Private Parts Unknown: Sex & Love Around the World

For the 28th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra welcome comedian & writer Ashley Ray for some lowkey Seven Mountains/Life Goals University CHURCH about why you shouldn't give your money to Shaun King — plus, what to do instead! We also discuss scammers more broadly, OG pegging (pre-Broad City), leading her school's GSA, Big Lesbian Organizer Energy, her...

For the 27th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra welcome poet & professor Bridgette Bianca for a celebration of Black art & endurance. We dig into her process as a poet, the power of repetition, the going beyond the inspiration of Langston Hughes, the importance of having intraracial conversations (as well as interracial conversations), the sad hilarity o...

For the 26th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra welcome audio producer & Your Fave Is Problematic co-host Kristen Bennett to talk about racism, media & relationships. We get into SO MUCH in this episode: the problematic nostalgia of John Hughes movies, Dave Chappelle’s new standup special 8:46, Tina Fey’s weird racial streak, the inevitability of the whi...

For the 25th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra bring you the happy ending & finale episode to our Tokyo, Japan series. We explore what it was like to buy sex for the first time as women, what it takes to make it as a male happy ending masseuse among over 2,000 applicants, our experience at an S&M bar (shout-out Black Heart in Ginza!) & how paying for se...

For the 24th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome reporter Hiroko Imai & video producer Marina Yajima Taylor for the 3rd episode from our Tokyo, Japan series. Hiroko (@hirokotv) is a 32-year-old freelance producer & reporter for Asian Boss who grew up in Japan & lives in the Tokyo area. Marina (@marina__taylor) is a twentysomething video producer...

For the 23rd episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome cultural translator Chris Wells for the 2nd episode from our Tokyo, Japan series. Chris (@chriswellstokyo) has lived in Japan for over 25 years. He's a founding member of the Tokyo Comedy Store, he co-owns Japan's first improv studio dedicated to long-form improv & method acting along with his husb...

For the 22nd episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome Keio University subcultures researcher Joe McReynolds & sex worker/model/columnist Yuki for the 1st episode from our Tokyo, Japan series. We explore the different levels of sex and intimacy work in Japan (most of it legal), how common cheating is in Japan, the Mad Men culture at old-school Japanese...

For the 21st episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome Nova Scotia-based married couple & co-hosts of the Turn Me On podcast – Jeremie Saunders & Bryde MacLean – for a really interesting episode about their journey opening up their relationship & becoming polyamorous. We also dig into how living with a life-shortening illness has impacted their traject...

For the 20th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome one-name wonder Smoove, co-owner of a very special queer bar called The Back Door, for the 2nd installment in a 2-part series from Bloomington, Indiana. We get into the origin story of The Back Door, its impact on the local LGBTIA community, how they fostered an impressive drag & burlesque scene, f...

For the 19th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome our favorite keeper of sexual artifacts, Kinsey Institute curator Rebecca Fasman, for the 1st installment in a 2-part series from Bloomington, Indiana. We go deep into the archives to talk about George Platt Lynes & his little-known collection of male nudes, the Comstock law, community standards fo...

For the 18th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, welcome our favorite mother-son duo, Karen Lee & Cameron Poter, co-hosts of the Sex Talk With My Mom podcast for a holiday how-to about coping with loss. We go deep into grieving process, how losing a partner & father respectively impacted them romantically & otherwise, recreating traditions in order to mo...

For the 17th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra take you on a quick trip to Mexico City for the 2nd installment in a 2-part series about romance, sexuality, gender & life in general in the largest city in North America. In this episode, we interviewed two Mexican artists — Alma Garcia Gil, a lesbian performance artist & Evelyn Excess, a trans/gender non-...

For the 16th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra take you on a quick trip to Mexico City for the 1st installment in a 2-part series about Mexican romance, sexuality, gender & life in general in the largest city in North America. On the 1st day of Día de Los Muertos, we delve into our experiences on a food tour through La Merced Market & a bike tour to the...

For the 15th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra take you inside Raising Hell, a super sexy & informative event thrown by Soldiers of Pole, the California exotic dancers union that we featured in our very 1st episode! We get into the passage of California labor bill AB5, why strippers need the same protections & workers’ rights as other physically demandi...

We want to turn you on to a hot new podcast: Artemis is a lesbian retelling of the classic Greek myth of Artemis, Goddess of the hunt, from the original story written by Svetlana Ivanova. If you're mythology nerds like us, you're going to want to check out the rest of the Artemis series. The first five parts are available anywhere you listen to podcasts. But you can listen to all 16 parts now on H...

For the 14th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your host Courtney Kocak is flying solo to honor International Sex Abortion Day with a special episode featuring seven advocates & women who’ve had personal experiences with abortion & gone on to speak publicly about it. We cover the current legal lay of the land for reproductive rights in the U.S., how close Roe v. Wade is to being overturned, what a...

For the 13th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra welcome another pair of sex-positive podcasters, Amy Baldwin & April Lampert, co-hosts of the Shameless Sex podcast. We talk shop about how they met, their industry experience as sex educators & sex toy salespeople, the most common listener question they get, their earliest respective memories of being turn...

For the 12th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra welcome another duo of female filmmakers — Dionne van den Berg & Pooja Tripathi — who created, wrote & star in the upcoming web series Amsterdam Ave about following your dreams, especially if they take you abroad (aka international apartment swapping between New York & the Netherlands!!!), loosely based on...

For the 11th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra drop the final dispatch from their recent trip to New York. For this NYC edition, we're joined by dominatrix and healer Aleta Cai, who tells us about her entrée into the BDSM world after growing up in a traditional Chinese home. We chop it up about the intersection of BDSM and healing, why she doesn’t usual...

For the 10th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra are back with another dispatch from their recent trip to New York. For this NYC edition, we're joined by hilarious comedian Wendi Starling, who gives us a glimpse into the world of sugaring & what it's like to be a sugar baby... it's probably a lot hotter & more feminist than you'd expect. This episode is b...

For the 9th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra return with a dispatch from their recent trip to New York. For this NYC edition, we're joined by crazy/sexy/cool/freaky/funny comedian Billy Procida, host of The Manwhore Podcast. We met Billy at a standup show in Brooklyn and wound up interviewing him the next day in Dumbo about his foray into sex parties,...

For the 8th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra are back with the 3rd & final installment in our 3-part series featuring men talking about their personal experiences with abortion. For this edition, we're joined by two more guys — first, standup comedian & podcaster Jeff May (@heytherejeffro) who shares his story about supporting his ex-girlfriend through...

For the 7th episode of Private Parts Unknown, your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra are back with the 2nd installment in our 3-part series featuring men talking about their personal experiences with abortion. For this edition, we're joined by two guys — first, former youth pastor/current standup comedian Derrick Murray (@drokcomedy) & then filmmaker/writer/VR extraordinaire Christopher Morr...

For the 6th episode of Private Parts Unknown, comedian/engineer Matt Monroe (@heymonroe) joins your hosts Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra. He tells the story behind his recent social media post that began “And now, an abortion story... “ followed by his personal experience after he got a casual hookup pregnant at the age of 25. Matt made us realize how rare it is to see men we know speak publicl...

For the 5th episode of Private Parts Unknown—the 3rd in our Helsinki series—your favorite commuter companions, Courtney Kocak & Sofiya Alexandra, are thrilled to introduce you to feminism in Finland & how it got that way. We explore how World War II helped pave a foundation for feminism to thrive in Finland, their world-famous maternity package, the influence of grandmas & sisters on our interview...