Stay ConnectedDig into the underdiscussed corners of the human experience. Each week, host Anita Rao leads intimate conversations with people unafraid to question what we think we know about identity, relationships and health.
Follow the show on Instagram at @embodiedwunc and on Bluesky at embodiedwunc.bsky.social. You can find Anita on Bluesky at asrao.bsky.social.
Copyright: © 2022 WUNC Podcasts
American men are in a friendship recession. Compared to a few decades ago, five times as many men have no close friends. So what’s going on? Anita talks with Mark Pagán, creator and host of the podcast “Other Men Need Help,” about what makes close friendships among men so fraught — and what we can do about it. They talk about everything from why Mark loves secret handshakes to his ongoing journey of making himself say the hard stuff out loud.
Meet the guest:
- Mark Pagánis the creator and host of the podcast "Other Men Need Help" and writes the substack "Other Men"
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Please note: This episode originally published April 17, 2025.
When B. Chionne first heard about sugar dating in college, she was intrigued — what if in exchange for her time and attention she could earn enough money to pay her bills? She ended up dating sugar daddies on and off for about a decade. B. tells Anita about what the sugar dating life looks like and how years of exchanging companionship for financial support reshaped the way she thinks about money, power and intimacy. Plus, a researcher shares insights into the sugar daddy perspective and broader trends in sugar relationships.
Meet the guests:
- B. Chionne is a digital content creator and former sugar baby
- Lauren Cormier is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of New Brunswick who studies human sexuality and relationships
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Rebecca Auman is a witch. That’s not an insult — it literally says “head witch” on her LinkedIn profile. Rebecca has been able to read people and pick up on energy and vibrations for as long as she can remember. But as the daughter of a Methodist minister growing up in the South, she was encouraged to turn away from that intuition for a long time. She tells Anita about the long and winding road to reclaim her magic and how she has turned her gift into a service for others.
Meet the guest:
- Rebecca Auman runs her own witchy business offering tarot readings and intuition training, and she hosts the podcast “Voices in the River”
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Black horror writer Tananarive Due fell in love with the spectacle of horror when she was a little kid. But it was only after she was well into her horror writing career that she discovered that the genre can provide not just entertainment but healing. Tananarive talks to Anita about why she believes horror can help folks process real-world fears and trauma, using her most recent award-winning book “The Reformatory” as a case study.
Meet the guest:
- Tananarive Due is an educator and the author of several horror novels, including "The Reformatory"
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Nearly 40% of Americans say digestive troubles disrupt their daily lives. As the daughter of a gastroenterologist, that’s a statistic Anita can’t ignore. She joins forces with neurogastroenterologist Dr. Trisha Pasricha to bust poop myths, explain what's actually normal and explore the surprising science behind the gut-brain connection.
Meet the guest:
- Dr. Trisha Pasricha, physician, researcher, medical journalist and author of "You've Been Pooping All Wrong"
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Soph Myers-Kelley and his mom, René Myers, have always been close. As of five years ago, they also share a diagnosis: the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Soph and René were diagnosed one year apart – Soph was 25; René was 60. EDS explained symptoms they’d both been experiencing for decades, including waking up with jaw or shoulder dislocations and having chronic pain.The two talk with Anita about how their diagnoses began a new chapter of their lives, including the decision to move in together last summer.
Meet the guests:
- Soph Myers-Kelley is a medical librarian at East Carolina University
- René Myers is Soph's mom and a retired educator
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Please note: This episode originally published February 20, 2025.
Food and sex have been deeply intertwined in our cultural imagination for millennia. Anita talks with a cultural historian who has combed through centuries of sex and food chronicles to understand what makes that connection so strong. Plus, Puerto Rican chef Manolo López shares a Valentine’s recipe and his favorite sexy food.
Meet the guests:
- Rachel Hope Cleves is a historian, a professor at the University of Victoria and the author of “Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex"
- Manolo López is a Puerto Rican chef and storyteller
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After more than a decade living in the U.S. without permanent legal status, Alix Dick calculated the cost of her survival: $1.9 million. That figure includes everything from wage theft and underpayment to complex PTSD and under-the-table medical visits. Alix talks about those things with Anita as she discusses her new book “The Cost of Being Undocumented,” co-written with Stanford University professor Antero Garcia. Alix traces her personal story from growing up in Sinaloa, Mexico to fleeing to the U.S. with her younger brother when she was 20. She and Antero discuss misconceptions about undocumented workers, describe the challenges of telling Alix’s story, and talk about the many costs that didn’t make the tally sheet — like lost dreams.
Meet the guests:
- Alix Dick, activist, writer, filmmaker and co-author of "The Cost of Being Undocumented"
- Antero Garcia, associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanfordand co-author of "The Cost of Being Undocumented"
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J. Drew Lanham’s life has been defined by birds. He grew up in rural South Carolina learning mystical stories about birds from his grandmother, emulating bird calls and even trying to fly. This love sparked Drew’s academic and creative careers — in ornithology and writing — that center nature and winged creatures. Anita talks to Drew about why he fell so deeply for birds and how he has sustained that love despite the challenges he's faced as a Black man and a conservationist.
Meet the guest:
- J. Drew Lanham is a poet, ornithologist and author of "The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature"
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Like the majority of American men over 35, Anita's partner is balding...and they're both a little distressed about it. But why? She brings her questions to two men who've interrogated baldness from all angles: race, sexuality, science, media, culture and lived experience. They'll explore where this fear comes from and how many other men feel this way.
Meet the guests:
- E. Patrick Johnson is dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor at Northwestern University and the author of “Scatter the Pigeons,” an essay on baldness, masculinity and Blackness
- Glen Jankowski is an assistant professor in the School of Psychology at University College Dublin whose research includes the medicalization of baldness and the history of marketing anti-baldness products
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Please note: This episode originally published December 12, 2024.
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