Last summer, I was at my kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, surrounded by screaming children with cotton-candy-covered fingers, when
texted to talk about an essay I’d just published—a piece on hetero-exceptionalism and divorce memoir backlash.We had become internet friends and then IRL friends through exactly this kind of feminist conversation and mutual appreciation. The first time I read Amanda’s work, I fell in an instant kind of friendship brain-love.
Well, that day at Chuck E. Cheese, Amanda followed up our text back and forth with, “I feel like we need to do a podcast.” I texted right back: “Oh god PLEASE can we?”
We could. In fact, we are.
After months and months of scheming and planning, I am so friggin’ excited to announce that we’re launching
, a feminist podcast critiquing heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture. Our show is a skewering of straight existence—and an exercise in imagining new possibilities.We’ll cover:
Couples therapy
Dating apps
Sex strikes
Monogamy
Age-gap romances
Cries of “but what about men?”
The orgasm gap
Antifeminist “feminism”
Sex positivity™
The manosphere
Decentering men
Pro-natalism
“Dark feminine” influencers
Our pod explores sex and dating, alongside marriage, divorce, and the relentlessly unequal realm of hetero parenting and the nuclear family. We also consider celebrities and politicians as case studies. Tech bros, tradwives, and TERFs are also up for examination.
Along the way, we turn to beloved feminist scholarship, call on radical contemporary thinkers, and share our own personal stories, as we try to sketch out more hopeful visions of love, sex, relationships, and romance.
This isn’t just a podcast for straight people. It’s for anyone who understands that none of us are OK, and who wants better for us all.
Give a listen to the pod trailer above—and stay tuned for our first episode, dropping tomorrow!
If you subscribe to either of our newsletters—TCF Emails or Mad Woman—you’ll be automatically added to the list for free. (Not interested? You can unsubscribe with one click.) Tomorrow morning, you’ll get an email sent from Dire Straights—if you don’t, make sure to check your Promotions and Spam folders. You’ll get the full Dire Straights experience on Substack, but you can also follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms. We would love if you left a good review.
Most important, WE REALLY NEED YOUR SUPPORT.
Amanda and I spend countless hours researching, writing, recording, editing, and producing each episode. We’re not messing around. Collectively, we have over thirty years of experience as journalists, essayists, critics, authors, and feminist scholars.
This is a 100% scrappy, aging-millennial feminist operation coming to you at exactly the right time in history. We’re not financially dependent on corporate media or advertisers. If we had normal day jobs, this podcast would probably get us fired from them.
A paid subscription to Dire Straights is the best way to make our work possible. If you’re already a paid subscriber to my newsletter, you get a 20% discount on Dire Straights. (Paid subscribers will find a discount link at the bottom of this email.)
Now, for the fine print:
Free subscribers get:
One full episode and one paywalled episode every month.
Paid subscribers get:
Two full episodes a month. No paywalls, ever.
Access to the Dire Straights community via chats, Substack Lives, and episode comment threads.
A growing list of extras, including advice and other bonus content.
Founding subscribers get:
Everything that comes with a basic paid subscription.
To support the hell out of independent feminist media.
Paid access to both TCF Emails and Mad Woman at a steep discount—you save $50 for going all in on us.
If you’re interested in supporting us more deeply in the long term, please get in touch at direstraightspod@gmail.com.
Media is in collapse and feminist backlash is in full swing. Now, more than ever, if you want to see cool shit like this in the world, you have to vote with your dollars.
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