Podcasts · Society & Culture · Health & Fitness
Death, Sex & Money
Slate Podcasts
300 episodes · Explicit
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
More about the show
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Episodes page 1 of 6
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Side Effects May Include Headaches, Sleep Eating, Buying Power Tools
For this episode, we asked for your stories about medication side effects. You told us about the weird, from sleep-eating to compulsive spending. You told us about making trade-off calculations: Is an improved mood…
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Comedian Murray Hill on the Teachers Who Freed Him From an Unsafe Home
Now famous as a New York City nightlife fixture and for his role on Somebody Somewhere, comedian Murray Hill used to keep his personal history private. In fact, the persona of “Murray Hill” started as a drag king…
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Remembering John Prine on His 80th, With His Wife Fiona
To mark John Prine’s 80’s birthday, Anna catches up with his wife Fiona. Then we revisit Anna’s 2018 conversation with John, where he discussed his bestselling album Tree of Forgiveness. Podcast production by Cameron…
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Ada Limón Lives in 'Vertical Time' in Her Childhood Home
After three years as Poet Laureate, Ada Limón craved a smaller, more private life. Then she saw a sign: her childhood home was for sale. In this episode, Anna and Ada talk about writing, memory, chronic pain and making…
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Stavros Halkias Worries Fame Might Kill Him
This year, Stavros Halkias released a stand-up special, appeared in the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony, and continued his run on the hit Netflix show Tires. Despite the high points, he says this year has also been…
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My Homeschool Curriculum Was My Mother’s Unhappiness
Stefan’s mother said he was too smart for public school and took him out of 4th grade. But instead of studying, Stefan’s homeschool curriculum was organized around keeping his mother company and pretending he wouldn’t…
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How I “Failed” at OnlyFans
Anna Blake started an OnlyFans account, not as a pleasure project, but to achieve some financial stability. When she found out she hated the work and made little money, her relationship to sex – and to money – had to…
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'Pay-What-You-Want' Defies Logic, Confuses Economists, and Can Really Work
The pay-what-you-want business model is mostly found in museums and churches, but this week we’ll hear from entrepreneurs and artists who are implementing it in unlikely places. Guests include: Katie Bishop, owner of…
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Behind Closed Tabs: Your Porn Stories
Porn. It’s something that people use in their most intimate, private moments. It’s a way to acknowledge desire — without any of the attachments of intimacy. For some of you, that's incredibly freeing. For others, it's…
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'Humane Eldercare Has Become a Luxury Item’
Nursing home care in the U.S. can run families $10,000 a month, a cost Medicare won’t pay for. When Anna de la Cruz's parents both developed dementia around the same time, her family split into two paths: a Medicaid…
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Passive Aggressive vs. ‘Massive Aggressive’ With Novelist Elizabeth Strout
The bestselling novelist behind works like Amy and Isabelle and Olive Kitteridge discusses her excitement about turning 70, her reserved New England upbringing, and how death figures into her latest novel, The Things…
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A Refreshingly Curious Adventure through Our Divided America
Peter Santenello has been documenting his world travels on YouTube for nearly two decades, but it wasn’t until he moved in with a family in the Ukrainian countryside that he really began to hone his storytelling…
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I Have a Crush on My Therapist. Now What?
Caroline started going to therapy as a teenager because of depression. After a couple of years working together, she expressed a fantasy. “I had a vision of us dancing to Pachelbel's Canon” she told him. Caroline's…
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How a Very Polite Danny McBride Creates Characters That Go Berserk
The man behind artful and goofy comedies like The Righteous Gemstones and Eastbound and Down talks about finding his people at an upstart public film program in North Carolina, crafting characters that are nothing like…
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The Sexy Soundtrack for the ‘New Black Middle Class’
In the mid-1970’s, a small college radio station created an evening program catering to a new socioeconomic group referred to as the “new Black middle class.” The show was called “The Quiet Storm” and it grew so…
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The Pet Detective
Jim Tierney, pet tracker, has worked on more than 250 lost pet cases around New York City. Jim says once a dog is lost, their behavior changes. “They become less like your pet, and more like a wild animal.” In this…
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How Much Should You Spend on a Wedding?
