Much ado has been made lately of the new New York City sex ed curriculum, including things like asking high school students to study condom brands, prices and features and referring students to Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice website for more information, says Slate’s XX Factor. The New York Daily News reports that “the city’s two GOP congressman backed a call for an abstinence-based curriculum as an alternative to the city’s required sex ed programs.” (Parents, by the way, can let have their child “opt out” of birth control discussions).

Meanwhile, in Finland, the teacher’s tool kit for their new, more explicit ed classes looks like something out of your local adult toy boutique. It includes plastic genitals, condoms, lubes and brochures. The Helsinki website YLE.fi reports that “Apart from the act itself, the new syllabus covers issues like self-awareness, emotions, homosexuality and cultural differences.”

Wait … emotions? You means there are emotions around sex education...besides anger?

One of the cultural differences noted by an official from the Finnish Aids Counsel, was this: “When young Finns go abroad, they need to understand that it is not normal everywhere to strip naked in a dressing room in front of everybody.”

The latest stats we could find were from 2007 but at that time the teen birth rate in Finland was 9.1 per 1,000 girls age 15-19. In the U.S. it was 42.5. Just sayin’.