Embodied

Anita has not lived with her parents since leaving for college. But during the pandemic, many Millennials and Gen Zers returned home. For some of them, especially those with unpartnered parents, this meant new and unexpected insights into their parents’ love lives. Anita shares an episode of the podcast “Dating While Gray” that features conversations between parents and their adult kids about the...

Anita hasn't always loved getting her photo taken, but seeing herself through the artistic eye of a close friend and photographer has changed her perspective. She meets two intimate photographers who take her behind the scenes of their shoots and share their philosophies on capturing the erotic in an image. Plus, she talks with a model about her intimate work that explores disability and sexuality...

Anita agrees to a suggestion posed by a listener: Explore why the hair-pulling disorder trichotillomania is so taboo. She talks with an artist who started pulling their hair more than two decades ago but only recently told her parents…after publishing part of their story in a national news outlet. A psychologist on the front-lines of studying trich treatment talks about the importance of acceptanc...

Anita is getting married next year, which means she's been thinking a lot about money and what kind of spending aligns with her values. Turns out that her money behaviors (and yours) are shaped by experiences and beliefs that have accumulated since childhood. She talks with a financial therapist and a money coach about their work to help people better understand their money hang-ups and explores s...

The first time we did an episode about the pelvic floor, Anita learned that y'all needed that education just as much as she did. She revisits the topic with a focus on access for trans and gender nonconforming folks. Two providers reflect on the sexuality education that has informed their approaches to treatment, and a patient shares his experience navigating pelvic pain with providers who weren't...

Anita is well aware that bringing a new baby into the world is a lotttttt of work (even though she's never done it herself). But when she heard about friends and family members choosing surrogacy to build their families, she realized how little she knows about that process — and how many misconceptions exist. She talks to a three-time surrogate about why she chose this path. A father who has had a...

After Anita watched the Netflix docuseries "Keep Sweet," it was on her mind for weeks. She sat down with Elissa Wall, one of the central figures in the series, to talk about growing up in an isolated, polygamist religious community in which everything was decided for her – from what she could wear to whom she would marry. Elissa talks about adjusting to life outside the FLDS Church, her process of...

For most of guest host Omisade Burney-Scott's life, she was a reluctant viewer of horror films — squinting through her fingers long enough to get to the closing credits. In recent years, that trepidation has turned into thrill as she's watched the Black horror genre evolve. She talks with a filmmaker, director and horror scholar about how they see their own experiences reflected in the Black horro...

Anita pretty much stopped wearing bras in the pandemic, and she's likely not going back. But she knows that for many, a good bra is clutch for daily comfort. She traces the surprising history and technology of the brassiere with the inventor of the sports bra and an expert who consulted with the Army on their first-ever tactical bra. Then she meets two people whose bra stories bump up against how...

Anita has long taken a laissez-faire approach to digital security. But as she's learned (the hard way), just because she doesn't have something to hide, doesn't mean she has nothing to lose. She calls in experts, including an abortion doula and sex worker, to learn strategies for keeping personal information safe online. Meet the guests: - Amanda Bennett , a project manager for Digital Defense Fun...

Anita revisits a conversation with folks who've undergone facial feminization surgery as part of their gender confirmation process. FFS is a set of bone and soft tissue surgical procedures that reshape the forehead, brow, jaw and more. They share what the surgery meant for them, plus a medical anthropologist helps unpack who gets to decide what femininity looks like. Meet the guests: - Emma Ward ,...

Guest host Omisade Burney-Scott is a proud Aries Sun-Leo moon-Virgo rising and has been looking to the stars since the ‘70s. She and her best friend of over 50 years look back on how astrology influenced their relationship growing up and how they move in the world today. Plus, she talks to two astrologers about how this practice can play a role in social justice movements and in the intersections...

Anita shares an episode of “This Is Uncomfortable,” a podcast from Marketplace that explores the ways money messes with our relationships and life plans. Rebecca Danigelis never planned to stop working. Raising two kids as a single mom, everything she earned went to making sure they got the best education she could afford. But when her son Sian-Pierre's career took off, hers started to crumble. Fi...

Anita grew up betwixt and between two religious communities and never felt like she fully belonged to either. The upside? She had a lot of room to figure things out on her own. She talks with two people who didn't find that freedom until they left their conservative religions. They tell her about extracting themselves from tight-knit religious communities and reconnecting with their sexuality and...

Before recording this episode, Anita would have turned to Google for her burning questions about abortion. But now, she knows better. She meets two abortion doulas who share the practical and philosophical components of their job. They reflect on what has changed for them since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and what's stayed the same for their alternative and community-based networks of care. Meet...

Anita had a terrible 18th birthday (she'll tell you later), but not much changed for her when she legally became an adult. For tens of thousands of young folks in the U.S. each year who turn 18 while in foster care, "legal adulthood" brings a slew of new challenges. Two women who aged out of foster care tell Anita about their experiences and how they informed the relationships they're building tod...

Anita is a dog mom. Her wire-haired, bearded terrier Oliver has been her companion through heartbreak, job changes and pandemic turmoil. She's never going to feel ready to say goodbye, but she knows from watching others lose family pets, that pet grief can wreck you, and it's better to acknowledge this reality sooner rather than later. She talks with pet owners, a veterinary social worker, a vet a...

Anita's idea of relaxation often involves a good book. She's begun exploring the vast world of romance novels and was surprised to learn how much more diverse the genre has become since the days when Fabio was the only inspiration for sexy book covers. Three neurodivergent authors tell her about writing the characters they longed for as readers and making space for new takes on the "happy ending."...

Anita does not work with her boo, but after sharing home office space for two pandemic years, she's started to wonder how couples who *do* work together make it work. She talks with two sets of couples in very different professional industries about their strategies for tackling finances, alone time and intimacy. Meet the guests: - Sarah & Austin McCombie , the married duo behind the North Car...

Anita has not participated in a Dry January, but there are times when she's motivated to pay extra-close attention to her relationship with alcohol. Most recently: during the pandemic. While some of us started drinking more, another group of folks committed to sober curiosity: a movement encouraging introspection about your relationship with alcohol. She meets two people who are years into buildin...

Anita's now living in one of the few places in the U.S. South without an abortion ban. As her home state becomes the nearest safe provider for millions of people, she's observing how abortion providers here are preparing for the spike in demand. She reconnects with one of them, Dr. Rathika Nimalendran, who has been providing access to abortions in North Carolina for years, to talk about what actio...

Anita comes from a tea-drinking family, but she's happiest when she's holding a mug of coffee the size of her face. For years, she's been reading headlines about why coffee is "good" for you, but she's not sure where myth ends and fact begins. So, she turns to the experts: Dr. Rao (her dad) is back to explain why coffee makes you poop, and how it affects your gut. A neuroscientist tells her about...

Anita treasures sleep and moments of silence. So when she hears typical narratives of early parenthood that include unending cries and restless nights, she has concerns for the mental toll on new parents. But culturally there is a lot of silence around how challenging it can be and recognizing deteriorating mental health while caring for another person can be isolating. In part two of the postpart...

Anita has been around enough postpartum folks to know that there's a whole lot they felt unprepared for when it came to how their physical bodies would experience pregnancy and childbirth. In part one of a two-part series, she hears from folks about meeting their new postpartum bodies. A postpartum doula talks about her trauma-informed approach to caring for the physical body; a photographer share...

Anita got glasses young, and as a kid every time her prescription got worse, her anxiety about losing her vision spiked. She realizes now how much of that fear was ableism at work. Three artists who've lost their sight and found myriad ways to fortify a culture of blind pride show her it's about disrupting the binary and pushing for a more accessible, creative future Meet the guests: - Dr. M. Leon...