LOVERS by Shan

Latest Episodes:

I Stayed Through 80% of His Sentence, Then Left ft. Keeonna Harris Oct 28, 2026

Show notes

Dr. Keeonna Harris was 14 when she got pregnant, and before her son turned one, his father, Jason Espinoza, was starting a 22-year prison sentence. For the next two decades she drove up and down California so her kids would know their dad, the story at the center of her memoir Mainline Mama. Jason came home after 20 years and now works inside prisons as a counselor with the Amity Foundation. Jeremiah Chin (now Keeonna's husband and a law professor at the University of Washington) came into her life as her marriage to Jason was ending, and the two men met in person for the first time at Zion's baseball game.

That game is the spine of this conversation, told from all three seats on the couch. Jason admits he showed up with no tools for anything but a fight. Keeonna walks away from one she once would have won and realizes her absence lands harder than her anger. Jeremiah decides he'd rather be the bridge between them than the wall.

This one is for anyone co-parenting across an old love. It's also for anyone whose family looks nothing like what they imagined, and who is still deciding what it can become.

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Follow Keeonna Harris

Instagram: http://instagram.com/keeonnachin

X: http://twitter.com/keeonnaharris

Get Mainline Mama: https://bookshop.org/p/books/mainline-mama-a-memoir-keeonna-harris/887456c5216b2c53

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Abstinence is the Only Correct Path to Sex says Tony Gaskins Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

Tony Gaskins got his start because a friend told him he was the biggest player she'd ever known. Today he tells millions of women to wait until marriage, and he's upfront that the message comes straight out of a life he wouldn't repeat.

What actually protects people when it comes to sex: rules or education? Tony makes the case that most people are never taught how to vet a partner, so waiting is the safest bet. Shan makes the case for freedom with information, because fear-based sex ed has never worked, and once you're informed you get to choose your own way instead of being handed the way.

You'll hear what risk-informed consent means and the one thing they both land on underneath the disagreement: most of us never got a real conversation about sex and that is dangerous.

Grab my free guide, A Guide to the Sexual Journey As We Grow, for an age-by-age look at common sexual behaviors from birth to 18 (and a story from the LOVERS community that stuck with me): https://www.loversbyshan.com/resource/normal-sexual-development-from-0-18

Big s/o to Ramla B for the community notes on bible verses.

Follow Tony Gaskins

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonygaskins/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyGaskins

Website: https://tonygaskins.comThe Destiny App: https://thedestinyapp.com

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get free Lovers Letters from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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This Situationship Taught Me About What I Want in Bed ft. Sabrina Zohar Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

Sabrina Zohar has built a career helping people see the patterns they learned before they could name them, and in this conversation she turns that lens on her own twenties.

At 24, she met a 36-year-old man three blocks from her apartment who opened her up sexually in ways nobody had before. It was also where she learned what self-abandonment looks like: saying yes to things (including his one condition for a relationship) because she liked him. She tells Shan about the trench coat in the rain story, and the night her mom said "this isn't you." Then she gets to the first date with her partner Ryan, when she told him she'd rather never hear from him again than be kept casual.

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Follow Sabrina

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/sabrina.zohar/

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@sabrina.zohar

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSKQduzS78E6-I9tx0jqjpw

The Sabrina Zohar Show → https://www.instagram.com/thesabrinazoharshow/

Why Am I Like This? → https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2335639/sabrina-zohar

Website → https://sabrinazohar.com

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You Abandoned Me, Stop Calling it a Breakup ft. Shaun Ross Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Shaun Ross was the first professional male model with albinism, and in this conversation he tells Shan about the breakup he refuses to call a breakup, because he was never in the room for it. Two hours into an 11-hour flight home from Europe, he watched his partner leave on the home camera, and he later learned that plenty of people had known how his partner felt (everyone except him). Shan explains why the person who leaves has often finished grieving long before the other person finds out.

Follow Shaun

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/shaunross/

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@shaunross

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChwiHoKUsczyGJYmUOAV8Hw

Want more Lover?

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So We're Just Gonna Pretend Like... | Responding to Your Comments Live Via G Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

I'm answering your comments on Via G's episode.

Via G is a New Orleans creator (yes, the baby bangs) who spent her twenties moving from one 18-month relationship to the next, and the last one looked perfect on paper: he cooked, he could match her financially, and he carried the fatherly energy of a man who already knew how everything should be done. Her body figured it out before she did. Her cycle unraveled over the year they were together, and not long after she ended it (20 minutes and six seconds, start to finish) her hormone test came back with perfect scores.

Via walks Shan through the slow disappearing act in between (the gray sweatpants, the running commentary on how she cut onions, a moment of coercion she didn't have language for until a friend named it), and then the year of saying yes to herself that followed: cutting her own bangs on camera, walking into pool parties alone to make girlfriends, and buying the Bronco she'd been talked out of. Shan offers a frame for why "daddy knows best" can feel like love when you grew up without one.

This one is for anyone who has shrunk to fit someone and is ready to be loud again.

Follow Via G

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mylifeasvia/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_mylifeasvia_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MyLifeAsVia

X: https://x.com/mylifeasvia

All links: https://link.me/mylifeasvia

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get free Lovers Letters from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

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Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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He Felt Like the Dad I Never Had. That Was the Problem ft. Via G Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

This one is for anyone who has shrunk to fit someone and is ready to be loud again.

