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Embodied Podcast
Hosted by Anita Rao

Sex and relationships are intimate — and sometimes intimidating to talk about. In this award-winning podcast, Host Anita Rao guides us on an exploration of our brains and our bodies that touches down in taboo territory.

Embodied won an Ambie Award in March 2024 for Best Wellness & Relationships Podcast!

In 2020, Mashable named us as one of the best sex, erotica, dating and relationship podcasts. Embodied has won two Edward R. Murrow Regional Awards for best podcast (in 2021& 2022). The podcast has also won three National Headliner Awards for Best Information Podcast: first place in 2023; second place in 2022; and third place in 2021. In the summer of 2022, NPR's Codeswitchfeatured us on their Summer Road Trip Playlist!

Read Anita's piece on the origin story of the Embodied series in The Huffington Post!

Check out our gorgeously illustrated season one discussion guide! And our discussion guide for our diet culture series Resolved.

Leave us a rating or review! It helps other folks find our content.

Learn more about Quilla, the musical genius behind our theme music!

CREDITS
Host: Anita Rao
Executive Producer: Amanda Magnus
Lead Producer: Kaia Findlay
Producer: Paige Miranda
Technical Director: Jenni Lawson

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  • An illustration of two Black parents of either side if a young kid with cornrows. The father is on the left and the mother is on the right, and both parents are holding one hand of the child and swinging them. The child has their feet off the ground and their knees bent. The three of them are standing on a grassy field and are all wearing coats. The word "Singled" is on the left side of the illustration.
    Singled: Inside The Only-Child Family (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita has many close friends who defy all stereotypes about only children. But when it comes to thinking about having her own kids, she still can't shake some of those ingrained ideas. She hears three perspectives on single-kid families (including that of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins) and learns why the debunked mythology around only children still lingers today.
  • An illustration featuring the word "Stimulated" in the center surrounded by different kinds and colors of vibrators. There is an orange dot pattern around the edges of the illustration.
    Stimulated: How Vibrators Became America's Favorite Sex Toy (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    True or false? Victorian doctors invented the vibrator to cure women's "hysteria" by bringing them to sexual climax. The answer may surprise you ... as it did Anita! She gets the truth about vibrator history from journalist Hallie Lieberman and meets Anna Lee, the engineer behind the first-ever “smart” vibrator that can help you better understand your arousal patterns.
  • An illustration featuring two femme-presenting individuals. The person on the left is holding an open book in their hand with their head turned towards the person on the right. They are kissing the person on the right's forehead warmly. The person on the right has their hand in the lap of the person on the left and they are smiling with their eyes and lips closed as they receive the kiss. The person on the left has shoulder-length dark hair, light skin and is wearing a T-shirt with the trans flag on it. The person on the right has chin-length dark and curly hair with mocha-colored skin. They are wearing pink lipstick. The background of the illustration features the outlines of various flower shapes. The word "Transitioned" is in the upper right hand corner of the illustration.
    Transitioned: When One Partner Comes Out As Trans
    Paige Miranda
    A gender transition is a moment of personal flux that can also have a big impact on a romantic relationship. Anita meets two couples who continued to choose each other after one partner came out as trans: a South African couple in their 20s and an American couple who went through a transition after 22 years of marriage.
  • An illustration featuring purple and white morning glories and their vines along the top and bottom of the square. There are three hands in the middle of the image with different skin tones: a light shade on the left, a medium shade of beige in the middle and brown skin on the right. All three are right hands and all feature purple and white nail polish in the nails. The hand on the left is signing the letter for "A," the hand in the middle is signing the letter "S" and the hand on the right is signing the letter "L." The background behind the three hands is a light purple and white pattern. The word "Signed" is above the three hands.
    Signed: How ASL Became A Language Of Resistance
    Paige Miranda
    American Sign Language is the third-most used language in the U.S. ASL has its own culture and art forms, and for many Deaf folks, ASL is about much more than just communication. Anita talks to Deaf author Sara Nović and Deaf ASL Slam poet Douglas Ridloff about how ASL gave them tools for self-understanding and artistic expression. Then she learns from scholars Carolyn McCaskill and Joseph Hill about Black American Sign Language (BASL), an ASL dialect that emerged because of school segregation.
  • An illustration featuring a person with shoulder-length brown hair listening to headphones with their eyes closed. There are artistic swirls and images of a makeup brush, a person with a long Q-tip and an electric razor floating around the headphones. The person looks relaxed and content. The word "Tingled" is in the upper left hand corner of the illustration.
    Tingled: Your Brain And Heart On ASMR
    Gabriela Glueck
