A Special Place in Hell

In this episode of A Special Place in Hell, the girls/women wade through the sorry details of last week’s scandale littéraire involving Hobart, a literary magazine no one had ever heard of until last Wednesday. Meghan is a veteran of the literary world and it turns out it’s her job to educate Sarah about how things work. They discuss the phenomenon of “white Brooklyn ladies of the publishing business,” as coined by the writer Alex Perez, a Cuban American writer and Iowa Writers Workshop alum who is Sick Of The Wokeness™. Meghan talks about her own experience in an MFA program, her bouts of self-loathing about it in recent years and the vagaries of the literary “community”.

They then move on to the lighter topic of assisted suicide and consider the ways in which Canadian programs for the benefit of the terminally ill might actually be a slippery slope. Meghan deathsplains to Sarah about the phenomenon of death cafes and death doulas. (She’s a fan!).

In the subscriber-only BONUS content, Sarah reveals the truth behind her affinity for taking Twitter polls. (Spoiler: it’s not feminist). The ladies then return to one of their favorite questions: why do so many otherwise smart people go along with idiotic nonsense? Are Sarah and Meghan smarter than everyone else? Or do they just have better b******t detectors?

Relavant links:

* Hobart Interview with Alex Perez

* Who Killed Creative Writing? Meghan’s Substack article about the Hobart saga

* Scheduled to Die: The Rise of Canada's Assisted Suicide Program

* Sarah’s Free Inquiry article

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

In this episode of A Special Place In Hell, the girls/women lose their sh*t over Jon Stewart’s latest virtue signal flare from the ideological bunker in which he appears to be held captive. It’s especially egregious considering a new Reuters story that, for the first time, lays out actual numbers about how many kids are being medicalized for gender dysphoria, including getting invasive surgeries. But before that, they discuss Meghan’s New York Times interview with a “conservative therapist” that made a splash last week. What is a “conservative therapist” anyway? And why do so many self-identified mental health professionals on Twitter seem so invested on keeping people feeling mentally fragile? Finally, the hostesses address problem of information overload and the way it makes smart people feel stupid and (perhaps?) stupid people sound smarter than they are.

In the bonus content for paying subscribers only, Sarah explains the definition of “body count,” which Meghan thought had to do with killing people. In fact it refers to how many people you’ve had sex with and the girls discuss this in great depth without ever hinting at their own body numbers. Also: Do bisexual men exist? Does having sex with someone both before and after their gender transition count for two bodies?

Relevant links:

* Excerpt of Jon Stewart’s interview with Arkansas Attorney General

* Reuters: As More Transgender Children Seek Gender Care, Families Confront Many Unknowns

* New York Times: What A Conservative Therapist Thinks About Politics And Mental Health

* Sarah’s Substack Post: The News Is Bad For You. Stop Reading It.

* Sarah’s Conference on Oct 22 in DC: Info and Tickets

* OKCupid blog: The Big Lies People Tell in Online Dating. (More posts, archived here).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

This week on A Special Place in Hell, the girls/women spend way too much time on names. Are you a racist for mispronouncing Nimrata Nikki Randhawa? (Yes). Is the aforementioned a white supremacist for changing her name to Nikki Haley? (Yes). Should Meghan become Meghan X Daum? (Definitely). Why did George W. Bush call his wife “Bushie”? (Unclear).

The girls/women then move on to a lighter topic: the new guidelines announced at the recent World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) annual meeting, which contain protocols for gender-affirming surgeries on minors and, at long last, recognize a new protected identity, “eunuch.” Fully aware that they have not covered the topic of g*nder nearly enough on the podcast, they make up for lost time by going down a number of fetid rabbit holes exploring a number of avenues, including Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, the televised gender journey of Jazz Jennings, and mothers with Munchausen by proxy syndrome. The last item leads them to their second favorite activity after talking about g****r—blaming women for societal ills. On the BONUS segment, for paying subscribers only, the ladies/lassies go through an OKCupid blog picked by Sarah, and determine whether their podcast marriage is meant to last.

Subscribe now to hear the BONUS content, and unlock the comment section where you can complain about it to your heart’s desire!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

It’s the second ever special guest episode of A Special Place In Hell! This week, journalist Suzy Weiss visits the pod, not only fulfilling Sarah’s call for a Gen Z guest but also sharing her insights from her recent Common Sense article Generation Swipe. Suzy explains what a decade of dating app culture has done to the psyches and future plans (or lack thereof) for millennial and Gen Z-ers. It is depressing out there, but Suzy is optimistic. (A welcome change from nihilistic Sarah.)

Suzy also talks about what it’s like being the sister of one of the most beloved and vilified figures in media, Bari Weiss.

Then, in bonus content that’s available to everyone this week (YOU ARE WELCOME), Sarah and Meghan talk about Suzy behind her back for a few minutes before reading and discussing a blog post about women can live their best lives. (Hint: a little bit of plastic surgery goes a long way ladies!)However, as usual the comment section (often more thoughtful than the podcast) is available ONLY to paying subscribers, so pony up!

