A Special Place in Hell

This week, the girlx hash it out about transhumanism and reproductive technology. Does this new technology trans away our humanity? Or is it doing the lord’s work without bothering any lords? Should surrogacy be banned? Or should is one of those “don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it” kind of things? Finally, the co-hostessx talk about memory and how different people experience it. Or something like that. They can’t remember most of that conversation.

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The womxn discuss their recent conversation with New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister about marriage, mating, and feminism. 

RELEVANT LINKS

Check out our recent podcast with Rebecca Traister here.

“The Return of the Marriage Plot: Why everyone is suddenly so eager for men and women to get hitched” for New York Magazine.

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

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New York Magazine writer, acclaimed author and old(ish) school GenX feminist Rebecca Traister joins the pod to talk about her September article, “The Return Of The Marriage Plot: Why  everyone is suddenly so eager for men and women to get hitched.” 

Do trads have a point when they say the sexual revolution has led us down the primrose path and people need to start procreation early and often? Or is this simply the moral panic du jour and everyone should be left to their own devices — technological and otherwise? 

Also, artificial wombs: yay or nay?

GUEST BIO

Rebecca Traister is writer at large for New York magazine. A National Magazine Award winner, she has written about women in politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective for The New Republic and Salon and has also contributed to The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies, both New York Times best-sellers, and the award-winning Big Girls Don’t Cry.

RELEVANT LINKS

“The Return of the Marriage Plot: Why everyone is suddenly so eager for men and women to get hitched.” By Rebecca Traister for New York Magazine.

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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 is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

Billie Eilish gets ratioed for saying no one criticizes men’s bodies. She is SO WRONG! (Yet kind of right.) In other news, famed atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now a Christian. What gives? Sarah has a few theories, Meghan is suspicious of the timing (Christmas is right around the corner…). Finally, the girls/women discuss what religion they’d like to convert to and have a hard time deciding.

Plus, why the official new name for paying subscribers is “speds.”  

RELEVANT LINKS

“Why I am now a Christian” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali for Unherd.

Know someone who is as black-pilled about the culture wars as we are? Donate or give a gift subscription.

HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

TikTokers discover Osama bin Laden’s Letter to America and have “existential crises”. Is it because it’s the first thing they’ve ever read that’s longer than a tweet? Or is OBL this generation’s Che Guevara? Plus, infighting breaks out in TERF world when an AGP confuses business casual with ballroom formal. 

Relevant Links

Osama bin Laden's TikTok popularity is based on childish notions of evil.

Meghan’s famous “piece” gets demoted to a “post.”

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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

High school debaters stand up to whiteness (finally). A-romantic, asexual novelist throws Twitter tantrum. Plus, are all-female colleges dangerous places for women? Do women tear down more posters than men? Would Sarah have been better off at an all-boy’s school? Should Meghan a cult leader? Or is she more assistant-to-the-cult leader material? 

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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 is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit aspecialplace.substack.com

The womenx answer listenerx question. You’re welcomex!

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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Sarah and Meghan kick off their conversation by wondering whether you should be able to order a breastmilk latte at Starbucks and or if the Donner Party consulted YouTube for human meat recipes. 

They then move on to the myth of the “decolonization” narrative, the disinformation surrounding the Israel-Hamas War and ask whether TikTok is a “headless propaganda machine.” (Signs point to yes.) 

Finally, they discuss the case of the 21-year-old TikToker who went viral with a video complaining about the hours she must work at her first job. Spoiler: they agree with her! 

(Psst! We also have a Patreon now in case you want to support us even more.)

Relevant Links

“The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False” from The Atlantic

“Opinion: Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now” from The LA Times

“Hamas Killed My Wokeness” from Tablet

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Housekeeping

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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 Sarah and Meghan consider the ethics of adoption, surrogacy and the future of reproductive technology. They discuss the “Baby Scoop” era, which lasted from just after World War II into the early 1970s, in which millions of unwed mother surrendered their babies to adoption agencies, many of which were profiting from the transaction.

They discover that Meghan, who was born the year of the highest number of adoptions, has always knows tons of adoptees and never thought much of it. Sarah, on the other hand, knew very few adoptees. Sarah also reflects on her own primal motherhood instinct and Meghan talks about her volunteer work in the foster care system. 

RELEVANT LINKS

Meghan worked in the foster care system for a while, and she wrote this essay about it in The New Yorker.

Want to hear the whole episode? Upgrade your subscription.

HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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

Eliza Mondegreen visits the girls/women to talk about the relationship between online communities and gender identities. From Reddit to Tumblr, tens of thousands of strangers are poised to welcome confused kids into a sprawling and hyper-accepting “family.” But, as Eliza puts it, “finding these communities is like stepping in quicksand.”

Eliza Mondegreen is a graduate student researching online trans communities. She is a columnist for UnHerd, Fairer Disputations, and Genspect, and writes on Substack here. 

ICYMI

You can listen to this episode for more context about the WaPo story about Artemis Langford.

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HOUSEKEEPING

💭 Follow Sarah’s Substack, “Hold That Thought.”

☕Follow Meghan’s other podcast, “The Unspeakable” 

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, Meghan’s community for freethinking women.

🎥 Follow us on YouTube!

❌ And on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

📸 And Instagram.

🎵 And TikTok.

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