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Showing some love to the sponsor of this episode Hollyood Ending. It is the book everyone will be talking about this fall. Buy Hollywood, Ending now wherever books are sold.

Big shoutout to the sponsor of this episode Beducated. Unlock deeper pleasure with a roadmap designed for you — all it takes is 5 minutes. Go to https://beduc.at/bg2640-boody to learn more!

Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Follow Via G

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mylifeasvia/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_mylifeasvia_

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MyLifeAsVia

X: https://x.com/mylifeasvia

All links: https://link.me/mylifeasvia

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get free Lovers Letters from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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If It Don't Apply, Let It Fly | Responding to Your Comments Live: Kendrick Sampson Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

I'm answering your comments on Kendrick Sampson choosing freedom over romance, and you did not agree. When Kendrick Sampson (the actor you know from Insecure and How to Get Away with Murder, and the activist behind BLD PWR) sat down with me and said he cares about freedom more than romance, I had a feeling some of you would feel seen and some of you would feel personally called out, and the comments landed right down the middle. [One side heard someone finally say out loud that romantic love is only one kind of love worth building a life around, while the other side heard something that felt like permission to never fully choose anyone. CONFIRM against actual comments.] In this first episode of If It Don't Apply, Let It Fly, I'm reading the comments that split you and responding to them honestly, [including the ones that shifted how I think about the conversation and the ones I'm holding my ground on. CONFIRM against what Shan actually says]. If you walked away from Kendrick's episode feeling defensive, inspired, or stuck somewhere uncomfortable in between, this is for you, because the disagreement is where the real conversation was happening. Follow Kendrick Sampson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendrick38 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kendrick BLD PWR: https://bldpwr.com Want more LOVERS? Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes ________________________ Advertising & Other Inquiries: team@loversbyshan.com

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Romantic Love Is the Most Narrow Form of Love ft. Kendrick Sampson Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

Kendrick Sampson (founder of the racial justice nonprofit BLD PWR, actor best known as Nathan in Insecure and Quincy Jones in Michael Jackson's biopic) sits down with Shan to talk about loving widely.

Kendrick grew up in a house where nobody said "I love you" after his parents divorced, so love turned into something you did instead of something you said. Love is choosing someone else's needs over your own wants. It's why he has no plan for a romantic relationship, why he separates sex, pleasure, and love into three completely different things, and why he'll tell you flat out that romantic love is actually the smallest, most narrow kind there is.

His 25 nieces and nephews come first. If he ever has kids, he wants to raise them with a homegirl, no romance required, because the village already exists. This is a conversation about what happens when you stop assuming a partner is the endpoint, and start asking who you're actually accountable to.

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Showing some love to the sponsor of this episode Hollyood Ending. It is the book everyone will be talking about this fall. Buy Hollywood, Ending now wherever books are sold.

Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Follow Kendrick Sampson

Instagram: http://instagram.com/kendrick38

Follow BLD PWR

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bldpwrYouTube: youtube.com/@buildpowertv

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I'm (Still) Concerned About Our Love, Pt. 3 Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

Every couple of years, after a stretch that tested us, Jared and I climb onto the roof in the same outfit and talk honestly about what it did to our relationship. We did it in 2022 and again in 2024, and the second time a lot of people watched two exhausted parents be imperfect and decided that was the verdict on the whole thing. We're doing it anyway, because the hard years reach your love life whether you film it or not.

This summer the kids were home for six weeks, the business didn't pause, several of my longest relationships shifted at once, and somewhere in there we had our worst argument in six years. It looked like it was about one day. It was actually about neither of us having the room to feel anything, and what happens when one person finally does. Jared explains why he didn't come over and hold me (an honest answer, not a flattering one), I explain why a voucher I printed him for exactly this moment stayed in his closet, and we get into how sex has changed as the kids have gotten older, including the 25-minute challenge he almost survived.

This is a conversation about staying kind to the person closest to you when you have nothing left. If you've ever been graded on your worst week, this one is for you.

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My pickiest eaters have no complaints on this one! Explore my Hungryroot Digital Cookbook "Recipes My Kids Will Actually Finish (No Bribery Required)." at https://hungryroot.com/LOVERS

Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

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Follow Jared Brady

Instagram: http://instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady

YouTube: youtube.com/@enjoyovereverything

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan

Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

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He's Gay. She's a Lesbian. They're In a Co-Parenting Arrangement With Their Son Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

Brandi and Lawrence aren't a couple. He's a gay man, she's a lesbian, and they were best friends first, until they decided, in their twenties, to build a family together on purpose, with a legal parental agreement in place before they ever tried to conceive.

They walk Shan through what that intentionality actually looked like. But underneath the logistics is the part nobody warned either of them about, the isolation Lawrence carried as the only man in his friend group building a family this way, and the year their living situation and their respective romantic relationships pulled the friendship apart so hard that Brandi had to tell Lawrence something she still calls one of the biggest heartbreaks of her life: that she could stay his co-parent, but she couldn't stay his friend.

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Follow Parental Agreement

Resource → https://u42luyhpb6f.typeform.com/agreement

Website → http://theparentalagreement.com/

Follow Lawrence

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/lawrenceccarroll/

Majestic Art Gallery → https://majesticartgallery.org/

Donate to LA Pride → https://lapride.org/donate-to-la-pride/

Follow Brandi

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/brandijandrews/?hl=en