Bringing The World Home To You

© 2023 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
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.

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 two National Headliner Awards for Best Information Podcast: second place in the 2022 and third place in 2021. In the summer of 2022, NPR's Codeswitch featured 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!

Ways To Subscribe
Stay Connected
  • An illustration split into four separate illustrations. In the top-left corner is a woman sitting alone on a park bench, reading serenely. She has long red hair and her legs and feet are resting on the park bench. On the top right is a co-ed group of folks with their arms around one another facing three crosses. The red-haired woman is among them, and we can only see their backs. In the lower left-hand corner is three people playing mini-golf, with the red-haired woman in the middle. In the lower righthand corner, a group of people featuring the red-haired woman are eating at a restaurant. The word "Unpartnered" is in the upper righthand corner.
    Unpartnered: Building A Full, Single Life
    Paige Perez
    A growing number of American adults have the same feeling about romantic partnerships: They don’t want one. Anita meets three people who have chosen singlehood: a scholar who examines the double standard of relationship status, a single mother of two by choice and a man shedding toxic masculinity to build a deliberately single life.
  • An illustration of two people with brown skin kissing with a heart above their heads. One person is sitting on a pink and green moped, with pink-framed glasses, a blue shirt and yellow shorts. They're holding on the handlebars of the moped with the second person in their lap facing them, wearing a yellow jumpsuit and white-framed glasses. The background of the illustration is purple. The word “Smooched” is in the upper righthand corner.
    Smooched: Why You'll Never Forget Your First Kiss
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita's highly-anticipated (and highly-awkward) first kiss was in eighth grade … but she remembers it like it was yesterday! A scientist tells her why our brains respond so strongly to kissing and how our kissing customs have changed over time. She also unpacks the power of a kiss with a photographer who documents queer Black love in public and three Gen-Zers school her on contemporary kissing culture.
  • An illustration of a Black man sitting on an airplane from the seat in front of him. He is looking out the window with a tear running down his face. He is wearing a red shirt, has a beard and is wearing an earring in the ear that is visible in the illustration. The word “Sobbed” is in the lower right hand corner.
    Sobbed: Why We Cry
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita usually feels better after a good, long cry. But why is that? She explores that question with a poet who spent years diving deeply into the science and culture of crying. And a forerunner of the "crying selfie" trend shares how he pushes back on toxic masculinity by embracing tears.
  • An illustration showing a new parent with long hair clipped back holding a baby in a doctor's office. The person is looking down and to the side. On the wall is a poster saying "postpartum depression" showing a woman with her head in her hands leaning over a crib where a baby is sleeping. "Delivered Part Two" is written in the upper-right corner of the image.
    Delivered (Part Two): No More Postpartum Silence (Revisited)
    Audrey Smith
    Anita treasures sleep and moments of silence. So when she hears typical narratives of early parenthood that include unending cries and restless nights, she has concerns for the mental toll on new parents. But culturally there is a lot of silence around how challenging it can be and recognizing deteriorating mental health while caring for another person can be isolating. In part two of the postpartum series "Delivered," she meets a prolific artist whose experience with postpartum depression catalyzed a mental health journey and a diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder. She also talks to a couple about what folks should know about sex and relationships postpartum and why the mental health of non-birthing partners should be part of the postpartum conversation.
  • An illustration featuring a woman with dark hair on the beach at sunset. She is wearing a red-orange bikini and has her hands on her lower abdomen, showcasing stretch marks and a C-section scar. A young child plays in the surf nearby, at her feet. In the upper-left of the image are the words "Delivered Part One."
    Delivered (Part One): Supporting A Post-Baby Body (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita has been around enough postpartum folks to know that there's a whole lot they felt unprepared for when it came to how their physical bodies would experience pregnancy and childbirth. In part one of a two-part series, she hears from folks about meeting their new postpartum bodies. A postpartum doula talks about her trauma-informed approach to caring for the physical body; a photographer shares why they're trying to diversify the images we associate with postpartum bodies; and a former Marine talks about navigating the pressures of a highly physical job postpartum.
  • An illustration featuring a masculine-appearing person with their head in their hands. They're wearing a gray hoodie and have red squiggly lines branching out and up from their upper body. To the left is a thought bubble with a heart with a question mark in it. To the right is a thought bubble with two praying hands in it. In the bottom righthand corner of the illustration is a thought bubble with a bottle of poison tipped over, a match and a house on fire. In the bottom lefthand corner of the illustration is the word "Obsessed."
    Obsessed: Breaking the OCD Cycle
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita is no stranger to anxiety, but her spirals are mostly short lived. In this episode she meets folks who often get caught in loops of extreme worry and compulsions with little relief. A married couple shares how OCD put them in survival mode and a woman whose OCD symptoms began in kindergarten talks about learning how to open up about her experience in friendships and dating.
  • An illustration from above, looking down on two parents leaning over a bassinet. In the bassinet is a newborn wrapped in a blue and white striped blanket, wearing a blue hat with three thin white stripes on it. The parents' faces are not visible, and the person on the left has one hand down on the baby and the other around the other parent's shoulders. The word "(Un)circumcised" is in the middle of the right half of the illustration.
    (Un)Circumcised: How Parents Decide
    Kaia Findlay
    It's a small procedure, but a big question. Anita talks with a urologist about what medical advice to consider while making the circumcision decision (and where medicine doesn't have the answers). She also meets a rabbi and mother who offers alternatives to centuries-old circumcision rituals and hears from a circumcised father raising an uncircumcised son.
  • An illustration of the back of a blue sedan showing several bumper stickers. One is the logo for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, another reads "0.0 I don't run" and a third is a diamond-shaped yellow sign that reads "No baby on board!" in all caps. The word "Decided" is on a yellow road sign in the upper righthand corner of the illustration.
    Decided: Child-Free By Choice
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita has interrogated so many aspects of parenthood. But how about the decision to become a parent at all? She talks with three women about making their child-free decisions and meets a psychotherapist who's devoted her career to helping people find clarity in that choice.
  • An illustration of a person bending over to smell a candle with two wicks lit. The word "scented" is formed from the scent vapors coming off the candle.
    Scented: Life According To Your Nose (Revisited)
    Kaia Findlay
    Anita sniffs out what's so fascinating about the science of smell — and gets her mind blown. A psychologist shares why smell is our most emotional sense, plus stories about the mental health consequences of anosmia (losing your sense of smell) and a scent designer describes how to re-create memories through candles.
  • An illustration of a person's chest, without a view of their face. The person is wearing a dark shirt under a denim jacket that features several colorful pins: a pansexual flag, a lightning bolt, a friendly mushroom, a smiley face with a stuck-out tongue, a slice of pepperoni pizza, a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles and a pin that says "Stutter Proudly." The word "Stuttered" is in the lower lefthand corner of the illustration.
    Stuttered: Diversifying The Way We Speak
    Kaia Findlay
    Stuttering occurs in every culture with a spoken language. So why do many communities treat it as a source of shame? Two speech-language pathologists and a comedian help Anita question cultural assumptions about stuttering and explore the growing movement to embrace speech diversity.
Load More