Photo: CTV Television Network
Degrassi (née Degrassi: The Next Generation) is well into its twelfth season, again airing this summer every weekday, telenovela-style. The show has never shied away from splashy or controversial topics, and it might actually be the most progressive series ever when it comes to issues of sex and sexuality. In fact, there’s nothing Degrassi loves more than issues, and dealing with them, and talking about them, and asking a grown-up for help with them, and exploring all the facets of them, and treating everyone with respect. Issues, you guys! These are the 239 issues the show has dealt with so far, in approximately chronological order up through last night’s episode.
- Avoiding Internet predators
- Negotiating school with a new stepsibling
- Being fat
- Having a fat friend
- Stealing your fat friend’s crush
- Gay dads
- Your First Period
- Spending too much time with your first girlfriend
- Dyscalculia
- Insect infestations
- Vandalism
- When a bird poops on you on your first date ever
- The differences between a spirit squad and a cheerleading team
- Having to repeat a grade
- Becoming a plus-size model
- Accidentally taking Ecstasy at a middle-school house party
- Abusive parents
- When your mom dates your teacher
- When the bully has an adopted sister (but only for, like, one season)
- Inopportune boners
- Making fun of your friends’ inopportune boners
- The dangers of unsanitary piercings
- Sharing lockers
- Date rape
- Battles of the bands
- Writing a battle of the bands song about date rape
- Eating disorders
- Islamophobia
- Being too good at sewing
- Unplanned pregnancy (parent-age edition)
- Getting a crush on your science teacher based on the way she gingerly takes care of guinea pigs
- Palm-reading
- Stealing from your friends
- Having rich friends
- Opposing genetically modified foods
- Being a beard
- Coming out
- Competing to be Luau King and Queen
- The dangers of LSD
- Finding out your birth father has severe brain damage thanks to what happened to him while he was on LSD
- Home births
- Your stepdad trying to join your band
- Sexual awakenings
- Brain cancer
- Homophobia
- Self-harm
- Secret admirers
- Raves!
- Stealing someone’s boyfriend
- Someone stealing your boyfriend
- Cheating on your girlfriend
- Intimate partner violence
- Losing one’s virginity
- Uplanned pregnancy (teenager edition)
- Abortion
- Detention
- Comas
- Another battle of the bands
- More stealing
- Making smart investments with your inheritance
- Anxiety about penis size
- Teasing someone about his penis size
- Taking care of a ferret
- Kissing contests
- Bullying
- School shootings
- Getting shot
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Losing your virginity at your gay dad’s wedding
- Giving PTSD-induced blow jobs in a van
- Getting oral gonorrhea
- Having a crush on a student teacher
- Actually dating that student teacher
- Being in a wheelchair
- Wanting to burn down your school
- Donating blood
- Not being allowed to donate blood because you’re gay
- Being in a Kevin Smith movie
- Taking your top off at a party
- Filming someone taking her top off at a party
- Sending a film of someone taking her top of at a party to everyone at school
- Going to school after everyone has seen a video of you taking your top off at a party
- Uplanned pregnancy (teenager edition II)
- Placing a baby for adoption
- Trying to fit in with the wheelchair-basketball crowd
- Dealing drugs
- Attempting suicide
- Having your first lesbian crush
- Acting on your first lesbian crush
- Asking Kevin Smith for advice on acting on your first lesbian crush
- Joining a Christian club just to impress a girl
- Telling your Christian girlfriend you’re a virgin when you’re not
- Eating disorders, again
- The dangers of street racing
- Getting left back because of all the school you missed when you were shot
- Not being able to get erections thanks to that time you got shot
- Being a teen mom
- Posting naughty photos of yourself on the Internet
- Not being able to forgive your girlfriend for that time she gave a PTSD-induced blow job in a van near a ravine
- Drug addiction
- Murder
- Dealing with your ex-boyfriend (and baby daddy)’s murder
- Wanting to play professional hockey
- Gambling addiction
- Stealing, again
- Stripping
- Joining the army
- Having to merge schools with the people who murdered your baby daddy
- Starting a podcast
- Getting roofied
- Date rape
- Attempted suicide
- Making false accusations against a teacher
- Testicular cancer
- Prostitution
- Fake engagements
- Fake engagements that turn into real engagements
- Accidentally sending in your sex tape with a college application
- Having sex with someone who did not disclose that he is HIV positive
- Wanting to be religious, even though everyone makes fun of you for it