Relevant links:

* Hurts So Good: Suzy Weiss on an epidemic of invisible illness

* Sarah’s Substack Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s new Substack

* Blueprint for a Woman’s Life

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

Does Meghan look like a media elite? (Does that blue check make her look fat?) Would wearing hijab help Sarah's career?

On Saturday evening, as As Sarah and Meghan recorded this episode of A Special Place In Hell, Meghan was being ratioed on Twitter after posting an article so absurd she felt it needed no comment. (Wrong! The mob thinks she wrote it, and now they’re piling on.) But before assessing the damage, the girls/women respond to listener feedback about some of their earlier conversations about one of their favorite topics: how to live your life right. Meghan, who’s never lived her life right, helps Sarah clarify what she meant about settling down early becoming a “social norm” again. They then move on to Meghan’s viral tweet, which referenced an Atlantic Magazine article arguing that sports should not be separated by sex. Why? Because part of the reason men are physically stronger than women is because the imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, heteronormative, cis- patriarchy keeps them from having as many training opportunities. #Duh!

They then move on to another recent vital tweet storm, which suggested that “heterodox” POCs are simply opportunists who launder tired racist tropes because that’s how you get the big bucks. Sarah takes offense at this and finds it racist. Meghan admits she’s a little jealous not to have such such opportunities. Unrelatedly, in a shocking reveal: Meghan admits not to knowing the story of The Little Mermaid. This evens the score after Sarah’s previous disclosure that she’d never heard of The Love Boat.

In the bonus content for paid subscribers the women/girls answer listener questions about how to keep your friends even though they have turned into woke idiots see things differently than you do. They also revisit their semi-plans to release video content and bemoan the patriarchal forces that will require them to get expensive makeovers in order to do so.

A Special Place In Hell is a reader-supported publication. To receive the bonus content and get access to the comment section, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

In this episode of A Special Place In Hell, the girls/women make some perfunctory remarks about the death of Queen Elizabeth, with Sarah praising the television series The Crown and Meghan explaining why her favorite royal is Camilla Parker Bowles. They then reflect on last week’s conversation with their first ever guest, Kmele Foster of The Fifth Column podcast. Kmele, who met his wife when they were teenagers, had some fascinating things to say about the benefits of finding your mate early in life. Is he onto something? It is better to pair up with someone you meet when you’re very young, like Sarah did? Or are you better waiting until you’re older and have mastered the art of eating over the sink, like Meghan did? Sarah also wonders why so few famous second wave feminists were mothers and the girls/women discuss Selfish, Shallow & Self-Absorbed, the 2015 anthology that Meghan edited about choosing not to have children — and also why Meghan hates the term “childfree.” Finally, they wonder whether Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In had any basis in reality whatever and whether Elon Musk’s apparent quest to populate the world with his seed presents a good opportunity for single women wishing to have children.

Bonus Content for paid subscribers includes responses to reader comments, a brief discussion of the contradictions of atheist communities, and Meghan’s challenges with creating her new community, The Unspeakeasy. It is also (damningly) revealed that Sarah has never heard of The Love Boat. Subscribe now to get access to the longer episodes, and to our lovely comment community!

Relevant links:

* Selfish Shallow & Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers On The Decision Not To Have Kids

* Meghan’s other podcast, The Unspeakable. This week’s guest is Louise Perry.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

For months, the girls/women have been threatening to have a Special Place special guest. And here he is! Kmele Foster, who’s one-third of the beloved and mega-popular Fifth Column Podcast, visits the pod to talk about . . he’s not sure what. (In fact, he’s not even entirely sure where he is or what he’s doing there.) Sarah and Meghan inform Kmele that he’s there to represent All Men and to explain the current state of masculinity, including why so many men are addicted to porn, unable to form meaningful relationships, and are getting outpaced by women in just about every area of life. Of course, none of this applies to Kmele, who’s been with his wife since they were in high school, has tons of friends (including famous and important ones) and is a stratospheric professional success. But he gamely has the conversation anyway. The result is a deep, wide-ranging discussion about everything from the mysteries of the universe to the mysteries of audio equipment.

Kmele stays longer for lots of bonus content, which you can hear if you become a paid subscriber. It also lets you join in the comments (here!), which are quickly becoming better than the show itself.

Other stuff to know about:

* Kmele’s podcast, with Matt Welch and Michael Moynihan, The Fifth Column (duh)

* Meghan’s new Substack page The Unspeakable With Meghan Daum

* Sarah’s Substack page Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s community-in-progress for freethinking women, The Unspeakeasy

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

Buckle up debtors and non-indebted allies, this episode of A Special Place in Hell has everything: class, college, and fresh cut flowers. 

The girls/women start by discussing Meghan’s CLASS-ic New Yorker piece, My Misspent Youth, in which she describes her twenty-something struggle to achieve the shabby chic dream life of a working writer in New York City. Trigger warning: her rent was less than $1200 a month.

