Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Truth, Taboos, and Tenacity: Unzipping Our First 50

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

We made it to 50 episodes—and for the first time ever, you can watch us talk about sex (and all the things that come with it). That’s right: Unzipping Taboos is officially a video podcast! Whether you're tuning in on Spotify or YouTube, welcome to our faces.In this milestone episode, we reflect on how far we've come—from a humble Q&A idea to a full-blown show committed to candid, inclusive, and often-censored conversations about sexuality. We talk about what’s changed, what we’re still fighting for (hello, shadowbanning), the feedback that fuels us, and the big dreams we have for what’s next.Join us as we celebrate this moment, say thank you, and unzip a little behind-the-scenes honesty about what it really takes to make sex ed happen.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode of Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here, as many of you may know, to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. And today, Today, everyone, starting with this episode, episode 50, you can now watch us too. That's right. We are officially on video. So if you've ever wondered what it looks like when Dr. Sue raises an eyebrow or I cringe

laugh mid myth busting, now's your chance. You'll find us wherever you stream your podcasts for audio. And now you can watch us on Spotify or YouTube. So today, as I just mentioned, this is our 50th episode, 50 episodes in. We're just going to do a little debrief on what we've learned over this last year together and some of the favorite episode moments, perhaps, and we're just going to see where this goes. Nothing like a plan.

Yeah, but before we do all of that, I am here with our rock star, our resident badass. dr sue hey dr sue hey charlie 50 episodes i know i feel tired we've done 50 not in one day though so i feel like i can't say i'm tired from that but apparently still sick so sorry for about the sound everybody well would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself not really i hate this i feel like it's never gonna go away never gonna go away and i feel like um if we're reflecting on 50 I feel like this is the part I get yelled at the most about actually I feel like this is the only part I get yelled at the part you've received the most feedback on yeah no it's yelling no so so the reason for those of you who are joining us for the first time or having tuned

in in a while um the reason I get yelled at is because I tend to go really fast through this now in my defense sometimes I'm excited to get to a guest speaker I'm like yeah let's just get through the motion um but several of my friends have been like stop doing what women do and minimizing your credentials but it just feels awkward so okay you still haven't told us about your credentials all that to say all that to say so i have a phd in human sexuality education and you can actually get a phd in that um and if you have any questions because that's that's always my students like how do you wind up there um so i have a phd in human sexuality i um do primarily work in academia so when you hear me talk about my students it's primarily academia though i do do some stuff

in the community um where i may be working with high school students so i kind of wear well now i feel like i wear 15 hats but so like academia by day um and hey dr sue by night just sounds bad so you can find me online as hey dr sue i'm all over instagram youtube um all the all the places and people will submit anonymous sex questions to me through my website and we'll include the link in that in the description um and so once a week i answer those questions because i feel like everyone should have access to this information and in addition to all that i do this and i write textbooks and in addition i feel like this part and then um but i also do a lot of work across the lifespan and across audience types so i've worked with folks i think as young as 13 because

i was doing something on puberty um and i think my oldest person i've ever done a presentation with has been their late 80s um i work i do presentations in the community i also work with healthcare professionals, specifically social workers and psychiatrists. I work with folks who work with senior, like I'm just basically anyone that says, come talk to us about sex. I'm like, okay. So was that long enough? Not that time matters. Good enough. Good. Okay, cool. So I'm moving on. For those of you who don't know our Charlie, Charlie is our Curious co-host who is always ready to have these meaningful conversations about these taboo topics that we so rarely talk about um now it's your turn you're more comfortable with this than

i am well i don't have accomplishments that i'm trying to hide from in this space i get to be the everyday person in the room with you for these conversations on top of being someone who has generally um been interested in the psychology of the human condition and how we how we human amongst other humans. And I enjoy challenging taboos and societal expectations, especially a woman in American society. There are certain messages you grow up with surrounding sex and pleasure. And those have always seemed kind of weird to me because first and foremost, I'm a human. So I would imagine I enjoy and desire things in a similar way to many human instincts. So yeah, all that to say, I enjoy challenging taboos and expectations and pushing the lines

of those conversations and the things that we have been conditioned to believe about certain things. And so the opportunity to join Dr. Sue in this space was quite the honor and very intriguing. And you heard me. You heard my brain and keep me on task. That is a special skill that I think you can see in your resume. Dr. Sue Herder. Depends on how you hear that. That's actually what I was just thinking, especially with being sick. I'm like, I'm not sure i'm people are hearing me well h-e-r-d-e-r not h-u-r-t-e-r but maybe sometimes with your consent always with consent always with consent so 50 we made it i know yay so the reason i i want i mean i wanted to do this like on 50 i'm like we should celebrate this

And so I was just I was just cheat sheeting and looking at the Googles. Most podcasts, 90 percent of 90 percent of podcasts failed to make it past three episodes. Wow. And then of the ones that do, another 90 percent quit before 20. Oh, my gosh. We should have celebrated 21. What were we thinking? I mean, look at us.

