New York Magazine's Sex Lives

Two years and 115 episodes later, Sex Lives calls it quits. To figure out how to end things, host Maureen O'Connor invites her original co-hosts David Wallace-Wells and Allison P. Davis back into the studio to discuss breakup etiquette and stories from favorite Sex Lives guests and listeners. Dan Savage talks about the time he dumped a guy on Thanksgiving weekend. Ask a Clean Person's Jolie Kerr ponders an ex who had mildew on his breath. A listener shares audio from a breakup announced on Facebook Live. Alyssa Shelasky tells the heartbreaking story of an ex who haunts her. Engadget's Chris Trout offers one last bon mot.Thank you for listening to Sex Lives! And for sharing your stories with us. Though I disagree with cowardly breakup ballad "Tell Me On a Sunday," you are free to listen to this podcast in a park that's covered in trees, in a zoo with chimpanzees, on any day you please. And since the Sex Lives team still works at New York Magazine, you can always subscribe to that.

Linda Rosenkrantz was an art-world 'it' girl when, in the summer of 1965, she started carrying a reel-to-reel tape recorder everywhere she went, recording conversations at the beach, during parties, and after S&M hookups with New York City's wildest men. Those tapes turned into her lightning-rod novel Talk in 1968— the same year that New York Magazine launched. (And devoted a spread to the bikini-clad Linda.) Fifty years later, Rosenkrantz revisits her memories of that summer— and plays never-before-heard audio from the original tapes. With Maureen O'Connor.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alyssa Shelasky returns with an update on life as a mom who used an anonymous sperm donor to have a baby: One year later, she isn't single, anymore. Alyssa is house-hunting with the boyfriend her daughter calls "Daddy." (Not that anyone was prepared for the time she screamed "Dada!" during a silent moment in front of a crowd.) Also up for discussion: the delicate process of blending families, falling in love fast, and learning how to have sex with her bra on. (Breastfeeding changed everything.) With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a teenager in Louisiana, Myisha Battle learned about sex from textbooks censored with Sharpie markers. Today, she's a San Francisco-based sex coach dedicated to helping other women orgasm— and to squirt, which is an ability Myisha personally hones with pilates. Myisha explains her job, fields calls from Sex Lives listeners, and explains the wide world of orgasm in ways that confuse and shock host Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the horny imaginations of Harry Potter super-fans, Professor Snape is a BDSM sex god and Hermione Granger is a squirter. So say Potterotica hosts Allie LeFevere, Lyndsay Rush, and Danny Chapman, who explore the mind-bending universe of Harry Potter erotica every week— complete with dramatic readings. They explain which magic spells are the best for sex; why nobody fantasizes about Ron Weasley; and how a tech-savvy grandmother became the steamiest Potterotica writer on the web. With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 to leave voicemail for Sex Lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He's been telling Americans how to fuck for 26 years, and he's still not done. Dan Savage reflects on his unlikely career and tells stories from his own sex life— including losing his virginity in a cosplay three-way with his brother's ex, falling in love with unattainable men, screwing up his son's "sex talk," coming out of the closet to his mother, and the gay priest who helped her understand him. With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 to leave voicemail for Sex Lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gay marriage has moved to the mainstream, but has wedding culture followed? What parts of wedding culture are worth keeping, anyway? Sex Lives assembles a panel of gay writers to discuss their personal experiences navigating the sexual politics and social minefields of getting hitched. Bon Appetit's Kurt Soller recalls debating which boyfriend should propose. Vocativ's Ben Reininga wonders whether his proposal was just a DTR. And Curve Magazine's Marcie Bianco explains why she cut to the chase and eloped— and why she announced it on Facebook before calling her mother. With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 to weigh in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Does dating suck because you’re awkward, or are you awkward because it’s a date? Ty Tashiro, psychologist and author of Awkward: The Science of Why We’re Socially Awkward and Why That’s Awesome, explains why steeling yourself and weathering the first five minutes of awkwardness is usually worth it. “Don’t be a wallflower,” he says, meaning it literally: research shows that location is a powerful predictor of social success. But what if our love lives need awkwardness? Host Maureen O’Connor wonders if awkwardness, coded differently, is the very definition of romance. Call 646-494-3590 with cringeworthy meet-cutes and awkward sex stories.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jo Piazza was working as a travel editor when she met a man, married him— and spent the next year traveling to dozens of countries together, asking how marriage works in each place. She visits Sex Lives to revisit what she learned from women in Chile, Israel, Tanzania, India, France, Denmark, and beyond— and why, after discovering that she had a genetic mutation associated with muscular dystrophy, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with her husband. (And competed in a rare Finnish sport called "wife-carrying.") Piazza's book, "How to be Married: What I Learned from Real Women on Five Continents About Surviving My First (Really Hard) Year of Marriage," is in bookstores now. With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 with your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A listener calls Sex Lives with a harrowing story about accidentally destroying her husband's penis with Lysol, and Maureen enlists Ask a Clean Person columnist Jolie Kerr to help her sort out the ensuing mess. Also up for discussion: sex stains, masturbation messes, sexual etiquette for houseguests, and a theory about why Oscar the Grouch would make a great husband? To leave a voice message for Sex Lives, call 646-494-3590. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yes, it's a thing. Brian J. Moylan reports from the wild world of cosmetic procedures for male sex organs, starting with the time he cryonically froze his penis. (The shrinkage was intense.) He also introduces us to the growing field of "anal rejuvenation," which includes laser therapy, plastic surgery, Botox, bleaching, tightening, and loosening. All of which raises the question: What makes a butthole beautiful, anyway? Call 646-494-3590 to weigh in with a voice message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