Meanwhile, Sarah shares her experience as an immigrant with a low-income upbringing caught between the worlds of her high achieving classmates and her down-on-their-luck neighbors. In this, the girls/women have little in common. However, they quickly find consensus in their (mostly) mutual distaste for student loan forgiveness, agreeing that art majors should never, ever catch a break. (Okay, Meghan might not put it that strongly, but as a self-hating MFA grad, she's allowed to wonder about it.)

In the BONUS content for paying subscribers only: The girls/women go through some of your comments, and despite their best efforts, yet again end up discussing g*nder.

Please note, from here on out, the comments will only be accessible on the BONUS episode (here!).Relevant Links: 

* Meghan’s New Yorker essay "My Misspent Youth"

* Meghan’s new Substack (which contains her essay about staring into space)

* Sarah’s (older) Substack 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

It’s the TENTH (10th!) episode of A Special Place In Hell. In this extra special Special Place, Sarah and Meghan honor the work and legacy of Norah Vincent, the immersive journalist whose untimely death was reported last week. For her 2006 book Self-Made Man, Norah* spent eighteen months infiltrating male spaces as “Ned,” an alter-ego that allowed her to observe how men behave when there are no women around. Though the stunt seems dated now, Norah’s work and outlook were strikingly ahead of her time.

Responding to clips from interviews from ABC News and NPR’s Talk of the Nation, the women/girls examine Norah’s ideas about gender stereotypes, her empathy for men, and her pride in being an androgynous woman. Along the way, Sarah reveals herself to be a failure as a woman because she is an assertive boss and , unlike Meghan, doesn’t say “sorry” all the time.  Meanwhile, Meghan admits she broke down in tears listening to old episodes of Talk of the Nation because she’d forgotten how good NPR once was. Sarah, who is shocked at the high quality of Talk of the Nation, explains that she’s never known NPR to be anything but crap and, furthermore, always assumed that writers were, by definition, intellectual lemmings whose job it was to simply restate the obvious. Meghan almost breaks down in tears again. They then remind listeners to rate and review the show. 

In the bonus content for only for paid subscribers:

Meghan tells the story about going out to an expensive dinner with Norah Vincent and wondering halfway through if it was a date (admittedly, Meghan WAS leading her on). 

Sarah and Meghan discuss what it means to be an “intellectual” and respond to listener comments about the Red Scare podcast and whether they should aspire to be more like it. Can the girls/women pull off the whale-tail? (Spoiler: no!)Subscribe to get access!

*Yes, we know we’re calling Norah Vincent by her first name even though we called Salman Rushdie by his last name.

Links:

* NY Times obit of Norah Vincent

* Norah Vincent in the Village Voice on the new “transsexual age” (in 2001!)

* Norah Vincent in the L.A. Times on abortion

* Norah Vincent on Talk of the Nation

* Sarah’s substack piece on Rushdie

* Meghan’s intellectual community for freethinking women, The Unspeakeasy. (Home of the “sanity spa vacation!”) 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

In this 9th episode of A Special Place in Hell, Meghan kicks off the conversation by pondering a friend’s advice that she not make fun of herself for being an “aging Gen Xer.” She asks why Sarah’s tagline gets to be “self-hating millennial” when she, too, is self-hating (to which Sarah explains that she doesn’t hate herself, merely the entire rest of her generation). They then move on to an uncharacteristically somber topic: the attack on writer Salman Rushdie. Sarah expertly lays out the chronology of the whole affair, even though the offending work, The Satanic Verses, was published before she was born. She predicts that this event will change nothing. Meghan’s contribution to the conversation consists mainly of pretending to remember what The Satanic Verses was about and avoiding saying that she was already in college when it came out.

Finally, they tackle the more critical topic of Sarah’s recent Twitter escapades, including a poll about physical affection (in which Meghan reveals herself as an Ice Queen, and Sarah reveals herself to be needy hugger) and one embarrassingly ratioed thread in which which Sarah wondered how physicality might play a role in friend selection. She recalls meeting online friends “irl” for the first time and being surprised when their physical appearances and mannerisms didn’t match their online personae, and asks if Meghan has ever felt out of place in such a circumstance. Meghan proclaims to have never had this experience because she is an #AgingGenXer and made all her friends in the real world.

The girls/women remind listeners to rate and review the show and announce perks for paid subscribers, including at the highest level, the opportunity to braid Sarah’s hair. 

In the bonus content, available only for paid subscribers, the girls/women get big mad at the non-binary Joan of Arc production at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London, and then proceed into a disagreement about how this will all end, concluding with a lighthearted discussion on mass rape in England.

Relevant links:

* Sarah’s Substack newsletter Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s freethinking women’s community The Unspeakeasy

* Show theme music by Mia Dyson.

* End music The Ground Beneath Her Feet by U2. Lyrics by Salman Rushdie. (Who's also in the video.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com