And here we are. It's like it's or here I was. It's 50. Yeah. yeah i had to i had to talk charlie into this part of it a little bit but yeah you're on but once once i talked you into it you were on board i wish i knew that number i would have started with that when i was trying to talk to you about it um that's what you should have done justifying a celebratory episode if i do that i'll put that in the in the description somewhere

um but the reason i also want to celebrate 50 is a nice round number um and i like nice round numbers but also because celebrating accomplishments is is is kind of a mini it's a mini way to resist all the all the things that are happening so um so obviously i won that argument and we're here you were very persuasive i what i i should have just looked up the see numbers do you matter because most of the time i'm just making numbers up but i'm freely admit that i freely but this time it was from the google so obviously it must be true so it's a legit number because you can't lie on the internet no because yeah as president lincoln said everything on the internet is true

oh i wonder if any history professors have had students cite that i actually have a powerpoint slide that has that it has a picture of abraham lincoln and that quote and my students like oh okay illustrating the power of authority in those situations then my my favorite follow-up is like were you were you alive when he was president i'll be like shut up anyway back to our 50 yes um you want to talk about how we got here or are the unzipping taboos origin story didn't we do that in the the eighth take of our first i think we did so i i I, our first episode took, no lie, it must have been about five different takes. Just the episode, I'm not even talking about the intro we're trying to do.

Because we were trying to find our footing. And I think that's, that was challenging for anyone who's trying to do something new, who's doing it with very little guidance. But the reason the show came about, so is that we really want to talk about that and not my, not those spectacular five episodes that our close friends and family had to listen I mean, I think there's space to talk about both. We do have some we do have some. Yeah, we do have some some outtake clips from you trying to do the intro. But okay, let's be serious. So so let me start with actually Hey, Dr. Sue, because I don't think the podcast happens without that. And so I was teaching at a very large university in the south, like upwards of 70,000 students. And my sex class, which was bigger than I liked, like the I was used to a class size of like 25 to 30. And this was in the hundreds. and and even with that I was like there's literally 68,000 students who are not going

to get this information yeah um and like that just felt wrong for me and it wasn't that I was gatekeeping like I wasn't you know keeping people out of my cannot come to my class yeah well I did I mean I stuck to my seat yeah I stuck to my seat limit very hard but you know it was like you had to have the privilege of being in a school that had that class and be and the privilege of being in college the privilege of being at a school that had a sex class the privilege of having a hole in your program that would allow you to take that elective like but people needed information and i've known this because my students over the years at all the institutions i've worked with they're always like okay i was talking to my friend roommate cousin sibling whatever and they

wanted me to ask you this so like i know people are talking and there's more going on than just the people sitting in front of me when we get offline I have to tell you a very funny story actually about an uber with that um but but I started to feel like I was I was somehow gatekeeping the information and that didn't feel right to me um and my big thing about doing education like I'm a bit of a geek I'm not a bit I'm I'm pretty much a dork um and and so like the stuff that fascinates me doesn't fascinate the average human and so it was really important to me that i was not only gatekeeping information not gatekeeping information there's a lot of negatives there but also that i was answering the questions that people wanted answers to

like i could wax philosophical on the history of contraception and blah blah blah most people just want to be like what should i use so so i started doing do i have it or not yeah right yeah um so i started doing hey dr sue as a way of like essentially throwing open my doors my virtual doors and saying what do you want to know about and you know at first it was slow because people didn't know i existed but i had this stack of index cards because i would have a day where students could just write down every question they wanted it was usually the beginning of the semester so i could and it was done anonymously so i could know what to hit or if i would guess speak in people's classes i would have students submit questions because again i want to answer

your question not don't talk about the things that fascinate me and so I had this stack of index cards which I still have over there um and so I started with those and then all of a sudden it was like somehow someone found me and I was getting all these questions I'm still backlogged see that felt like an attitude and there really was an attitude there anyway so that's how I Dr. Sue started I my questions are quick and my answers are quick and to the point like when I read them on youtube i think it's less than three minutes for the average um you know it's just the information you need and always available to do follow-ups if someone submits so that's how dr sue started and i loved it although i feel like i have homework every week but i love it because

it keeps me on track of like what do people want to know it's great conversation starter for other places where i speak um but then i was like i want to have this conversation bigger and with another human because talking to myself is a little boring I'm my own tired of it I'm very bored no and and so I was I was talking just I was talking to someone who's like they're like you should do a podcast I'm like not on my own like I already talked to myself all day I don't I know what I have to say I know and I'm not and I need someone to keep me on task and it was like boop i knew exactly who it was going to be so i called you charlie i think i called you or texted you i think it was during one of our conversations oh okay i don't remember

anymore and i was like hey go ahead because the the initial iteration of this was about four years ago yep yeah so we started trying and then and then and then i got overwhelmed with life um but it was just like because there's there was no one else i could think of who we have that kind of interaction that's nice and relaxed and direct and to the point and no shame and like that's what i need and someone who understands my brain as anyone who's listened to any episode knows charlie can often read my my mind um and that's how that started and then it's we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find a fucking name like that was good that was way and the funniest thing is we were trying to record the process right for posterity oh my god

