Vibrators have been the friend of the female orgasm for over a century now. Back in the 1800s you could only get access to one via a doctor’s appointment. To cure your irrational woman feelings, hysteria. When they started selling them for home use in the 20th century, companies made up weird, fake uses for them; nail buffing tools,special attachments for vacuum cleaners, etc. One very popular way to market the vibrator was to call it a back massager. Probably thousands of different vibrator hav...
Sep 22, 2015•8 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Being naked can be scary. There you are, your whole self. No decorations, no cool skirt or shoes or shorts to look at instead of…you. This story is about one special woman, our naked hero. After undergoing surgery and getting an ostomy (a bag that sits on your hip that your poop goes into), being naked was forever changed. Nonetheless, our hero decided to continue frequenting her favorite nude beach, walking naked and free all summer long. This piece, originally titled after our hero’s Zine, “My...
Aug 19, 2015•15 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Once upon a time, Kaitlin went to a radical sex education workshop. At the workshop, the facilitators spent 45 minutes going into extreme detail of the complexities of the female system of sexual arousal. Then they spent 15 minutes on the male system. The facilitator insinuated that it was very simple – touch the dick, make him come. During the question and answer period the male bodied people in the room protested, insisting that the male anatomy is just as mysterious and complicated as the fem...
Aug 04, 2015•8 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Once upon a time, we did an episode about what happens when there is too much going on sexually. The Ethical Slut says that love isn’t finite. Loving more than one person means having more love instead of less. This can be true. However, love is a complicated emotion. And sex can often be wrapped up in all these complicated and conflicting emotions. More isn’t always better. This story was submitted to The Heart by an anonymous Dominatrix and written for podcast by Julia Alsop....
Jul 21, 2015•13 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Most people remember the first time they got off, most of us conveniently forget the era before that when we have no idea what masturbation was. When all we knew is what felt good. We develop strategies that seemed very innocent to us at the time. We didn’t know that there is a name for this kind of feeling good. Or, that certain things that feel good are supposed to be done in private. There was a time when nothing had names and we were just kids.
Jul 07, 2015•6 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast In the summer of 1960 Joan Nestle was 20 years old and in love. At the time she lived in a Lower East Side tenement apartment and the city was hot, sweaty and humid. Joan and her girlfriend Carol would ride the subway for an hour and half to Riis Park. Riis Park was and still is an easily accessible queer beach in New York. Joan wrote about these memories in her book, A Restricted Country. Beach goer and producer Cassie Wagler brings us her adaptation of one of the essays found in Joan’s book – ...
Jun 30, 2015•14 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast At 5 years old, Gina was parading around the stage with a number pinned to her chest. But as the host of The Little Miss America Competition sang the national anthem, she felt he might have as well been singing,“You’re so whiiiiite, you’re so bloooooonde.” Even still, Gina, the toothless, black Shirley Temple, made it to the final round. When she didn’t hear her number called she looked out into the sea of eager parents and found her parents. Her mother, sullen and disappointed. Next to her moth...
Jun 17, 2015•26 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Badger Clark is remembered for shaping the poetry of the Old West with striking impressions of the cowboy life. But his poem “The Lost Pardner” about the intimate love of two cowboys has a special kind of beauty. It points to the often forgotten queerness of frontier life, where there was plenty of space to be alone and plenty of cowboys to be alone with. Badger Clark wasn’t the only one out there. Queer fur trappers, stagecoach drivers, European explorers, and poets, like Clark, made their way ...
May 20, 2015•9 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Just after the new year, Kaitlin and Mitra take a business trip to small town Ontario to meet Steffy. At six foot two inches, Stefonknee is the tallest six year old you will ever meet. Of course, she isn’t actually six. She is an age-player, meaning she likes to pretend to be a kid. She fluidly moves in and out of her six year old self and her adult self. In addition to her male and female identities. Steffy is in a place of peace with her identities after a very traumatic falling out with her f...
May 05, 2015•25 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Our friend Dr. Emily Nagoski debunks tired, widely held ideas about sex and replaces them with perfectly clear, scientifically sound explanations. One of those new ideas totally blew our minds, so we’re bringing you our take on the “Dual Control Model.” Dr. Nagoski has compiled all of her brilliance into a book, called “ Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Change Your Sex Life ,” in stores now. Trust us, it’s a good read. If you’d like a fun illustrated guide that explains the ...
Apr 21, 2015•9 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast A one day’s love has a life cycle. It’s born, it lives a very brief life, and then it dies. That’s it. It’s usually cut short by circumstance, often by time or distance. Sometimes there’s only enough magic for the one night for one night of connection–just a little bit of love. But what if there’s a chance that there’s a little more magic left? Can a one day’s love live another day? After a whirlwind night on the subway with a mysterious man with an easy laugh and terrible taste in music, Caroli...
Mar 17, 2015•11 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Eintagsliebe, a sort of real German word meaning one day’s love. Or, a fling. This can be analogous to the mayfly, eintagsfliege. The mayfly sneaks in through an open window, lives her little mayfly life to the fullest, perhaps even finding her true mayfly love. Then before she knows it, death has overtaken her. She lies limply in the windowsill. It was Friday October 26th 2012 and Hurricane Sandy was slowly descending upon New York City. Mitra was at dinner with Kaitlin, feeling a bit down in t...
Mar 03, 2015•18 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast It was sometime in the early years of their marriage when Gerda Weganer asked her husband, Einar, to dress in women’s clothes and sit for a painting. The intended subject was running late, and suggested to Gerda that Einar be her stand in. “His legs and feet are as pretty as mine,” she said. All dressed up in a wig, painted with rouge and powders, and buckled into high-heeled shoes, Einar, now Lili, looked into the mirror with a singular wonder: “Was it really possible that I could be so good lo...