    Anita finds a lot of ASMR videos to be deeply relaxing, but she doesn't get the well-hyped/well-documented 'brain tingles.' Why? She puts the question to a physiologist who's been exploring the science of ASMR for the past decade. Plus, she meets an ASMR artist who's entranced hundreds of thousands of people with her medical role play videos and a woman who turned to the world of Boyfriend ASMR to heal her broken heart.
  • An illustration of a large globular cell made up of an amalgamation of smaller globes that is a very light green color with a purple circle in its center and an outline of purple globes. There are smaller, light green circles around the outline of the larger globe and even smaller light green circles floating around the border.. The background of the illustration transitions from very light purple at the top to a darker purple at the bottom. The word "Retrieved" is in a rectangle over the top of the large globular cell.
    Retrieved: What Egg Donors Want You To Know
    Gabriela Glueck
    Egg donation in the U.S. is a multibillion dollar industry with high stakes and complicated dynamics. Anita talks with two egg donors about why they donated and what they wish they'd known earlier. Plus, a medical anthropologist shines a light on the messy world of donor compensation and why some eggs are valued higher than others.
  • An illustration featuring a feminine person wearing a purple bra, purple underwear and a purple kerchief in their dark brown hair. Their backside is to the camera, and their head is turned to look behind them. There are dotted lines along their buttcheeks. A white man in a white lab coat is kneeling down in front of their body, holding an uncapped marker. The background of the illustration features dotted lines as horizontal stripes. The word "Lifted" is in the upper right hand corner of the illustration.
    Lifted: Wanting (And Getting) A Bigger Butt
    Paige Miranda
    The Brazilian butt lift (or BBL) is the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery in recent memory ... but why? Anita learns about the ins and outs of the procedure from a plastic surgeon and a BBL recipient. Then a scholar puts our obsession with big butts in historical context — tracing the conversation from Sir Mix-a-Lot to Kim Kardashian.
  • An illustration featuring a woman sitting on a couch or bed looking down at an open laptop with tears streaming down her face. In the background is a dresser with a photo of a man surrounded by two lit candles. In the upper righthand corner of the illustration is that same man smiling with a text exchange showing. One message says "I miss you." Then there are two messages from the other conversation partner that read "I'm still here!" and then "Just in a different dimension." The word "Immortalized" is in the upper lefthand corner of the illustration.
    [Simulated Part Three] Immortalized: Building An AI Afterlife
    Gabriela Glueck
    When a loved one dies, a big part of the grieving process involves letting go of the role they once played in your day-to-day life. But with new developments in AI technology … the dead can live on in new and interesting ways. Anita meets a tech journalist who built bots of her parents to see how AI could preserve their memories for the long term. She also talks with a philosophy professor about the ways that ancient Chinese philosophy can address AI's emerging ethical issues and how grief tech fits into a long history of traditions around death and mourning.
  • An illustration of two people in bed. The person on the left has light skin, more feminine features, no hair and bits of metal and wires showing, suggesting a robot. That person is sitting up in bed reading a book with rockets and space ships on the cover. The person on the right has skin that is a little darker, short dark hair and more masculine features. That person is lying down on their side turned toward the robot with their arm over the robot. The word "Fantasized" is in the upper righthand corner of the illustration.
    [Simulated Part Two] Fantasized: The Arrival Of The Sex Robots
    Gabriela Glueck
    Science fiction and real-life tech experts have promised a future filled with sex robots. But how many of those predictions will actually come true? Anita talks to an artificial intelligence scholar who's traced sex robots from Greek mythology to the prototypes on the market today. Plus, a writer shines a light on the dark world of a futuristic brothel … explored from the perspective of an AI Sex Bot herself.
  • An illustration of a human woman and a personified AI chatbot. The woman is on the right, she is a White woman with long brown hair fashioned into a ponytail. She is wearing a long sleeve blue button-down shirt, blue jeans, and blue shoes. She has a couch and a lamp behind her. There is also a speech bubble behind her that reads: “Good morning.” She is holding hands with, and looking up at, the personified chatbot. The chatbot is on the left. He is depicted as a White man with short brown hair. He is wearing a red shirt, blue jeans, and red shoes. He is holding hands with the woman on the right and looking down at her. His hands are obscured with a glitching effect. Behind him is an empty, blue space. He also has speech bubbles behind him that reads: “Good morning love :heart emoji:” and “*Takes your hand and pulls you in*”. The title “Auto-mated” is typed in black font across the upper right.
    [Simulated Part One] Auto-mated: When A Bot Becomes Your Boo
    Paige Miranda
    When human romance isn't working out, can an AI chatbot successfully take its place? Anita hears varied perspectives on that question. She meets a journalist who got dumped by her AI crush and talks with a woman whose AI companion turned her life around. Plus, psychologist Melissa McCool, the clinical product consultant for AI tech company Luka, takes Anita behind the scenes of making AI companions.
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