we have those somewhere we yeah we've got to find some of this we've got to find some we'll do we did have this in mind yeah at 100 we'll do an actual blooper reel um we were trying and i want i we were also playing with recording so we were recording like trying to find the name and we come up with a name and then that would be taken and we had all these things and then I was just like oh and I hit stop and within five seconds we came up with the name and I was like that just sucked but the name was born the artwork was born and then I approached uh Allie O'Brien my friend who is also one of our steadfast listeners thank you Allie yes thank you Allie who is a musician and she and her her friends um she wrote the music and we okayed it and then she and her friends

recorded it and and then off we went so that's our origin story it is well and we spent the better part of spring and last summer getting up to the the first three episodes that we released in september yeah and so that that was an interesting journey the research the trying to find the right platforms for also what we had bandwidths for to to learn you know the learning curve and all of those things um so yeah because we both have more of them we have full-time jobs we have day jobs yeah yeah we have which we would love to give up for a podcast yeah um so funny so listeners help us achieve um and i know i work several part-time jobs and then do the hey dr sue and like you have a life and like we have things so yeah we were trying to find something

that could that was that was workable and i do kind of want to throw that out there if there's anyone out there who's thinking about starting a podcast and wants any sort of advice we're happy to give it so um so yeah just reach out and be like i have a question we need to not be able to answer it we could try and if i'm making it up i'll tell you but um we learned a lot from other female podcasters who i know i was guesting on some people's shows and you know you don't get paid to to guest for a podcast right but i was like hey can i pick your brain and and most people were like absolutely you know record a podcast episode we'll get on another call and and pick my brain and you know do all that and so um i just want to thank some of them are no longer

podcasting so i don't want to thank them by name but um i do want to thank those of you who helped get us started and answered what felt like should have been really simple questions about how to do this and we're not that simple so if you are starting about thinking about starting one I mean we can't necessarily help you with topic but we can definitely give you our insights on like platforms and microphones yeah because that was way harder than it should have been yeah that was that was a journey right so with that I just want to cheers to our listeners give a toast to our listeners and those very people that helped us in our early stages understand yeah wait hang on people can see us now i know damn it i can't flip you off all this was your idea

but just a toast to everyone who has supported us thus far gotten the word out we'll continue to get the word out and those that gave us their tips and tricks and were so generous with the information and their their lessons learned and everything so a toast to everyone thank you thank you now okay and we and our guest speakers because we've had a couple of really fantastic guest speakers um we hope to have some more that are in line with what we do um so we thank them for their time as well. Yeah, I think that segues nicely. I like that, right? Yeah, it's like we planned it. I know. Some of the considerations in planning our podcast, initially we had said, you know, probably no guests, at least not for a while while we got our foundational episodes

out there and then what we were finding um is a lot of people like to hear guests on podcasts that was some feedback that we got um and maybe i'll let you tell a couple of those stories dr sue um see now people can see that face yeah yeah but um by virtue of some of the guest spots that you've done on other podcasts it was just a really nice uh synergy between the shows that you'd have been invited on and those that were willing to be a guest um on our show shout out to Annette um from Talk Sex with Annette we've done a couple of episodes with her and it's just been fantastic and she's one of the people that has been really generous with with her information with us and her her bumps and bruises and what she's learned so

um thanks Annette yeah but but that was that was an interesting evolution I think over this past year is going from no it really just needs to be the conversations that we need to get out there to okay maybe it's time to start thinking about it and and some of the other aspects that contribute to sexual health, like our talks with Dr. Cara and pelvic floor health and how that impacts sexual health. Yeah. And we actually started with our first speaker because we were approached to be part of the podcast on. That's right. I do think it was important for us to kind of find our way. Like it's always interesting to me when I'm looking at the episode length, like the beginning, it was like, we're here, we're going to do a little bit

talking and now our episode like maybe 20 30 minutes and now it's like 40 50 an hour yeah um so our first guest speaker was from I need an a um I need an abortion.com um which you can look at by just finding I need an a uh so podcast-a-thon is something nope there's no a and there's no second a podcast-a-thon I always want to say podcast-a-thon it was started in France and they work with smaller podcasts and there's a to help those podcasts um highlight a a non-profit that they want people to know about and for me i am volunteer for them so for me it was like i knew exactly who i wanted it to be um and you were pretty much on board once i showed you like yeah yeah there was no convincing not like this episode there was no convincing um so we had the

founder and um oh i don't want to screw it up founder and director founder and ceo founder and oh that's bad sorry my apologies um i know she's founder and i want to say director of i need an a she came on um and talked about her work and how the website came to be and um that was our first guest and once we did that it was kind of like oh okay maybe not every week do that um but i think are like oh wait this is adding this is adding something to our podcast that yeah yeah so that was i was glad we did that me too yeah do you want to tell any stories about when you got feedback about well no because i think some of them are going to know who they are so okay the topics that we've gotten um when we get topic requests some of them have been through the website so

