Happy (early) Valentine’s Day, besties!
‘Tis the season to spread love, so I want to start by congratulating Arielle Nissenblatt and her EarBuds Podcast Collective on five fantastic years of curating podcast recs and creating a community around it. I highly recommend subscribing and signing up to curate a list. It’s a lot of fun and a good way to reach new listeners. Happy anniversary, Arielle and the EarBuds team!
Sticking with the V-Day theme, I'm sharing a curated list of my own for this week's edition of Podcast Bestie. As you may know from my recent interview with Cameron Poter, Pleasure Podcasts is a network of awesome shows revolutionizing the conversation around sex — and the home of my podcast, Private Parts Unknown. I thought this was the perfect occasion to share some episodes from the P-Pods gang.
AMERICAN SEX PODCAST - BJ Tips & Tricks with Carly S.
Valentine's Day is the perfect time to learn a few new skills for the bedroom! Pleasure educator Carly S. talks technique, lubes, oral in your kink scene, swallowing, pleasure anatomy, and more.
HOLLY RANDALL UNFILTERED - 218: How to be a Better Lover with Melanie Curtin
Holly chats with sex researcher and men’s coach Melanie Curtin about what men really want from sex, how to spice up stale marriage sex, and how to ratchet up the tension to make sex hotter for everyone.
MULTIAMORY - 152: Polyamory: The Most Common Questions
Great for people who are curious or maybe even hesitant about non-monogamy for answers to the most common questions about this relationship format.
SHAMELESS SEX - How to Have Mind-Blowing Sex with Layla Martin
World renown coach, speaker, and sex educator Layla Martin shares her top tips and tricks on how to go from "okay" or "good" sex to MIND-BLOWING, life-altering sex — not just from time to time but as a regular part our lives, whether during partner or solo play.
SEX TALK WITH MY MOM - Microdosing Anal
In this episode, comedian Cam Poter and his mom KarenLee Poter dive headfirst into their preferences regarding booty play. And if you're looking for dating app advice this V-Day, this mom kindly tears apart her son's Hinge profile for everyone's edification and amusement.
PRIVATE PARTS UNKNOWN - How to Get Your Couple Sex Groove Back with Ian Kerner
This was a popular episode, and it obviously struck a nerve with other couples who — despite lots of love and lust for each other — somehow fell into a pandemic sex rut. Well, luckily Ian Kerner has the expertise to get you and your partner out of the rut and back into the sack. It definitely helped me and my boo!
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📍 ON AIR FEST 2022
The full schedule for On Air Fest, an annual festival of all things audio, was just released. They're serving up all-day programming February 25th and 26th, ranging from performances to talkbacks, live tapings and in-depth interviews, breakfasts, and unexpected happenings. A limited number of day and weekend passes are available.
🎧 SOUND DESIGN PANEL
AIR and the Podcast Garage are co-hosting a sound design panel with audio engineers Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs of Reveal. Jim and Fernando will be sharing their process for organizing and placing music and sounds into their podcast episodes. The workshop is February 24th at 7pm PST and is available to attend in person in San Francisco or on Zoom. (use promo code sounddesign for in-person ticket)
✍️ ONLINE ORAL HISTORY INTENSIVE
This hands-on workshop is based on their popular 10-day intensive, covering oral history theory, method, and practice. They’ll address interview techniques, recording tutorials, ethics, memory, annotation, and experimental outcomes. The workshop takes place on March 6th & 7th from 10am-6pm, and you can sign up here.
THE TIM FERRISS SHOW: #567: A RARE PODCAST AT 30 BELOW ZERO - I saw this tweet from Tim Ferriss about his fascinating interview with Antarctic photographer Sue Flood. Antarctica is on our bucket list for Private Parts Unknown travel, so, of course, I had to give it a listen. ⬇️
THE POD LAB: MAKING BETTER MUSIC CHOICES - This is a fabulous podcast for podcasters with Doug Fraser at the helm. I was craving a lesson on sound design, and this really hit the spot. This episode covers intro music and narrative music.
PODCASTING SUCKS: SOUND DESIGN IN PODCASTS - Tanner Campbell, host of Podcasting Sucks!, has you covered to make sure your podcast doesn’t suck. This ep is another great sound design resource for podcasters.
CITY OF GHOSTS - Speaking of top-notch sound design, I recently discovered this amazing fiction podcast with a cast of freaking stars… and it was produced by indie podcasters! I stan.
THE MEMORY PALACE: HEARD, ONCE - I saw this hilarious tweet from Andrea Silenzi, and it reminded me to listen to my all-time favorite episode of The Memory Palace to get my RDA of Nate DiMeo’s soothing pacing. It’s a poignant little story about ephemera.
For the 3rd episode of our Mind Trip series, Sofiya interviews me about my first ayahuasca experience (two ceremonies over the course of a weekend), my intentions, post-ceremony integration, and so much more! This convo gets pretty vulnerable…
In this episode, host Mesh Lakhani breaks down the recent earnings reports for Big Tech companies — including Facebook's first time losing users EVER — and how they're preparing for the future with Web3.
This installment of Play It Forward comes courtesy of Jodi Murphy from Dorktales Storytime Podcast. She recommends:
“I love this podcast because in just 10 minutes kids (and their grownups) get a better understanding of current news events including, my favorite... science news and pop culture. I chose this episode because who doesn't love a good dog hero story or the latest on animal evolution? (me raising hand!!)”
Okay, that’s adorable. But she manages to top this with some overtly feminist cuteness because Jodi’s favorite episode of her own podcast is:
This ep is a fave for Jodi because “Hedy Lamarr was a famous film star and one of most brilliant inventors of her time. I'm proud of the way our team told her story like an old-timey radio show, including a Vincent Price segue and highlighting some of her inventions as the commercials!”
Indeed, they nailed the old-timey radio show vibe. Kudos, and thanks for sharing!
➡️ Here’s the link to submit for future editions.
So… ROLL CALL! 🗣
What’s your favorite podcast episode about love, sex, and/or relationships? Please share it in the comments below!
Follow me @courtneykocak on Twitter and Instagram. For more, check out my website courtneykocak.com.