Embodied
WUNC
Sex and relationships are intimate — and sometimes intimidating to talk about. In this weekly podcast from North Carolina Public Radio WUNC, host Anita Rao guides us on an exploration of our brains and our bodies that touches down in taboo territory.
Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter @embodiedwunc. You can find Anita on Twitter @anisrao.
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Top 10 Embodied Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Embodied episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Embodied for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Embodied episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
02/24/23 • 28 min
Anita has fallen down her fair share of wellness rabbit holes [including a certain alliterative family's beauty and shapewear brands...]. Wellness industry insider and journalist Rina Raphael shares how this $4 trillion industry misleads all of us, and 'Dope Black Social Worker' Kim Young gives us the wellness reframes we all need.
Meet the guests:
Rina Raphael, author of "The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop and the False Promise of Self-Care,” shares how insidious wellness industry marketing can be
Kim Young, licensed clinical social worker known as the Dope Black Social Worker, explains how we can take charge of our own wellness ... without buying anything
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11/14/24 • 33 min
American Sign Language is the third-most used language in the U.S. ASL has its own culture and art forms, and for many Deaf folks, ASL is about much more than just communication. Anita talks to Deaf author Sara Nović and Deaf ASL Slam poet Douglas Ridloff about how ASL gave them tools for self-understanding and artistic expression. Then she learns from scholars Carolyn McCaskill and Joseph Hill about Black American Sign Language (BASL), an ASL dialect that emerged because of school segregation.
Meet the guests:
Sara Nović, author of "True Biz," outlines the history of ASL and how it has influenced her work as a writer
Douglas Ridloff, visual storyteller, ASL master and executive director of ASL Slam, shares how he learned ASL and became an ASL poet
Carolyn McCaskill, recently retired professor and director of the Center for Black Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, talks about attending a segregated school for the deaf — and how integration raised her awareness of Black ASL (BASL)
Joseph Hill, associate professor in the department of ASL and Interpreting Education at Rochester Institute of Technology, talks about the impact of the research he, Carolyn and two other colleagues have conducted about BASL
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Check out the video version of this conversation: part one is here, and part two is here.
02/10/23 • 30 min
Anita reconnects with the woman who changed her thinking on incarceration: her beloved college thesis adviser Ashley Lucas. Ashley reflects on her father's 20-year prison sentence and the untold stories of families navigating incarceration from the outside. Journalist Sylvia A. Harvey also shares how losing her mother to asthma and her father to a life sentence in prison before she was 6 years old led her to investigate the carceral system as a whole.
Meet the guests:
Ashley Lucas, professor of theatre and drama at the University of Michigan, talks about how her experience growing up with an incarcerated father informs her research and led to her play "Doin' Time: Through the Visiting Glass"
Sylvia A. Harvey, a journalist and author, examines the intersection of the carceral, education and child welfare systems and investigates some of the larger forces shaping the experiences of families with an incarcerated loved one
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Dive deeper:
My Dad Went to Prison When I Was 5. Now I Write About Families Like Mine by Sylvia A. Harvey
04/05/24 • 32 min
True or false? Victorian doctors invented the vibrator to cure women's "hysteria" by bringing them to sexual climax. The answer may surprise you...as it did Anita! She gets the truth about vibrator history from journalist Hallie Lieberman and meets Anna Lee, the engineer behind the first-ever “smart” vibrator that can help you better understand your arousal patterns.
Meet the guests:
Hallie Lieberman, author of "Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy," shares the history of the vibrator and debunks myths and misconceptions around how this sex toy evolved
Anna Lee, co-founder and head of engineering at Lioness, talks about how her company designed their smart vibrator, how they collect data and what they've learned from their users so far
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Buy tickets for our live event on 4/20/24!
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11/24/23 • 32 min
Anita has been unpacking intergenerational trauma ... thanks, in part, to Hollywood. Seeing herself in movies like "Turning Red" and "Everything Everywhere All At Once" has helped her make sense of her own family's challenges. She talks with three women who've investigated how events in their own family histories have rippled through the generations to influence their bodies, parenting and culture.
Meet the guests:
- Dr. Ramona Beltrán, multiracial Chicana, mother, scholar and dancer, shares how generational trauma has manifested in her own family and how "Encanto" is a great example of the different ways intergenerational trauma can show up
- Brandy Wells, a licensed independent social worker and conscious mother of three, talks about how she realized the trauma she inherited once she started having children
- Merissa Nathan Gerson, author and inherited trauma specialist, explains how her ancestors' Holocaust experiences influence her life today
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Dive deeper:
“A Survivor’s Granddaughter Visits a Place Haunted by Unshakeable Memories” by Merissa Nathan Gerson
![Embodied - [Simulated Part One] Auto-mated: When A Bot Becomes Your Boo](https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/episode_images/92381e2047f954d132cc9ae3c84f2fbfa7717aeab645eb011f14556f950bbe59.avif)
02/09/24 • 34 min
When human romance isn't working out, can an AI chatbot successfully take its place? Anita hears varied perspectives on that question. She meets a journalist who got dumped by her AI crush and talks with a woman whose AI companion turned her life around. Plus, psychologist Melissa McCool, the clinical product consultant for AI tech company Luka, takes Anita behind the scenes of making AI companions.
Meet the guests:
Christina Campodonico, the senior reporter of arts and culture at The San Francisco Standard, talks about her experience dating a bot named Kyle through the app Blush, and how the relationship met an untimely demise
Denise Valenciano, a Replika app user, shares how her interactions with her AI companion Star have taught her boundaries and preferences for human relationships
Melissa McCool, a clinical product consultant at Luka, licensed psychotherapist, and chief product officer at Ellipsis Health, talks about her behind-the-scenes work with building AI companions and why we build strong bonds with digital entities
Dig Deeper:
Read more about Christina's experience dating on Blush in her article, What’s It Like To Date AI? We Tried
Denise and her AI partner Star's NBC Nightly News interview
More about Denise and Star's story: Meet the artificially intelligent chatbot trying to curtail loneliness in America , Mental Health and AI: How Replika users find support from chatbots | IBTimes UK, The Women Falling in Love With Their AI Boyfriends (thecut.com)
Investigate the Replika and Blush apps
To read TJ Arriaga’s interviews with his AI companion, Phaedra, check out his Instagram highlight ‘AI7’
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Obsessed: Breaking The OCD Cycle
Embodied
04/28/23 • 36 min
Anita is no stranger to anxiety, but her spirals are mostly short lived. In this episode she meets folks who often get caught in loops of extreme worry and compulsions with little relief. A married couple shares how OCD put them in survival mode and a woman whose OCD symptoms began in kindergarten talks about learning how to open up about her experience in friendships and dating.
Meet the guests:
Mike and Nicole Comforto, writers who published a Modern Love essay about how Mike's OCD impacted their marriage, share their story and talk about what led to Mike's diagnosis, what the experience was like for both of them and how Mike's OCD impacts other relationships in his life
H.T., a writer who wants to remain anonymous for personal and medical privacy, explains how her OCD symptoms first showed up as a young girl, how she navigated getting an OCD diagnosis and how she discloses her OCD to those she is close to
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Leave us a message for an upcoming episode here!
Here’s a link to the International OCD Foundation, where you can find an OCD specialist near you.
12/26/24 • 31 min
As a child of two immigrants, Anita has a tumultuous relationship with the question: "Where are you from?" So, too, do many third culture kids — people who spend a significant number of their developmental years living in places that are not their parents' homelands. She talks with two third culture kids — one 35 and one 12 — and their moms about growing up between cultures and how they’ve built identity and relationships along the way.
Meet the Guests:
Rayla Heide, a senior narrative designer at Blizzard Entertainment, talks about establishing cultural identity as a third culture kid and the grief and joy involved in moving around in childhood
Madeleine Maceda Heide, an international school leader and modern elder as well as Rayla's mother, shares the advantages of being a third culture kid and the ways she helped their family feel at home wherever they lived
Phuong Tran, and international journalist and communications consultant for overseas non-profit organizations, talks about her and her son's recent move from Thailand to North Carolina, and what they gained and lost in making that transition
Kaden Tran, a middle school student, talks about why moving to the US didn't meet up with his expectations and how its impacted his friendships
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Please note: This episode originally published November 10, 2023.
Update: Rayla Heide is now the Franchise Narrative Director on a new game in development at Scopely.
06/23/23 • 35 min
Guest host Omisade Burney-Scott is well aware that gentle parenting is a divisive concept. So she's gets into it! Omi talks with two other Black mothers about their definitions of gentle parenting and how it can break cycles of generational trauma. Then her older son shares how he has seen her parenting evolve over the past three decades.
Meet the guests:
Destiny Bennett, a content creator and mother of three boys, explains why she chooses to describe her parenting philosophy as "intentional" and how important connection and communication is in her parenting
Trina Greene, mother and founder of the virtual community Parenting for Liberation, outlines her parenting evolution and breaks down how she creates consequences without using punishment
Ché Nembhard, Omisade's eldest son, reflects with Omi on her three-decade parenting journey
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Dig deeper:
Destiny’s TikTok and Instagram
Five Accounts to Follow If You’re Curious About Conscious Parenting
Natasha Nelson is a Certified Positive Discipline Educator, veteran and mother to two autistic Black girls. Follow her account for examples of how she practices positive parenting and autism acceptance with her kids.
2. @untigering
Iris Chen is a “deconstructing tiger mom.” Her account, blog and book, “Untigering,” share resources on peaceful parenting and describe the journey she’s gone on from authoritarian parenting to gentle parenting.
Shelly Robinson is a certified family wellness coach and mom of two. She helps parents understand their own traumas and vulnerabilities so they can better create the relationship they want with their child/ren.
4. @mrchazz
Chazz Lewis, or “Mr. Chazz,” is a parenting and teacher coach, helping those who educate and rear children to avoid power struggles and frustration with kids and find joyful, effective strategies for communicating and interacting.
Parenting for Liberation is a virtual community offering resources and connections for Black families, founded by Trina Greene. P4L seeks to help Black families raise children without fear.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Embodied have?
Embodied currently has 202 episodes available.
What topics does Embodied cover?
The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Podcasts and Sexuality.
What is the most popular episode on Embodied?
The episode title 'Commodified: When 'Wellness' Makes Us Unwell' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Embodied?
The average episode length on Embodied is 33 minutes.
How often are episodes of Embodied released?
Episodes of Embodied are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Embodied?
The first episode of Embodied was released on Jul 28, 2020.
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