Feb 17, 2015•10 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast It’s fun to try to be beautiful when people are giving you positive attention for it. It hurts if you’re not meeting that standard and people treat you like you aren’t even there. You watch the people who are getting a lot of positive attention for being that certain kind of beautiful and you are made to feel invisible. Or worse, people go out of their way to make you feel bad. It’s hard to be a woman, yes. It’s a lot harder to be a woman who’s hairier, wider, bigger, taller, square instead of r...
Feb 03, 2015•28 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Short and Sweet: Mid month we bring you something short. Whitney Jones (producer at PITCH ) tells us about his first love, and 27 other firsts in chronological order. Originally produced on Cowbird. You will also hear some previews of first kisses, which we’ll be sharing at our Launch Party.
Jan 20, 2015•6 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast When we do something for the first time, we enter into a world with new rules. It’s the creation of a new path, a new possibility. We meet this threshold with no knowledge of what will happen, how we or the world will react. Once the rules of the game change, once we do something that we’ve never done before, the question of how to navigate the new world is what comes next. What do we do after the first kiss? Will it give way to the first holding of hands, the first public display of affection, ...
Jan 06, 2015•17 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast A radio show is born. Again. We all go through phases and have an identity crisis or three. Audio Smut started as an hour long broadcast radio show at CKUT in Montreal, and has transformed into a delicately crafted podcast now part of PRX’s Radiotopia network. We cordially welcome you to The Heart.
Dec 01, 2014•9 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast An Interlude. This is an interview about necking (or lack thereof). A kiss over time: at the beginning, in the middle, at the end. If you don’t like how somebody kisses, can you grow into it? Samara’s Grandma tells us her story. This episode is part of our kissing series. If you want to hear more, go here: http://audiosmut.tumblr.com/
Sep 16, 2014•14 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Twelve. Kaitlin and Kyle. They met at a kissing booth. On their first date they went on a recording adventure (for one of the early Audio Smut documentaries about the Drag Queens). They became obsessed with each other. They ended up making audio recordings of a lot of almost everything that happened between them. This is the last episode of the season. It is also the last episode of Audio Smut. Don’t cry! We will be starting something new in a few months, better and more beautiful than e...
Aug 20, 2014•17 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Eleven. Audio Smut presents: a radio play. This episode was a documentary experiment, produced in collaboration with composer Shani Aviram. We set out asking questions about how perception is altered in early romantic relationships. How does your sense of reality fail you when you’re falling in love? After months of research and 17 interviews, we decided to write a single narrative encompassing the experiences and facts we unearthed.
Jun 23, 2014•25 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast A Quickie. Behold the almighty power of the V. Vaginas can hold the largest and smallest of objects with barely the slightest uncomfort. So it just makes sense to stash your weed in there. Star reporter, Ruth Eddy tells us how she came to use her natural pocket.
Jun 08, 2014•8 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Ten. This episode is about growing up, becoming an adult, entering a stage of independence: shaving cream, tampons, driving, voting, doing your own dishes, doing your own taxes and sex. This episode will take you on a path of rituals, formal or otherwise.
May 12, 2014•40 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Nine. The written word: a way to fuel a romance, a way to capture someone’s attention, a way to break up. We read people’s most private letters, and tell the story of the relationships that were made and broken by them.
Apr 02, 2014•36 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast A Quickie. In 1909, James Joyce wrote his wife, Nora Barnacle, a series of very sexy letters. While her side of the correspondence has been lost, we still have Joyce’s letters–and they’re really good. In this quickie, we’re reading you one of our favorites.
Mar 09, 2014•7 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast (Welcome to Season Two) FU*K LOVE. Family. Responsibility. Survival. Economic Stability. These were once much more important to things to build your life on. This episode looks at the ideal of true love, how it came to be and what exists outside of it.
Feb 23, 2014•50 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast A Quickie: Do you believe in true love? Does it really exist, or is it just a mythology made up by Hollywood? How would you define true love? Jonathan Goldstein shares his thoughts on this Valentine’s Day special.
Feb 13, 2014•6 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Seven. Psychologist and sexologist, John Money came up with the theory of a lovemap. A lovemap is a template. It’s a template that we are constantly measuring our sexual and romantic experiences against. It’s the map of what we like, who we like and how we like it. Money’s idea is that we all have one, and they tend to be pretty specific, right down to how exactly you need to be touched to have an orgasm. In this episode of Audio Smut we explore different kinds of lovemaps; sexual lovema...
Nov 05, 2013•36 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast A Quickie: This quickie is a history- a love map, if you will- of how Kaitlin manages to be such a productive person. Also, this is the reason why Kaitlin insists on holding our meetings in coffee shops. Here, the lines between public and private, work and pleasure, get a little blurry. Check it out at In the Dark Radio’s installation at the Latitude festival ( http://www.inthedarkradio.org/?page\_id=799 )....
Jul 26, 2013•10 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Six Homelessness isn’t really something that can be easily defined. Sometimes people make choices, other times people have no choices. In this episode, we have three situations from three very different people about how they managed to get by.
Jul 08, 2013•40 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast A Quickie: Keith’s virginity story. Keith is and always has been an extremely charming man. I know it was the 90s, but there is nothing charming about a yellow jumpsuit. Poor clothing choices aside, Keith still proves to be a chick magnet. If you love this story, stay tuned for our next episode coming out on Sunday July 7th where you will hear more of Keith plus some other truly incredible tales.
Jun 25, 2013•9 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast