New York Magazine's Sex Lives

L is the first letter of LGBTQ, but often remains misrepresented and on the fringe. This week, two generations of queer women discuss the state of the modern lesbian. Slate staff writer Christina Cauterucci, who is in her 20s, explains why her generation of gender-fluid queers often resists "lesbian." Slate's Double X co-host June Thomas, who is in her 50s, discusses the lesbian radicalism of her youth and its role in modern feminism. And both women agree on one thing: It can be damn hard to find new communities of queer women, particularly when lesbian bars and bookstores struggle to stay open. So where are the lesbians? Why are we failing to see them? How much visibility is enough— and visible to whom? Call 646-494-3590 with your thoughts, and check out "The Lesbian Issue" on Slate. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To honor the presidential inauguration, Sex Lives assembles a panel of politically thoughtful (and sexually perverse) minds to reflect on the sexual absurdity of Donald Trump and modern politics. Daily Beast senior editor Erin Gloria Ryan and Vocativ editorial director Ben Reininga consider: Do you believe Donald Trump's pee rumor? Would you pee on a president? Could a sloppy night with Mike Pence help to achieve world peace? Meanwhile, host Maureen O'Connor admits her boyfriend is registered as a Republican. Call 646-494-3590 with your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, conventional and scientific wisdom held that pornography warped our understanding of sex, attraction, and love. But a new generation of scientists are unable to replicate those early findings. Why did porn stop bothering us? Have we become numb— or were earlier generations just paranoid? Science writer Daniel Engber explains those findings— and his own sojourns through the strange, sordid, and occasionally sublime world of extreme fetish porn. Sure, you're cool with run-of-the-mill porn— but what about cannibal porn? Quicksand porn? Why does that stuff exist, anyway? With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 with your stories and thoughts about porn— like how you came across the strangest porn, or hottest fetishes, of your life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scott and Julie Rising have been leading parallel lives since birth. The fraternal twins were raised in Alaska. Julie was the tomboy star of her hockey team; Scott preferred musical theater. Each came out as gay after leaving Alaska. Now, with Scott living a thoroughly cosmopolitan life in New York, and Julie in red-state Idaho, the twins come together to discuss their divergent, twinned lives across cultural and gender divides. Call 646-494-3690 to weigh in. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Coming out to my dad as an atheist was 100 times harder than coming out as gay." Before Christopher Trout became Engadget's executive editor and Computer Love columnist— before his career in gay porn and before he started building a genderqueer family of his own— he was the son of Methodist minister Rev. Dr. Steve Trout. A former Texas football star, Rev. Trout married his childhood sweetheart at age eighteen— and taught Sunday School sex-ed to his own son. With Christmas in the air, the pious father joins his blasphemous son for a conversation about sex, love, God, the rapture, and crazy fetishes that make them LOL. With Maureen O'Connor. Leave a voicemail for Sex Lives at 646-494-3590. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every week, Sex Lives invites listeners to respond with their stories. This week, we listen— and call you back. Meet a left-handed man with a right-handed sex life, a mother whose natural childbirth triggered a sexual awakening, and a black man grappling with sexual racism from people who don’t know he’s black. Call 646-494-3590 to tell us more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At 40, Glynnis MacNicol realized she didn't want to be a mother, and didn't need a partner. And then she discovered newly exhilarating sexual and romantic freedom: Suddenly, she was traveling the world, entertaining— and rejecting— younger paramours, Parisian flirtations, and 22-year-old cowboys everywhere she went. Now 42, Glynnis is working on a memoir and stopped by Sex Lives to tell 32-year-old host Maureen O'Connor what the next decade of life could hold. Call 646-494-3590 with your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the seventh month of her pregnancy, E.J. Dickson found herself with the libido of a teenage boy— including a desire to watch hardcore pornography, the kind of terrifying gang-bangs she'd never seen or sought before. Before her pregnancy, E.J. was a journalist who wrote about sex. Then, mid-pregnancy, she lost her job, reinvented, and became an editor at Romper, a parenting site for millennials. E.J. discusses her new career, her new boobs, pregnant masturbation, and fighting strangers who don't give her a seat on the subway. Call 646-494-3590 to leave voicemail for Sex Lives and host Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sometimes, love is a private feeling between two people. Other times, it's a declaration from the rooftops, a wedding announcement, or a public kiss. For the last three years Andrea Silenzi has been broadcasting her love life— and disasters— on her podcast Why Oh Why. She recorded her first date with her most recent boyfriend, as well as fights and their heartbreaking split. But she also blurs the truth— taking a cue from inspired-by-life novelists, she blends fact with fiction and invites actors to interact with real-life guests. Silenzi discusses honesty, deception, memoir, heartbreak, and why Donald Trump ruined her orgasms. Meanwhile, host Maureen O'Connor argues that sexual truthfulness is extra important post-Trump. Call 646-494-3590 to weigh in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who's coming to Thanksgiving? For Christopher Trout, the list includes his father, a preacher from rural Texas; his boyfriend, a cop he met on Grindr; his baby mama, a ciswoman to whom he donated sperm; his baby papa, a transman with whom he once hooked up; and his mom. Trout, who is Engadget's executive editor, returns to Sex Lives to discuss family, fertility, why discovering his sexuality meant losing his faith, and how he found peace inside a porn star's anus. With Maureen O'Connor. Leave a voicemail for Sex Lives by calling 646-494-3590. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mona Chalabi first saw her vulva while peering into a hand mirror at a labiaplasty surgeon's office; thanks to filmmaker Mae Ryan—the other half of The Guardian’s “Vagina Dispatches” docs-series team—we get to see Mona seeing it, too. In this week’s episode of Sex Lives, Mona and Mae share stories from their vulva adventures, including the time they underwent brain scans while watching porn, the time they met a doctor who believes menstruation is a social construct, and the time they called Mona's gynecologist mother for a heart-to-heart. Plus, the harrowing tale of how Mona lost her virginity in a childhood accident with a seesaw. Call 646-494-2590 to leave a voicemail about vaginas, vulvae, sex ed, seesaws, or whatever else is on your mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Could you tell a $10,000 fake penis from the real thing? Karley Sciortino couldn't. For Vice show "Slutever," Sciortino fucked a male sex doll; rented a cuddle-boyfriend in Japan; observed medical sexual surrogacy; and helped a dominatrix kidnap an alarmingly handsome client. (True story: last time Karley did that, she was arrested.) Sciortino discusses her sexual experiments— and what still scares her— with Sex Lives host Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-2590 with questions, opinions, and your own stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the flesh, they're the same as every other dick. But in the cultural imagination, black penises are fetishized, feared, commodified, obsessed over, and separated from the humanity of those they belong to. New York Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris discusses his essay "Last Taboo: Why Pop Culture Can't Handle Black Male Sexuality," and what it's like to be a gay black man navigating a world that can't stop talking about his dick. Call 646-494-3590 to weigh in. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Sex Lives co-host Allison P. Davis— now a staff writer at The Ringer— returns to deliver a master class on manipulating love interests by text message. Specifically, the exquisite cruelty of "read receipts," the pitfalls of flirting by GIF, and a little-discussed side effect of ghosting: haunting. Tell us your opinion by calling 646-494-3590. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sex Lives visits downtown restaurant New York Sushi Ko to snack on sea urchin and discuss the perils of— and secret tricks for— dining with dates. And could we ever date a vegan? Grub Street’s Sierra Tishgart recalls the time she forced a date to eat raw tripe. Sushi Ko chef John Daley gets real about hooking up with customers. (Like the woman who ditched her date to bang him in the kitchen.) With Maureen O’Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eddie Huang wrote a memoir about getting engaged-- but by the time Double Cup Love came out, he was single again. On a break from filming his TV show Huang's World, Eddie invited Sex Lives into his Brooklyn apartment for a discussion of race, sex, love, death, learning about masturbation from Ghostface Killah, and the time he ate tuna semen. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ok, maybe a few guys, but most of you are lying to yourselves, says Dr. Emily Morse. After eleven years of educating listeners on her Sex With Emily podcast, Morse discusses her own sexual education, discovering orgasm, what to do when an unnecessary magnum slips off inside your cooch, why she walks around with weighted balls in her cooch, and why Sex Lives host Maureen O'Connor is wrong about lube. (Maureen hates lube.) Call 646-494-3590 to leave a voicemail for Sex Lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Chris Donaghue was working as a therapist, and he was bored. So he switched to sex therapy-- and discovered his own queer identity. Since then he's hosted two reality shows, written two books, and had sex with people of all genders. But his most radical sexual choice? Prioritizing masturbation. During a break at New York's Sexual Health Expo, Dr. Chris explains how to radicalize your masturbatory life, breaking free from gender binaries, and why he's so over meeting hookups at bars. Oh, and he totally spoils the ending of gay dating show "Finding Prince Charming." With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New York sex writer Alana Massey felt a little crazy when she bought a house without a family to put in it— and 100 miles away from her boyfriend. During a visit back to the city, she ruminated on the romance of real estate; how open spaces affect the way you fuck; how she found love on a dating app; and why they'd rather live further apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French GQ sex columnist Maia Mazaurette was Paris's answer to Carrie Bradshaw - until she came to New York, joined Tinder, and fell in love with an American. Two years later, she compares French and American attitudes towards sex, infidelity, love, and flirtation. Oh, and the French word for "French kiss"? Something about rolling tongue-shovels. Gross. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices