A Special Place in Hell

In this episode of A Special Place In Hell, Sarah and Meghan discuss the recent meme craze spawned by a comic about eating peaches. Since the comic had to do with motherhood, a subject Meghan knows nothing about, Sarah took the lead and explained why mothers sometimes make more work for themselves than is strictly (or remotely) necessary. They then spend some time contemplating hookup culture and “sex positivity,” which Sarah thinks is anti-woman and Meghan suspects (posits? hypothesizes?) is for ugly chicks. #JustAskingQuestions

The women/girls then move on to their main topic,  a recent Honestly podcast conversation between Bari Weiss and authors Louise Perry and Jill Filipovich about Perry’s forthcoming book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution. They gush over the book even though they haven’t yet read it and declare Perry to be an important and refreshing new voice (that may be able to get away with saying certain things because that voice is British). They are particularly interested in Perry’s thoughts about motherhood being incompatible with high achieving professional life and, by extension, individuality itself. Though Meghan has always been a proponent of universal daycare, she wonders if this would be tantamount to dropping your child off at the DMV. She then asks why westerners aren’t more amenable to intergenerational households and Sarah offers an epic lesson as to the pros and cons of living with a bunch of relatives. (Hint: it’s the patriarchy, stupid.) Also, small shouldn’t children drink tea! 

In BONUS content only for paid subscribers, the co-hostesses ask if fatherhood is a central identity for men and if men with dangerous ideas censor themselves after starting families. Also: why Sarah’s husband doesn’t read anything she writes or listen to anything she says.

Links:

Honestly Podcast conversation on Bari Weiss’s Common Sense Substack

Daily Mail article about poly family, and the aftermath

Sarah’s Substack newsletter Hold That Thought

Meghan’s forthcoming community 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

In this seventh episode of A Special Place In Hell, Sarah and Meghan are feeling generous and decided to make the bonus content at the end available to everybody (you are all very welcome)! But before they get to the extra-spicy stuff, they take on two medium-spicy topics. The first concerns policing; specifically policing women’s voices. Provoked by a tweet from actor Jane Lynch inveighing upon women to speak in lower registers, the women/girls consider why higher pitches—not to mention “uptalk” — is taken less seriously. Meghan, who has spent an inordinate amount of time over the years thinking about vocal intonation, has some things to say about this. She also shares her own struggles with vocal fry. This is an act of radical vulnerability.

The women/girls then move on to one of Sarah’s favorite subjects: why university life has become so lame. Citing a recent article about Stanford’s gradual elimination of student social organizations, she laments the homogenization of social life under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. On the other hand, Meghan thinks renting bulldozers to lay six inches of sand on the floor of a fraternity house might be a mark of privilege.

Because the co-hostesses realized the bonus content was the best part of the episode, it was decided that the entire episode would be available to the plebs. (#Inclusivity) In the final portion of the show, they discuss a recent New Yorker article about a new dating app for non-monogamous, non-heteronormative people, and Meghan explains why she’d rather look at real estate than use dating apps. They also consider whether women who get cosmetic surgery always do so for the Male Gaze (or someone’s Gaze). Sarah thinks performing for the Gaze is okay, so long as one is honest about it, and wonders if she should invest in a new face.

Relevant links:

* Palladium Magazine, Stanford’s War On Social Life

* The New Yorker, A Hookup App For The Emotionally Mature

* Sarah’s Substack, Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s new society for heterodox women, The Unspeakeasy (Which Stanford would probably ban.)

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 sixth installment of A Special Place In Hell, Sarah bows to “white supremacy urgency” and powers through her illness, which is either COVID or Monkeypox. Meghan talks about attending a screening of the film Jihad Rehab, a “controversial” documentary that made it to the Sundance Film Festival, only to be deemed “a truckload of hate” and effectively wiped out of existence, leaving the first-time filmmaker without work or any financial or community support. As she watched the film, Meghan couldn’t figure out what the problem was. But Sarah guessed it on the first try!

The girls/women then revisit the main subject of last week’s episode: pornography. Listeners left some candid feedback in the Substack comment thread (available only to paid subscribers) and the co-hostesses discuss these remarks, especially one from a man who described becoming so desensitized by porn that he no longer finds most real life women attractive. (Obviously he’s never met a female podcaster!) Sarah hypothesizes that porn addiction will eventually lead to human extinction.

Sarah and Meghan (or S & M) then move on to a problematic evergreen, the subject of sexual consent. Citing a recent New York Times opinion piece suggesting that saying “yes” to sex doesn’t necessarily make it totally consensual, Sarah wonders why it’s so hard to just say “ick” and move on. Finally they delve into the subject of (trigger warning) cuddle parties, asking why anyone would go to such a thing and whether wearing footie pajamas constitutes “asking for it.”

Extra Juicy Bonus Content (for paying subscribers only!): Prominent New York literary figure creates merchandise line inveighing upon another prominent literary figure to “Retire B***h.” Sarah is appalled. Meghan, who was an English major, explains how literature works.

Relevant links:

* Emma Camp’s New York Times Op-Ed on consent

* Melissa Febos’s New York Times Magazine article on consent

* Interview with Jihad Rebab filmmaker Meg Smaker. FAIR newsletter post on the screening.

* Meghan’s op-ed writing class, running four Mondays, Aug 8-29 (learn to write an oped about consent!)

* Sarah’s Substack newsletter, Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s project-in-progress, The Unspeakeasy

Opening music by Mia Dyson. End music The Cuddle Song by Jae Seven.

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 episode 5 of A Special Place In Hell, Sarah and Meghan get into some pretty spicy territory: the monoculture of academia (may not be suitable for sensitive listeners or people without PhDs) and the omnipresence of pornography. Citing a recent Washington Post article about the percentage of professors whose parents also held PhDs, Sarah talks about the lack of conservative thinkers on college campuses and wonders how anyone can get a complete education in such an environment. She and Meghan ponder the differences between left-leaning intellectuals and conservative intellectuals, a line of inquiry that inevitably leads to a discussion of female conservatives and whether they are hotter than liberal women.

The girls/women then move on to the more staid subject of pornography. Inspired by a July 6 post by Emma Collins on Wesley Yang’s Year Zero Substack newsletter, they discuss the psychological effects of early and frequent porn exposure, particularly on young men. They compare and contrast their own earliest exposures to porn (Sarah saw online porn when she was eleven-years-old; Meghan had to make do with furtive peeks at her friends’ fathers hidden Playboy stashes) and wonder if the sexual function of all of modern civilization is being wiped out by increasingly hardcore and exaggerated visual stimulation.

Bonus Content (only for subscribers, here) is big this week! Sarah and Meghan discuss (wait for it . . .) gender ideology and wonder why they are so obsessed with it. (More accurately, they ask why everyone isn’t as obsessed with it as they are.) They discuss (and disagree a bit on) whether there is such a thing as “true trans” and also return to a subject previously discussed on The Unspeakable: which dictators, terrorists and depots are hot.To get access, please consider becoming a paying subscriber!

Other highlights:

* Meghan describes a recent meltdown over the challenges of the creator economy and contemplates going back to (gasp) . . . writing.

* Sarah explains how, growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, “feminism” was presented as chiefly about sex positivity. This is very different from Meghan’s 1970s and 1980s experience. (Also, Meghan doesn’t get the choking thing.)

* Sarah discusses how devoid from reality philanthropy can be.

Relevant links:

* Washington Post: People From Elite Backgrounds Increasingly Dominate Academia

* Wesley Yang’s Year Zero Substack: The Case Against The Sexual Revolution

* Meghan’s oped writing course: She said the wrong dates last week and failed to mention it altogether this week. But please note that Meghan’s Zoom workshop in opinion writing will run four consecutive Mondays in August beginning August 8. Application deadline 7/27. More info here.

* Sarah’s Substack Newsletter Hold That Thought

* Meghan’s project-in-progress, The Unspeakeasy: an intellectual community for freethinking women.

Credits:

Opening music by Mia Dyson. (Opening quotation: Madeleine Albright.)

Ending music: Dating A Porn Star by The Weepies.

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 fourth installment of A Special Place In Hell, the girls/women clarify a few matters, starting with the meaning of the name of the podcast. They then analyze their Apple Podcast reviews and respond to criticism that the show is a departure from their usual seriousness. Are they’re letting down their diehard fans by trafficking in snark rather than upholding their usual gravitas? (Answer: whatever.)

Meghan announces that she’s putting The Unspeakable podcast on hiatus for the rest of the summer so she can focus on A Special Place In Hell as well as her other projects. She and Sarah agree that it was time they did something light and fun for a change. Plus, they are have such comedic talent. The world needs to know! After taking a few minutes to perfunctorily lament the current state of comedy (their version of land acknowledgements) the girls/women move on to the subject of the July 4 massacre in Highland Park, IL and Tucker Carlson’s much-cited and largely (but not wholly?) misguided rant about why young men become mass shooters. Is it because fathers are absent and female authority figures (aka single mothers and pink-haired English teachers) tell them they’re toxic? Is it because guidance counselors now hand out psychotropic drugs like so many Kaplan SAT course brochures? Is it because whiteness is such a liability that the only choices in life are TikTok stardom or committing mass murder?

Ever the contrarian, Sarah thinks it’s more complicated than that. She reflects on growing up as an immigrant in a lower-middle-class neighborhood and realizing she had more advantages than her troubled white neighbors because, among other things, she had a strong family structure. Speaking of families, she and Meghan then discuss—and even perform—a recent viral tweet thread about the moral obligation to abandon your family of origin if they’re not sufficiently committed to social justice. 

Other questions pondered:

* Is Sarah a “trad?” (Kind of)

* Does Meghan have evil in her heart? (Only professionally)

* Is saying you love America the equivalent of carrying a plastic purse? (Depends on your shoes)

Links/Announcements:

* Sarah’s Independence Day Essay: American Pride, American Shame

* Meghan is teaching an opinion writing class on Zoom, four consecutive Mondays, August 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th (not August 2; she misspoke on the pod). 3-5pm ET. Details here.

* Lean about The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community-in-progress for freethinking women, here.

* Like our new theme music? It’s by friend-of-the-pod and Australian rock star Mia Dyson!

BONUS CONTENT (for subscribers):

The girls/women answer some listener questions, including what constitutes a good faith debate, what do they like to cook, and what are their positions on Bitcoin, animé and certain kinds of furniture. 

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

(Hey! Paying subscribers! This is not the post for you— you are special. For you, we have an extra-long episode, which you can access, here). In this THIRD installment of A Special Place In Hell, the girls/women do their best to celebrate Independence Day despite their subjugation by the patriarchy, the Republican Party and the woman-hating world in general. They discuss the tenor of the public conversation around the overturning of Roe v. Wade and wonder if their long range thinking and lack of catastrophizing amounts to a “tone problem.” They then compare generational notes when it comes to actual abortions (Meghan knows many women who’ve had abortions while Sarah knows very few), access to reliable birth control and (semi-relatedly) the “myth” of women “tricking” men into becoming fathers.

Moving along to the less fraught topic of race, Sarah and Meghan ponder the “Karen” phenomenon and Sarah relays a story of being recently micro-aggressed by a well-meaning but clueless progressive (who had a “coexist” bumper sticker on his car) with whom she got into a fender bender. Finally, they discuss whether they’re failing at womanhood by not worrying enough about other people’s feelings or, in Meghan’s case, not always helping clear the table when she’s a dinner party guest.

But wait! There is more! (For some of you, anyway….)Paying subscribers get access to a BONUS CONTENT version of this episode, in which the women/girls reveal what’s inside their medicine cabinets and ponder whether this topic has racial undertones. To that end, they also wonder whether all our race problems are really President Obama’s fault. Tantalizing! Subscribe to get access!

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 (second!) episode of A Special Place In Hell, the girls/women discuss the use of the word “girls” in the show’s tagline and whether it’s anti-feminist. Meghan describes visiting the set (well, sitting on a patio outside the set) of Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday to watch Blocked and Reported co-host Katie Herzog’s debut appearance on the show, alongside Andrew Sullivan. Sarah recalls her own guest appearance on Real Time (also with Andrew Sullivan!) and both agree that going on that show is a traumatic experience that most media people will nonetheless kill for. 

The girls/women then move on to the obvious main topic: the long-anticipated yet still shocking news of the SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade. They break down the political and practical ramifications of this decision while also assessing the collective nervous breakdown that’s playing out on social media and elsewhere. Sarah explains why she thinks the ruling will cause many years—even decades—of pain but might ultimately pave the way for wider pro-choice legislation across the country. Meghan asks why politically conservative women, from Phyllis Schlafly to Amy Coney Barrett, seem able to balance big families and big careers better than liberal women. This leads into a conversation about the “trad” trend and why so many young people seem to be fetishizing pioneer life. 

 Other highlights:

*  Can you be a “trad furry?” 

*  If Amy Coney Barrett were on the political left, would she be a Badass Boss B***h Earth Mama She-ro?

*  Sarah gives a sneak preview of her latest article in Hold That Thought. 

*  Meghan does some psychological processing of a tweet she sent Friday evening that went viral. It was a high quality joke. But naturally it was “weaponized!”

* Meghan and Sarah both try to take the high road on social media, but are they kidding themselves? (Yes.) 

 Relevant links:

* Sarah’s Substack newsletter Hold That Thought 

* Meghan’s May 8 Unspeakable Podcast interview with legendary abortion rights activist Frances Kissling 

* This week’s Unspeakable Podcast two-part series on guns

* Meghan’s new project-in-progress The Unspeakeasy, a community for heterodox-minded women. 

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 inaugural edition of A Special Place In Hell, Sarah and Meghan kick things off with an explanation of how to pronounce (or not bother pronouncing) their names. From there, they ponder their 20-plus year age difference and do not think about the fact that Meghan is technically old enough to be Sarah’s . . oh never mind. They then commence with in-depth discussions of three recent pieces of media content. The first is Ryan Grim’s treatise in the Intercept about the epidemic of personnel meltdowns at progressive nonprofit organizations. (As a nonprofit leader herself, Sarah found this very interesting, as well as deliciously vindicating.) They move on to What Is A Woman?, the documentary by Daily Wire correspondent Matt Walsh, who pokes fun at jargon-spewing ideologues while asking a fundamental and seemingly simple question no one can answer. The film is a powerful shot over the bow in the battles over gender ideology, but does it trip over its own right wing agenda and undermine itself with sexist stereotypes? Finally, the ladies deliberate over Sunday’s very long New York Times Magazine article about debates within the field of medicalized gender transition in young people, a subject they’re both already obsessed with.

Other highlights: 

* Meghan explains to Sarah the connection between J. Jill clothes and the progressive nonprofit world.

* Meghan makes a reference to Christopher Guest movies and Sarah doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

* Meghan sings one line of Steely Dan. 

* Sarah wonders if breaking out of the gender ideology cult--er, “community” is analogous to leaving the Muslim faith. 

* Sarah reveals her mother’s “nickname” for her father.

Links:

The Elephant In The Zoom by Ryan Grim, The Intercept 

What Is A Woman? film by Matt Walsh, The Daily Wire

The Battle Over Gender Therapy by Emily Bazelon, The New York Times Magazine

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