we'll make sure we always include that in the description if there's something you want us to talk about submit it as a show idea um it may be an entire show maybe we'll work into pieces of show so our show idea we have actually had quite a few folks using that which has been great because that's you know that whole i want to talk about what people want to talk about um so thank you for that and that will continue to be there but a lot of the a lot of the feedback like not we don't get feedback anonymously not yet anyway the feedback we get is from our friends and family and people who are listening to this so like the take your time and slow the hell down and yeah um there have been some there's been some feedback from people in my life who are like

you should have someone on the show and when they were trying to describe who should be on the show it became very obvious they had never listened to our show it was like they basically just wanted to bring on someone we would fight with and i'm like that's not our theme that is not our vibe i mean every once in a while i want to you know throw down with you but but then we move on do you no do you well actually yes because there was that one episode thankfully there was no video where i just spent like five minutes flipping you off i don't know if you remember that i do it was because i told that story yes um but like we don't that's not the vibe and that never has been and it's always been really important to us that we're not doing clickbaity shit

because we want this to be something of substance there are a thousand different podcasts out there that are clickbait in nature what was that about a thousand different podcasts out there about sex that are clickbaity and argumentative and and that's not what we wanted this to do yeah and then i had some folks who were like you need to have men on there and i'm like like like if you had a great guest speaker who was male i'm not going to rule them out because they were male but part of it was like just to have a different voice and i know you and i've talked about this a thousand times for every one good female podcaster out there on any subject there's like a hundred now see now i'm making up numbers a hundred men and so you and i i know it

felt like men have enough space and that we wanted to create something different not that we're opposed to men and if you have in that realm yeah actually we're we're working with someone right now to see if we can get them on the show who's male um but just this idea that we should have their voice present i'm like they're present enough not not to man bash but yeah we want to hold that line so yeah that's right i mean you know that's a big joke out there right now is like if if you're on a date with a guy oh I have a podcast oh do you you know kind of everybody has a podcast now yep but apparently 90% don't make it past three episodes right right so you should be like oh you have a podcast how many episodes have you done two on gnu

now I'm gonna have fun making all my faces knowing people are gonna see them people be like hey thanks for doing that now you can stop no yeah we're good thanks so much nice try it's scratched appreciate it yeah what are some things that you have found that you maybe didn't expect on our journey so far or are there any I love when we have a plan and then like you hit me with something I didn't plan um so there's it's more of my friends and family stuff that i would talk about so i don't know if you want to go into that um in terms of what we've done i don't i don't feel like anything has been surprising um in terms of show ideas that have come in i don't think anything's been

really surprising it excites me when people are interacting with us so we don't it's not shocking um people in my i guess i'll just talk about my i'll just keep talking about myself um everyone in my life who's like in my life knows what i do there's no secret like it's not like we go to a family dinner and i change my title i mean like age appropriate you know if there are young children in my life they don't know what i do they know I'm a teacher um but for everybody else like it's yeah everybody knows and nobody's ever seen bothered by I get that question a lot actually when I first started my career it's like are your parents like do they have a problem like they will stop at the grocery counter to tell

like the checkout person what I do for a living like they're because it's also based in education and both of my parents happen to be retired educators and so I think they really like the idea that I'm well actually they hated that I was going into education but that's for another podcast but what i think is really fascinating like everyone was really supportive um we had a number of people who are willing to listen to those 15 000 outtakes of our first episode what's really interesting is now that the episodes are out how many people are like i support what you do but it is weird to actually hear you talk about sex and i'm like but but but you've always known that this is what I do like um but I think that there is something

there is something different when it's coming from someone you know and so I've had a couple people like yeah I'll listen to it I'll listen to it and then I'll be like oh did you listen they're like honestly I can't like I like I know what you do and I support what you do and I tell everybody about your podcast but it's weird to hear you say some of those words out loud and i'm like that's exactly why you should be listening like is to get past that yeah to break that weirdness yeah but i recognize that like it's different when it's a family or a friend and so that was it was surprising to me how many people had that reaction or maybe they just didn't want to listen to the podcast and they thought that'd be a great out but it was like no like support

you we tell people about you you know share your posts when you put them up on social media but like the first time i was listening to you say certain words they were like there was a little ick factor for me because I've known you for 20 30 40 your whole life so so that was that was a surprise but also not that that just makes me think of the first time that you and I met and had a conversation and and there's the what do you do and I I've said it in a couple of episodes about this but you get this little glint in your eye because you're waiting to see what kind of reaction you're gonna get when you say I teach sex you should know by the way that I oh now everyone can see me like pointing at you um you should know by the way that I don't say that to

everyone on the I have I go through on the first date no the first time I meet someone when they ask me what I do like I have to go through this very quick mental checklist of do I feel safe do I feel like I'm going to be attacked am I in a place where I feel like it's too public to have this conversation so like the fact that i said that shows how much i trusted you from the very beginning yeah um but there are times where i i have edited myself uh we've done an episode on that we had a conversation yeah there you go see that just speaks to that just speaks to being wonderful from the get-go thanks but i do remember that glint and and you did a little like that you blurting it out and then watching me to see what i would do and i don't think i flinched

just like oh cool like what level what do you like how do you teach it's it's kind of it's kind of it's kind of a fun game to watch how people react to that um yeah i love though when i don't like right now because i'm a little sick and easily and for those of you joining this is not usually what i sound like um i said i teach sex and someone's like saxophone and i'm like no no that's sex i teach sex that'll be a term for colloquial colloquialism episode it was kind of funny but yeah i do i go through a very quick mental checklist of how do i feel like this person's going to react and do i want to defend my do i think i'll have to defend myself do i want to defend myself like i've definitely met people like on flat i always joke that if

you're next to me on on transportation trains buses flights and yeah see what i do like you're going to have a conversation you didn't expect but there are definitely times people have asked me what i do and i just say i'm a college professor who teaches health because it feels safe yeah so so there you go kudos to you for being a good human hey thanks i think for me what has surprised me is oh yes i'm sorry the amount of charlie what has surprised you i'm sorry that's all right i can ask myself the question um I think what surprised me is sometimes I have a little bit of imposter syndrome on some of our episodes um and I all think and I've and I'll express it to you sometimes like I just don't know how I'm gonna bring value to this conversation other

than guiding it and all of those things oh wait people can see that now um for those of you who aren't watching by the way i just pretended to like slap um but then what surprises me is that i am able to contribute in a meaningful way and just the feedback that you get from um some of your circle about my contributions like means the world to me because there is there is always that i mean I'm sitting with one of my closest friends who is so esteemed and so knowledgeable and so experienced and this is not just an ego stroking episode but it can be like a little of course I support you and I am 100% a cheerleader but to be able to sit comfortably in these conversations and feel like i add value to what you present and what you like you know this stuff so well

so so that's been surprising to me is my you the way i've been able to effectively sit in these conversations and i think add value you absolutely it's so funny because i was talking to a friend and no one knows who you are in my life like because yeah i'm the elusive charlie You're the elusive Charlie. That's my superhero name. But they'll be like, Charlie asked the questions I wish I was asking in the moment. And I'm like, well, that's good and bad. Good because you're getting a question asked, but bad because it's stopping you from like asking and having more talking about it.

But there is a there is a value to being that voice of like, OK, but here's what us humans think or this is what us humans aren't sure about. And you definitely bring more of that psychological perspective than I have. Thanks. Yeah. Yay. we'll keep you around just a little longer just like maybe for 50 more episodes and then we'll reevaluate 101 you're out yeah now hiring that's my life cycle um what what do you think's still pissing us off about about sex and taboos so many things so

many things this this see now we just went from like a normal episode to like a 200 minute episode the center it's still the censorship it's still the fucking censorship it's still the the the conversations that we have to have behind the scenes about how we're gonna word things and you know are we gonna i will never i know i know we've talked about the value of misspelling sex so it doesn't get censored but the fact that the information gets censored is pissing me the fuck off um so it's the continued censorship it's the continued censorship from legitimate sources because there's really crappy sources giving really bad information about sex out there and they're they've managed to like to get through to get through the censorship

chain um and then and my stuff whether it's here or through hey dr sue my stuff doesn't always make it through that that uh that that mystery maze so well um so i think it's i think it's the continued censorship for me um that would be the biggest one i have several other contenders but what about you i think for me it is it is figuring out different different ways to chip away at at the conditioned taboo nature of sex and pleasure and sexuality and and all the things that go into sexual health and sexual relationships and and allowing for space for those different iterations of people being humans to exist the the need the absolute need and desire to create others and hit others against each other to distract from the man behind the curtain in my

opinion um because you know i i long say that there's no money if we all get along there's no money in people getting along so we've got to continuously create these adversarial relationships with the way people move about society and what they enjoy and what they've been traumatized by and naming people who make space for that as woke as if it's a pejorative term and all of those things. It's trying to unpack and get through to people who are so certain that their conditioning is is without question without reproach right so that's that still pisses me off i don't think that's going to go away in the next 50 episodes by the way i don't think so either yeah but upside that means we have 50 more episodes

to continue to chip away at the granite with a toothpick thanks for making this seem like we were never going to get any first i was like yes then you kept going with it and i'm like oh fuck that's just not worth it um i one of one of the reasons i wanted to do the podcast was i could have i could have my own platform to talk about the ridiculous state of sex ed and i remember when we finally did that episode i was like oh it's done and i still reference it all the time but the reason i bring it up is i joke with my students that if it wasn't for their crappy ass sex ed that they had k through 12 if they had any like i may not always have the job i want so like yeah crappy sex ed no that's just a joke i want

everyone to get the information um but it is a joke like there's always going to be work for me because people are still getting misinformation or no information so well and you have to do it almost retroactively because you have to go back as far as when they first got exposure to sex ed to untangle any misinformation or outdated truths that they have been holding on to because they learned it in somewhere in their k-12 journey and then you get to start doing the things that you went to higher ed to do but by that it's like there's a case yeah whereas there's a case for if there is this this teaching model that in in the episode where we talk about it we're not saying teach kindergartners about sex but what contribute foundational things that contribute

