Sometimes, the “add to playlist” randomness of my podcast app provides a wonderful walk for my afternoon, and today was one of those days. While my dogs stretch out on the linoleum with their feet out behind them, thumping their tails with post-walkies bliss, let me share a few episodes that rocked my brain recently. It’s Podcast Episode Recommendation time!
First: two from Simplify. This podcast is from the folks who make Blinkist, which are microsummaries, or “blinks,” of popular books. The podcast is consistently interesting and thoughtful, and these two new episodes are kickass.
Emily Nagoski: Pleasure is the Measure features Bitches-fave Emily Nagoski talking about…you guessed it, pleasure and sexuality. You can find this episode on Stitcher, iTunes, or on the Simplify website.
This episode pairs brilliantly with Dr. Emily Brotto: Make Sex More Mindful. Dr. Brotto talks about applying mindfulness techniques to sex and desire, and the identification of desire as an emotion – susceptible to external stimulation and triggers, and not a “drive,” i.e. a predetermined force that happens regardless of stimuli. You can find this episode on Stitcher, iTunes, or on the Simplify website.
THEN another podcast was mentioned in the coda, which I hurriedly bookmarked to listen to in the future: OnBeing: Bessel Van Der Kolk, on How Trauma Lodges in the Body. Van der Kolk’s book,The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, is about how memory is a “sensory experience,” one that doesn’t merely reside in the brain.
Also of note: I also interviewed Emily Nagoski twice for my podcast. In one episode, 186. Come As You Are – Sexuality and Romance: An Interview with Emily Nagoski, PhD, the conversation is an interview. In the second, 201. Cross Stitching and Neuroscience: A Follow Up Interview with Emily Nagoski, she answers listener email, an act of tremendously appreciated generosity.
Then, as I kept walking, since it’s a beautiful day, a new episode of Still Processing queued up, and of course Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris were talking about sexuality and self love.
In “We Get It On (With Ourselves)” Morris and Wortham talk about the things that bring us pleasure, and the deliberate seeking of pleasure when our daily lives are filled with traumatic news. They also discuss the demise of the Craigslist Personal Ads. Then, there’s this part:
Then we share some our personal tips for maintaining and nurturing that feeling once you find it. Finally we jam out to some of our all-time favorite songs of seduction, from k.d. lang to Beyoncé to Cardi B, and explain why exactly they make us feel the way they do.
Of course there is a Spotify playlist. You can find this episode on the Still Processing website, on Stitcher, and on iTunes.
As I was writing this, news of the Cosby verdict arrived, so I want to be extra cautious about potential trigger warnings or painful content. Most of these episodes mention sexual trauma or physical trauma to some degree, and they explore scientific and meditative coping mechanisms and dealing with past harm. I don’t want you to feel unsafe, so take care of you, ok?
If anyone needs yet more suggestions, the podcast “Sexing History” is awesome- Episode 5 on 1970s Evangelical marriage manuals might be particularly thematic but I’ve loved every episode I’ve listened to so far.
Oooh – thank you for the recommendation. That sounds really fascinating.
Here are some podcast episodes I have recently listened to and would highly recommend!
From Planet Money #831 The Golden Rules (about how people claim a stake to mine for gold), #834 NDA Tell All (especially informative given current headlines), #836 The Rational Madness of the Used Car Salesman, and #838 A Series of Mysterious Packages (about people who have been receiving random deliveries of things addressed to them but they didn’t order)?
The episode from Science Friday published on April 5th had a long segment about animals that fart and animals that do not fart – the discussion was educational and fun.
From This American Life: #642 The Impossible Dream (following on Republican senator as he tries to get a DACA fix brought to the floor for a vote), #643 Damned If You Do (about people forced to choose between only things that are bad) and #304 Heretics (a repeat, but an excellent episode about an evangelical pastor who decided he didn’t believe in hell anymore and the fallout he faced as a result).
From RadioLab: Father K (about an Arab Christian minister from Palestine who wants to run for city council in New York City to give voice to the Arab population there, Match Made in Marrow (what happens when a marrow donor and recipient see their story differently), How to Be a Hero (why does someone risk their life to save a complete stranger) and Smarty Plants (about the new science suggesting that plants may “learn” and “hear”).
I’m not sure if you’ve heard or, well, if you’ll wish you HADN’T heard once you have, but… Chuck Tingle has a podcast now. The famous/notorious writer of gleefully ridiculous horrible parody erotica has teamed up with the Night Vale Presents folks to create “Pounded in the Butt by my Own Podcast”, in which professional actors read Tingle’s “classic” works aloud before a live audience.
We’re up to four episodes now. I haven’t heard the most recent two yet because I’m, well, listening to them with an online friend in possibly the weirdest long distance playdate activity ever. But the first two episodes, Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt (read by Cecil Baldwin, of Welcome to Night Vale fame) and Butt Wars: Rogue Buns (read by Mara Wilson, former child star and current generally awesome person) had me doubled over in hysterical laughter.