- Wanting not to be in your sibling’s shadow
- Having Aspergers
- Becoming a model
- Being the only girl on the football team
- Bringing a vibrator to school
- Wanting your bad-boy boyfriend to support you at robot wars
- Your parents not approving of your interracial relationship
- Getting suspending for starting a Facebook hate group
- Being molested by your father
- Getting shot at work
- Trying to make your girlfriend less high-strung
- The dangers of sexting nude photos of yourself to your bad-boy boyfriend (who did not really support you at robot wars)
- Taking over as the lead singer in your ex-boyfriend’s band
- Renting a loft from one of the rich kids
- Finding warts on your penis
- Telling your girlfriend about those warts on your penis
- Trashing locker rooms
- Lying about how much you love LARPing
- LARPing
- Coping with your girlfriend getting LARP-married
- Managing your anger issues
- Becoming a lifeguard
- Accepting one’s own sexuality
- Realizing your basketball coach doesn’t just want to share beers and watch porn; he wants to molest you
- Auditioning for musicals
- Figuring out who pays on dates
- Arranged marriage
- Lying about being on the pill
- Taking the morning-after pill
- Having sex dreams
- Writing vampire fan-fiction about your sex dreams
- Cheating on math tests
- Coming out to your football team
- Incest
- Faking a pregnancy
- Intimate partner violence, again
- Getting laser eye surgery
- Living with your mom at a halfway house when she gets out of prison
- Throwing a “hands on a hard body†contest
- Sharting on your cheerleading team because you took diet pills that cause anal leakage
- Buying a teacup pig
- Being transgender
- Getting outed as trans
- Supporting your friend as he transitions to living as a boy
- Breast cancer
- Unplanned pregnancy (teenage edition, part III)
- Confronting your grief over your girlfriend’s off-screen death
- Becoming an alcoholic
- Giving blow jays in the boiler room
- Anticipating getting a blow jay in the boiler room
- Prostituting yourself for $50
- Bringing a knife to a school dance
- Divorce
- Being a hoarder
- Finding out your boyfriend is a hoarder
- Stealing, again
- The danger of playing with tasers
- Lying about being 18 so you can date a doctor
- Taking mushrooms before your basketball game
- Finding Jesus and wanting forgiveness after you brought a knife to the school dance
- Developing a crush on the guy who found Jesus and wants forgiveness for bringing a knife to the school dance
- Stalking
- Developing kidney failure because you were too busy to get your strep throat treated
- Announcing your love of pogo-sticking
- Getting sexually harassed at CPR class
- Discovering that you’re a lesbian
- Realizing your teen boyfriend will be a bad father
- Gang violence
- Accidentally killing the gang member who was attempting to rape you
- Trying to take the fall for your girlfriend by claiming you killed her attempted rapist
- Taking antianxiety medication
- Stealing girls’ underwear
- Stealing your teacher’s underwear
- Photographing women’s underwear
- Creating an app about all the women’s underwear you’ve photographed
- Cheating on your baby mama
- Trying cocaine
- Looooooving cocaine
- Discovering you’re adopted
- Asking your birth mom for a kidney
- Having your birth mom offer to sell you her kidney for $20,000
- Deciding to place your 6-month-old up for adoption
- Cage-fighting
- Joining the army to deal with that cocaine habit
- Surprising everyone with your poker skills
- Getting addicted to poker
- Framing your romantic rival for drug possession
- Eating disorders, again
- Missing prom for your kidney transplant
- Getting shot at the prom
- Realizing your mom is dating your boyfriend’s dad
- Dating your stepsibling
- Going to a haunted cabin
- Pinning a vandalism crime on the weird girl
- Developing a crush on the weird girl
- Getting mad when the weird girl makes an art project about your bipolar disorder
- Stealing your mom’s pain medication
- Becoming addicted to pain medication
- Joining a cult
- Discovering that cult is a drug cartel
- Regretting placing your baby for adoption
- Not regretting placing your baby for adoption
- The inherent drama of Model U.N.
- Falling for the queen bee
- Using your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend to get you more pain medication
- ODing on pain medication
- Going to a strip club
- Coping with your parents’ financial ruin
- Wishing more people respected your cello skills
- Getting so drunk you don’t remember losing your virginity to your girlfriend, who was once addicted to pain medication
- Wearing chicken cutlets
- Developing a breathalyzer-style cancer-screening technique
- Ousting the Christian homophobe from the school play
- Stealing, again
- Getting baptized to impress a crush
- Being humiliated on Twitter