to healthy attitudes and um potential sexual interactions are the building blocks for communication healthy communication the building blocks for understanding consent and how to give consent um and how to receive non-consent you know how to receive no those are all building blocks and so you in my opinion based on some of the things that you have shared with me is that you have to spend a semester undoing all of that stuff yeah so that you can do the stuff that you need to do to get quality health ed professionals out into the world yeah and then it's also the work that I'm doing in the community like I get those books like an hour there was one time i was working with psychiatrists and i got them for like four hours over two days and i was

like oh like not enough time to do half the things that i want yeah but at least i get them for more than an hour um so yeah that's that's why we will continue to doing the podcast and i will continue doing the hey dr sue and we'll continue to i'm not reiterating the granite with a toothpick that was really disheartening and like burst my balloon so well i'm tenacious and i will chip away at granite with whenever i can so that's why that's why you have me to be disheartening thanks to be like no we could still do it find a way we'll find a crack somehow somehow somewhere even if we have to make it in a sex in a sex podcast crack yeah right

what else do we want to talk about in the 50 I think um one thing that I wanted to highlight could just kind of what from what we've learned is there have been a couple of times where we have kept our recording so we have two times a week we meet you know what I'm going to talk about to record and there we did so well so well out of the gate once we got through like getting our first episode our pilot episode recorded and then we would record on a topic with just minimal like, here's the topic. Okay, Dr. Sue, are there like key things you want to be sure that you mentioned? And we that was worked really well for a minute. And there have been a couple of times where we've met to record. And we record,

we know the topic, and we have the same approach. And then we just would get we'd stop recording be like how do you feel about that i hated it how do you feel about that it was awful we have the unreleased episodes that will come out on our show we just kind of meander i kind of that's the rare occasions that dr sue has to reign me in back on topic i don't like that role yeah it's not for everyone but um so that lesson learned of like okay here's the topic and just the bones we we don't need we don't script we don't have this is candid that was our mission candid accessible information to have people who tune in understand that even people who are

comfortable talking about it one who does it who does it for a living and one who is unashamed we will still fumble and still might get tricked up and a little giggly about about the word erection or crack or hole or tumescence i was so excited about that word um so so coming out of that i feel like that has it was like a necessary episode a thing to happen for us to just kind of humble us and be like no no no Con helps. Come on.

Helps us stay on track. Yeah, it helps us stay on track. And that's part of that process. I got to tell you, can I change this just a little bit more? Yeah. One of the things that always surprises me is people's reactions. So these are people that I know. But I have a very dear friend who listens to the episode.

The episodes are released at 8 a.m. Eastern Time. And it happens to be when she is driving to work. so she gets to listen to the episode and then she'll send me a text of like one thing and and you know we so we record these weeks ahead of time because we both have busy schedules and we both have things to do and so sometimes i forget what what episode is coming out until i get a text but my favorite and i didn't ask consent to say this i i'm hoping she's okay with it um it was the episode on sex ed and it was where i was talking about where students when i was teaching in the washington dc area and i was finding out students who had come from catholic

school had instead of learning penis and vulva or vagina we're learning pennsylvania and virginia and i just get this text and it was just all caps like pennsylvania and virginia like and i hadn't i completely forgot the episode was coming out because i was teaching class at 8 a.m i get out of my class and i look down i'm like why am i being yelled at into oh or people have great t-shirt ideas so another very dear friend of mine everyone's a dear friend of mine um another dear friend of mine who listens to them when she can because she's work family you know all the things that that keep people busy and i'll just get like a random text of i've got this this this episode's t-shirt idea because it's like this thing that comes

through so so you'll hear occasionally hear us say like that's the t-shirt idea and that's yeah the merch idea that's what that's how she phrased it was the merch idea for the week so it's it's interesting because it's the things that get repeated back to me but I haven't like that wouldn't have been my takeaway from that you know like I know when we did the episode with Annette no with Kara Dr. Kara and it was like how's my tumescence like that was definitely a moment we had of like that's a great t-shirt idea but it's it's the things that people are picking out that were important to them that I would not have necessarily said was the most important part for me but that's why we're not we're not doing it for me and you

well a little bit for me and you sex that episode was definitely for me i know we've there's a couple of things okay a lot of this is for me um but but hearing about those those pieces those tiny little pieces that people were pulling out that they thought was amusing or funny or of note or piss them off and they're never quite the moments i expect so so a if you're sending me those texts please keep sending me those texts or send them by if you don't know me that well and you just want to send it in the story idea you can send it through the same link of the story idea like yeah here's the merch idea for the week um but it's those moments that remind me why we're doing this because I don't know what people are going to pick out you don't know what

people are going to pick out like we don't know what people are taking from it god knows we try to figure that out when you're writing the description but that's your job not mine yeah um so yeah like that that's always been really fascinating to me is what's hitting people and how it's hitting them and i know and i don't use names so i i'm i'm being very careful about consent because when people text me i don't think they're they think i'm going to be talking about it on the on the show but when the episode came out the first episode we did with annette about healing after sexual assault um it was a friend of mine i haven't you know you lose touch with friends not like we're not friends and i feel like i'm trying

to qualify as a friend but not someone I talk to on a very regular basis anymore um I just got this text out of the blue that said thank you and I'm like well I know I'm wonderful but but why like why are you like hey how are you and good to hear from you and she said I just listened to your episode and I needed to hear that and I was like that's well I'm getting goosebumps talking about it yeah I'm tearing up a little bit like those are the moments every once in a while I'm like why are we doing this? We've done everything very often. Don't do it. I won't. Not that one because then I know what you're going to say. No, I won't. I hear you. Thank you. And I move on. Yeah, I think that's, that is interesting. And exactly what we had hoped to do with this is

we don't know we know the broad topics around trying to chip away at these taboos surrounding sex and sex health and all the nuances of it um and just to hear hopefully hearing it in a conversational way where it's not uber jokey it's not hyper hyper gender role centric you know there's some there's some sex uh podcasts out there that are very rooted in in these notions of male female um interactions with sex and and all of that stuff and and so really having these conversations and getting this information out there so that because a huge part of it was making this information equitable access to this information equitable like we right now we're not behind a paywall we want it searchable we want it and

one of the things so one of my kind of frustrating stories was a conversation I had with someone who has done several podcasts I was just trying to pick their brain now I know and it became kind of an it felt like an aggressive tone I don't know if that's what was intended because I believe that they were trying to help me think about it to drill down on it but in doing so I didn't feel like my answers about our podcast were being heard in an it was very it was a very formulaic like what's your demographic okay well who's listening now okay so that's your demographic well no that's not our demographic that's just who's comfortable listening right our demographic is everybody that needs this information um and granted there are challenges with that being

two women talking about it there could be some discomfort from maybe male listeners whatever but the the point is that that's not the that's not the um center of these conversations sometimes it is based on the subject like i need an a um but for the most part we we want to present this information in a way that is relatable or piques curiosity for anyone who i mean we say i say it in our outro anyone who needs to hear it anyone who needs to think about it that it sparks some kind of curiosity or conversation with people important to you that you feel like you could open up to about this stuff yeah and i know that's been hard because i've spoken to a few pr folks to try to help boost

our our numbers and their answer is well who's your demographic and i'm like humans like now you have to pick one and i'm like no humans it's just it's just humans or i was talking to one person about the hey dr sue stuff and literally it's written below an eighth grade reading level not that i think that people are stupid but that's you know i'm trying to get as many humans as i can and when i'm talking about subjects that may be upsetting or challenging like the last thing i want you doing is struggling struggling with language and the videos i think like my longest video was like five minutes and the person was like well if you want to drive up your youtube listening time in order to get sponsors you're gonna have to do more filler

and you're going to have to go off task. And I'm like, someone's asking him a question that's super important to them. The last thing I'm going to do right now is make it hard to get the answer because people will ask a question and I will very, very usually, oh, English hard today. I will very often, that's the word I was going for, very often. Very usually often. Very usually often answer the question in the very first sentence.

One of the questions I have gotten several times is, can I get pregnant from pre-cum? that person does not want to read through 15 paragraphs before they get the fucking answer like they need the science of pre-cum right they need that answer and they need it now yeah and so like this idea that in order for this to be successful some air quotes because i don't think we've air quoted in a while especially now that we're on video we don't have to sing it because oftentimes many listeners may know this we will say you can't see us right now but air

quote and now we don't have to say air quote we could just show it we could just show it no not everyone's listening to it i know well i'm sorry i just had this huge tech issue i pulled out my headphones i don't know if you covered that well but here i am we pulled out my headphones but everyone saw it because i was like just anyway um the idea that for us to be successful air quotes for those of you not watching like we have to do this thing that would actually make it harder for people to get information just irritates me like the whole reason we're doing this is to give people information or try to get them to start thinking or challenging these ideas they've already had and i'm supposed to bury the lead because i want people to read longer like yeah

or listen longer like we're already long enough well and as we've talked about too by the time someone is searching has come across your content in a search result they are likely freaked out yep about whatever they're searching and looking for an answer to so you bury the lead 15 minutes in they've already moved they're not even going to get to the 15 minutes they're not going to hang around they're going to go somewhere that tells them no you're okay you're normal or oh go get this yeah taking care of me and that's yeah that's part of my frustration with this whole thing look forward to our episode on dr google yeah we know that one's coming out soon actually yeah all right so now that we've taken this trip down amnesia lane amnesia

that's from the dead poets you know i love that movie anyway do we want to do you want to take us out i just i want to sit for a moment for the bit of shit you just gave me for chipping away at granite with a toothpick and you said you quoted granted you quoted a classic movie that many of us know and love but still amnesia amnesia lane all right i'll just be over here with my toothpick and my granite rock at let it be like a little rock chipping away for you from like shawshank or something like that even that has more of a chance a little aluminum fork spork because i'm not allowed to have sharp objects because i tend to hurt myself and don't run with scissors oh so often do i do that anyway

well i think as we wrap up just kind of thinking looking ahead what do you think for what's what what do we have next we're gonna keep going obviously we're gonna keep doing our topics we're gonna keep asking you all for topics and feedback um i know we've talked about taking the show on the road start doing live events yeah um so open mic nights oh jeez see how that goes i forgot the question already well i think this is really a question for those of you listening um what do you want from us over our next 50 episodes do you is there something you want us to revisit in a different

way from a different lens is there please say sex ed i'm sorry no leading the witnesses dr sue damn it um but yeah what do you want from the next 50 you know we we heard some feedback so here we are on video um i slowed my intro down we take the feedback um you spend you know what you know what this has caused is you spend most of your intro qualifying and giving credit to people that have told you to slow down so you eat up your time yep so you're still spending the same amount of time on your credentials that you were before you got the feedback so i just want to throw that out there you know what we haven't done that i do want to

do before we head out what i haven't thrown my students under the bus and i feel like i haven't that's right i thought well i wondered if you were going to do that with how we got here yeah i kind of overlooked that and then um i do want to answer what you're saying so what we want to do is continue making a show that you folks want to listen to and maybe not every episode feels like it's right for you i know we did one on aging and we were talking a lot about menopause and some of the younger folks were like i kind of skipped that episode i'm like dude you're gonna wind up there like you should probably listen to it and your loved ones will probably wind up there so um we do want to keep making a show that that folks want to listen to we want to keep doing topics

that are important to you not just topics that tickle or a fancy so please you know what um please give us you know send us show ideas if you'd rather just have me do a hey dr sue though sometimes i we do take some of those and actually launch them into full episodes of this um if you want to yell at me by text please don't or you know if you must um but we do want to include put emojis when you do it but remember i'm older so i don't always get them um but yeah just just for those of you who are listening as charlie says in the outro you know share this with someone that you think might be interested um we do know that one of the best ways to getting people to listen to podcasts is to have a friend recommend it you know it's great if it shows up as a random thing

for you though that's probably not going to because we our numbers aren't that high yet so the more you can help get the word out about us we'd appreciate that um but i do i do want to take a minute to throw those students under the bus do it because it is one of the ways that the show started though you and i had already been talking about doing this and and when we first tried it several years ago that was before the students were giving me crap was it yeah okay yeah um so my students we chat before class get you know i get there early to make sure my technology is working and we start chatting and there have been a few times they've come in saying some really stupid ass things and i call them out on them like what are you saying like oh we heard this

on a podcast like what what the hell are you listening to and then i had a couple students who were like well if you don't like it where's your podcast and i'm like that part and at first i was like okay i'm gonna go back to behind my podium now and then and then i kind of got to that part where i'm like mentally i'm going all right challenge accepted um it's my students by way who tell me not to slow the hell down but they also tell me that in the classroom um but yeah so I just wanted to throw I want to thank my students um I've actually had some students from decades ago reach out to me that I haven't heard from in a really long time and that was that was really kind of nice um it's so wonderful because of the podcast because of the podcast they

they are now like raising children and had questions about like age-appropriate sex ed because their answer was i didn't want to i don't want to get into i don't i'm always afraid of phrasing it in a way that the person's like wait that was mine um but essentially like i want to i don't want to raise kids that needed your class as desperately as i needed as desperately as i needed it um so yeah so so keep reaching out to us we have ways that you can find us i'm all over social media the um podcast does have social media but right now it tends to be mostly coming from the hey dr sue account um you can submit show ideas you can submit feedback but we want this to be audience driven because otherwise we're going to wind up talking about all the things

I want to talk about. Mostly another episode on sex ed. Um, and then Charlie always wins every once in a while too. So that was it. That was my last thing. All right. And then, so for me, I just want to, I want to thank everybody that has been on this journey with us in the, in these first 50 episodes to the guests that we've had on and have again been so generous with their their lessons learned and their information and their tips and tricks and as Dr. Seuss said if you share this share our podcast because there is there's 50 episodes now so there is likely a topic in there that someone you know is curious about um and is too shy to ask about so maybe this will help them find their language find their comfort with it or

not if they don't find their comfort but just start that journey to being more comfortable in that space and with the language and the topic etc so thank you for everyone who has gotten us here to our 50 50th episode and here's to 50 more and beyond minimums and then i replace you well i expire at episode 101 so accepting applications now there's that pink hair required um so everyone if you like i want to thank you for joining us on this episode and if you like what you heard and now saw don't forget to subscribe leave a review and share this with someone who's ready to unzip a few taboos with us. Now that we're on video, feel free to wave back or even shout at the screen, especially at Dr. Sue, we won't hear you, but

we'll love the energy. And if you've got questions or a topic that you want us to dive into, we want to hear them. So head to the link in the episode description to share what's on your mind. And stay tuned till next time we're diving into more taboos and zipping more taboos and we'll see you soon on screen or in your ears everyone take care don't forget to say thank ally well thank you i was about to get there oh sorry that's usually your yes there's our first yeah hey ally thank you for our theme music it's wonderful it is special it brings a smile to our faces every time and hoping hopefully to our listeners thank you very very much ali and everyone keep unzipping those taboos and take care