E.J. Dickson, who last visited Sex Lives while pregnant, returns with her two-month-old baby in tow. She recounts taking an Uber to the hospital while her water was breaking, and feeling her uterus lifted out of her body during the C-section. Demanding a shot of whiskey after returning from the hospital, and giving up on breastfeeding. Watching her son be circumcised by a rabbi, and then tossing his foreskin out with the trash. Motherhood is wild. Call 646-494-3590 to leave voicemail for Sex Lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where is the best place in America to fall in love? When Cosmopolitan asked Jada Yuan to find out, she flew to six wildly different locales (and her hometown of New York) to look for love in every damn place. She came away exhausted—and more optimistic than ever. From the small-town romantics of South Carolina, to the shirtless male models of Los Angeles, to the kinky dairy farmers of South Dakota, to making out in cars in Detroit, these are her stories. Leave a voicemail about your hometown’s dating scene by calling 646-494-3590. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ella Dawson has herpes, and talking about it is sort of her thing. She writes herpes-themed erotica; she gave a TED talk about herpes; she celebrates the day she was diagnosed with herpes; and her activism on sexually-transmitted diseases earned praise from Hillary Clinton. All this, and she's only had two outbreaks— which is a pretty standard experience. Ella gets real about dating with herpes, enjoying unprotected sex, and getting her sexual education from Harry Potter fan fiction. And before you jump to judgment, remember: 2 in 3 of you have the same type of herpes that Ella has. (She has oral herpes on her genitals. Yes, it can happen.) And 1 in 5 of you has the other kind. (Ella knows a woman who gets genital herpes on her elbow.) Call 646-494-3590 to leave a voicemail for Sex Lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Kramer-Bussel was a law student in the late '90s when an erotic fantasy about Monica Lewinsky changed her life— by inspiring her to drop everything and pursue a career in erotic literature. Today, Kramer-Bussel has written or edited more than erotica books, including the annual Best Women's Erotica of the Year anthology. With a new volume in stores, Rachel visits Sex Lives to talk about her weirdest fantasies; what she's learned from two decades in the erotica business; and the terrors of Donald Trump erotica. Call 646-494-3590 with your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Host Maureen O'Connor tries VR porn for the first time and is horrified. She's not the only one— the technical demands of the new medium has male performers struggling to stay turned on, too. But here's the weirdest part: VR porn fans aren't that into the hardcore stuff. They just want to cuddle with their virtual porn-star girlfriends. Vocativ senior staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory explains how virtual reality is changing the very nature of pornography. Call 646-494-3590 to join the conversation.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cindy Gallop dates younger men— which is how she discovered that younger men seem to have received their sexual educations from porn. To balance the myths of hardcore porn with reality, she founded Make Love Not Porn, a video sharing network that is "pro-sex, pro-porn, pro-knowing the difference." As in, a social media network where people show themselves having sex... naturally. Cindy and Make Love Not Porn's chief curator, Sarah Beall, invited Sex Lives to Cindy's Manhattan apartment to explain their company, their crusade, and the joys of video voyeurism. With Maureen O'Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Every relationship can be based on love, even if it lasts only fifteen minutes.” That’s one of the beliefs that drove a movement to reinvent America’s understanding of sex, civic responsibility, and social welfare in the 1980s, says David France, director of AIDS activism documentary How to Survive a Plague.With a new era of activism emerging today, France revisits the hope and heartbreak of his youth during the AIDS crisis— and offers lessons from his generation’s hard-won victories. With Maureen O’Connor.How to Survive a Plague will be screened at New York’s IFC Center on President’s Day, followed by a Q&A with David France. Visit IFCCenter.com for details. Questions, comments, complaints? Leave voicemail for Sex Lives at 646-494-3590. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"You can't play it cool on Snapchat," says Priscilla Pine. And that's why it's the best for flirting. The pseudonymous technology-first sex writer came on Sex Lives to explain the different flirtation techniques each app on your phone requires— and the surreptitious information you can glean. Also up for discussion: when to save sex for the morning after; when to have sex before the date; the art of the Instagram "deep like"; and what technology can teach us about love— like the side-eye emoji, which on Snapchat describes a one-way relationship. Are you the side-eye in your relationship? What are your all-time digital flirtation best-hits? Call 646-494-3590 with your stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"I think it's a myth that you can't be a little bit pregnant because I've been a little bit pregnant for about six years," says Andrea Syrtash, founder of the Pregnantish.com. She explains: to be "a little bit pregnant," or pregnant-ish, is to be in a perpetual state of pregnant anticipation— as in, going through fertility treatment. Her new website is about the trials, tribulations, and weird-ass sex you have when you switch from lovemaking to baby-making. With Maureen O'Connor. Call 646-494-3590 with your stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices