Episodes
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Reading the feed…
Kevin James Thornton built a massive audience singing absurd stories from his evangelical past in an auto-tune style on TikTok. But underneath the humor were years of loneliness, secrecy, religious fear, and the slow unraveling of a series of lives he thought he was supposed to live. Kevin talks about growing up in a "super fundamentalist" church in Indiana, youth-group purity culture, heartbreak, trying to escape being gay, coming to terms with himself, comedy, and why it’s never too late to start over. Kevin’s new memoir is Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and An Interdimensional Cat. Full
Why do racist comments from loved ones cut more deeply than overt racism from strangers? What makes it so difficult to name harm when it comes from someone who cares about you? And how do you respond when good intentions don’t match real impact? Samira Mehta says growing up in a mixed-race family showed her how love and harm can coexist in complicated, often invisible ways. Through personal stories—about food, family expectations, code-switching, and cultural belonging—Mehta gives voice to the constant negotiations navigated by mixed-race people. Samira Mehta is author of The Racism of People
We talk a lot about women’s reproductive health. We rarely talk about men’s. But that gap isn’t just cultural—it’s built into science itself. In this episode, Yale sociologist Rene Almeling explains how modern medicine ended up with an entire field devoted to women’s reproductive systems—and no real equivalent for men. From a failed 19th-century push for “andrology” to today’s emerging research on sperm and health, we trace how this imbalance took shape. Along the way, we look at what new science is starting to reveal: how age, smoking, and environmental exposures can affect sperm—and why most
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE IN THE RELATIONSCAPES FEED NOW! Some songs wait decades before they reveal what they’re really about. Back in the 90s when 20-year-old Steven Page wrote “What a Good Boy,” he understood it as a plea to ease up on restrictive gender expectations that harmed boys and girls. But as he performed it over the years, he realized it was about much more than that. The song can be understood as a stirring anthem exploring gender identity, wrestling against the binary world's hostility to people who don't fit the mold, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, gay, or otherwise. Page, a founding me
If you lost touch with reality, how would you even tell the difference? That's the question Sarah Labrie had to confront after her mother was found on the side of a Houston freeway in the midst of a schizophrenic break. And she also wondered, "Am I next?" In this candid conversation, Sarah discusses growing up between extremes of adoration and abuse, witnessing a parent’s mental illness, struggling with perfectionism, and looking for healthy relationships, until the weight of her own artistic ambition almost brought her to mental collapse. We explore parallel worlds—of mother and daughter, of
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE IN THE RELATIONSCAPES FEED NOW! Some songs wait decades before they reveal what they’re really about. Back in the 90s when 20-year-old Steven Page wrote “What a Good Boy,” he understood it as a plea to ease up on restrictive gender expectations that harmed boys and girls. But as he performed it over the years, he realized it was about much more than that. The song can be understood as a stirring anthem exploring gender identity, wrestling against the binary world's hostility to people who don't fit the mold, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, gay, or otherwise. Page, a founding me
She dreamed of being a mother. Reality had a wakeup call for her.
Not your happy-go-lucky discussion of joy here. Ross Gay brings something different.
As a silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans, Meghan O’Rourke calls for revolution.
A trans scholar makes history writing trans history.
The word “heathen” has fallen out of use, but the racist ideas behind it persist in the White American imagination.
America's legacy of firearm violence through the eyes of a Métis woman.
A father wonders if it's ethical to bring children into this world.
A young Black Christian writer discovers the holiness of rage.
The challenges of parenting second-generation immigrants.
When we fight monsters, we risk becoming monstrous ourselves.
After Rachel Held Evans unexpectedly died, her friend Jeff Chu made sure her last book was completed.
How can scripture be inspiring if it's also racist, misogynist, and otherwise problematic?
The novel 'Jane Eyre' was ahead of its time, but many years later it bears the marks of its age. Are these older canonical books worth saving?
The virtue of civility has been used for generations to silence the voices of marginalized people in the United States.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews living as hidden heretics within their communities try to make it work.
How to talk about hard things like death, sex, money, and more.
Shifting beliefs about gender and sexuality in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
One woman's plight of being brilliant, pregnant, and homeless.
Thinking about disabilities can reshape our understanding of time.