This week, listeners share what it’s like to plan a dream wedding when money and family relationships lead to conflict and compromise. We hear from couples with vastly different ideas of what they wanted to spend,…
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Emmy-Winner Jeff Hiller Returns! Talking Bodies and Money in a Changing Hollywood
A lot has happened in Jeff Hiller’s life since he was last on the show in 2024. Last year he won an Emmy for his role on the HBO show Somebody Somewhere and then went viral for his sincere and funny acceptance speech.…
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Was Dad Being a Creep? And Other Childhood Memories to Decipher
Growing up, whenever Anna Konkle's parents fought–which was frequently–she usually sided with her dad. As she got older, she started to see those memories differently. Was her dad actually the bad guy? This week on…
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Spouses Peter Dinklage and Erica Schmidt on Bad Interviews, Fame, and Parenting
Actor Peter Dinklage and playwright Erica Schmidt have been married for two decades, and even though they’ve collaborated on projects, it’s rare for them to do an interview together. That’s why we were so excited when…
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Something Rotten at Stanford
Theo Baker was seventeen when he enrolled at Stanford and stumbled into one of the biggest stories on campus: academic misconduct allegations against the university's president. His reporting eventually forced the…
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A Sex Party Love Story
Romy Holland is a Berkeley mom whose meet-cute happened at a raucous sex party. That night she had sex with dozens of men, one of which would become her husband. In this episode, Romy talks about the party in question,…
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The Parent-Child Anxiety Trap
Anna talks to Alexis, a parent whose 8 year old son has an anxiety disorder, about what it was like attending a therapy program designed for parents of anxious children. Plus, Anna talks to the founder of the program,…
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A Brat Pack Star Remembers How to Have Friends
The actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy used to be a member of one of pop culture’s most famous friend groups: The Brat Pack. He starred in movies like Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire and palled around with…
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Death, SNAKES & Money
Tim Friede grew up in a strict, religious household with an obsession for science and a knack for breaking rules. He became fixated on a particular problem: roughly 120,000 people die from venomous snakebites every…
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Kara Swisher on the Rich Guys Trying to Live Forever
Kara Swisher has built an impressive career reporting on–and forcefully critiquing–the world of tech, especially the ultra-wealthy power players increasingly calling the shots. Since Steve Job’s death in 2011, she’s…
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The Thrills and Heartbreaks of Being a Funk Rock Pioneer
When musician Chris Dowd was 19, shortly after graduating from high school, his band Fishbone got signed to Columbia Records. The group was made up of Black teenagers in Los Angeles, who combined several musical…
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Rick Steves Says Travel is the Antidote to Fear
In 2008, travel writer Rick Steves thought the U.S. might be on the verge of war with Iran. So he took a TV crew there to document the people and places who might soon be at risk. “You should know people before you…
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Why I Paid OnlyFans Models to Read ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’
Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a novel that follows a young college student who starts a flirtation, and then affair, with a college professor who ends up getting her pregnant. Author Rufi Thorpe takes us through what…
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Doree Shafrir On The Out Of Control IVF Train
When Doree Shafrir started fertility treatments in her late thirties, she thought it would be relatively simple. It ended up taking multiple rounds and sinking her family into debt. Doree and her husband host the…
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A Court Settlement Made Me a Millionaire. I’ve Barely Touched the Money.
A listener we're calling Natalie received over a million dollars after being sexually abused by her university gynecologist in one of the largest abuse settlements in American history. She talks about the strange math…
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A Career Change? In This Economy?
Career pivots can be terrifying. How do you know when the time is right? Is it ever too late to switch jobs? What if the next thing is worse? This week, we’ve assembled a panel of career change experts to answer your…
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AI Confessions: A Chatbot Ended My Marriage
Soon after his wife started experimenting with ChatGPT last summer, Rob* says her demeanor began to change. He says she started using mystical speech, running all communication through AI, and filed for divorce. Now,…
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AI Confessions: A Chatbot Saved My Life
This week and next, we’re talking to listeners about how chatbots are impacting their personal lives. Anna talks to a parent getting tips on how to raise a teenager, an American abroad who turned to ChatGPT for grief…
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After Two Wars and PTSD, He Became an Oyster Farmer. Why is He Running for Senate?
Graham Platner has never run for elected office before. He’s a war veteran, an oyster farmer, and now he’s running in a Democratic primary to eventually unseat Senator Susan Collins of Maine. He’s ahead in the polls,…
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Not Wanting Kids Cost Me My Marriage
When Helena de Groot got married she didn't want children, but her husband did. For eight years, love was enough to paper over their differences. Then an unplanned pregnancy forced them to finally choose. Listen to…
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The TikTok Channel Telling Male Athletes to Love Each Other
Here at DSM, we’ve been enjoying Heated Rivalry, the HBO series about two pro hockey players who begin a secret love affair. The show is steamy, but it also highlights some persistent problems in male sports culture,…
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Becoming a Parent Of Six, At 25
On the air, Yesi Ortiz is a warm, flirty host for a popular L.A. hip hop station. Off the air, she’s a single mother of six adopted kids. Managing both roles, plus romance, is a challenge. This episode originally…
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The Women Who Made George Saunders A Wife Guy
Growing up, George Saunders was the eldest boy with younger sisters, in a family full of women who gave him praise and special treatment. That created the confidence that fueled his ambition to become a great writer.…
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Maria Bamford Isn't Ready to Joke About Her Divorce
Comedian Maria Bamford discusses her separation after a decade of marriage, the wildfires that destroyed her Altadena neighborhood, and starting over in a new apartment. Check out if Maria is coming to your city on…
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A 101-Year-Old Rediscovers a Love Lost to War
Anna talks to Jonathan Goldstein, host of the Pushkin podcast Heavyweight, about the show getting a second chance after a long period of uncertainty, and how that time helped some of the stories they had been working…
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Why Autopsies Are in Decline and Why it Matters
In the 1950s, about 50% of patients who died in a hospital in the U.S. received an autopsy. Today, that figure is in the single digits, which is a big loss according to two people who care a lot about this topic: One…
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Stories About Death, Sex and Money to Start the New Year
Anna hosted Selected Shorts, an evening where professional actors read short stories in front of a live studio audience at Symphony Space in New York. The theme for the night? Death, sex, and money. Stories performed:…
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The Family Drama of Inheritance
Your stories about inheritance: Gwynn wrestles with her mother's will that would cut out her sister; Trevor inherited money from his father and questions about whether his death was planned; and Anna talks to two young…
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The Chaste Sexiness and Fantasy of Hallmark Holiday Rom-Coms
When screenwriter Russell Hainline first moved to L.A., his goal was to write high-budget monster movies and thrillers. Then one day, he was prompted to write a Hallmark holiday rom-com, and something clicked. In this…
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Samin Nosrat’s Recipe for Self-Compassion
After the blockbuster success of her first book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat felt pressure to follow it up with something big. But when depression and grief hit, she was forced to slow down and accept help (and…
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What Hearing Aids and Anger Management Still Miss
The British poet Raymond Antrobus was six years old when his parents and doctors realized that his ears couldn’t recognize a whole range of sounds. He was fitted with hearing aids and began a life of straddling the…
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When Your Famous Dad Can Charm Anyone But Can't Pay the Bills
Sarah Amos says the best way to describe her childhood is as a “nepo-baby fever dream.” She grew up in a pink mansion in Hawaii where celebrities often dropped by, and the fridge was always stocked with cookie dough…
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“The Lord Is My Shepherd and He Knows I'm Gay”
When the Metropolitan Community Church was founded in the late sixties, it was one of the first gay positive churches in America. When AIDS hit, it became a refuge for people who were sick and those who were mourning…
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Tig Notaro's Documentary About Her Friend's Death Is Also Really Funny
Even though the documentary Tig Notaro produced won the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance, she did not spend the festival hobnobbing with industry types. Instead she stayed holed up at the Airbnb she rented with…
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