it up on sex toys and whatnot than random cartoon characters (because that’s just creepy).

Just think of all the possibilities: roller coasters based on the Kama Sutra (“It’s a wild ride!”), water slides that really get you wet (tee hee), and a nightly fireworks display that heats things up.

Now that China has put its foot down and stomped out the sexy times, is an erotic theme park fated to be only a delicious pipe dream for those long summer days?  For those lucky enough to be in the general area of South Korea, the answer is no!  Love Land actually exists on Jeju Island and visitors can experience many of the same exhibitions and activities that were set to open in China: giant statues of genitalia, how-to masturbation and sex position exhibits, and lots of yummy works of erotic art.

Masturbation? Art? Penis? Sex? Hot Asian men? How much is a plane ticket to South Korea again? Oh yeah….  Well, until the day comes where I can get a flight to South Korea for less than the price of an entire semester, I’ll have to settle for the American Love Land.

As in, the Love Land that exists in all of our bedrooms and can’t be torn down. Take that, China!

I was really interested to hear what she had to say about teenage pregnancy and sex education and interviewer, Van Susteren, delivered. Bristol was forced to answer questions such as how has her life changed, how she feels about being a mother and what was it like to tell her parents she was pregnant (to which Bristol replied, “It was, like, harder than labor”).

Bristol Palin seemed really intent on people learning from her story, which I found really admirable. Unfortunately she hasn’t really come up with a game plan on how to make that happen. Throughout the interview she seemed to be telling us to “wait, like, ten years,”  but I’m not really sure what we’re waiting for. Waiting to have sex? Waiting for sex education? Waiting for marriage? The whole thing seemed a little murky.

Especially when Susternen hit her with the big question: to abstain or not to abstain?

Bristol struggled with this question but ultimately said “everyone should be abstinent, or whatever, but its not realistic at all.” I was thrilled that in her own way she finally admitted that abstinence-only education is unrealistic, but I was still confused as to why she spent the rest of the interview stressing that teens should wait (“like, 10 years”) to have babies.

The thing that bothered me most about this interview is that she has so much power and influence to effect change, having experienced teen pregnancy in the public eye, but can’t manage to speak to the public to enforce these ideas (something that bothered me about her mother as well). For example, Bristol ends the interview by saying she hopes to be an example to learn from and an advocate to teen pregnancy. Yet, Bristol barely touches on the hardships of being a teen mother and explains how awesome it is when her son smiles back at her and how much she loves being a mom. I’m sure it is life changing and emotional to become a new mother, but I just really wish she had maybe talked about contraception and education instead of refusing to go into those details.

Then again, her mother has always been an advocate for abstinence, so maybe Bristol isn’t sure what she can or cannot believe.

In case Bristol was too shy to say it, I’ll say it for her: “Abstinence doesn’t work. Use Condoms!”