You requested and I delivered: I'm answering your Philias questions on the podcast. With the help of interviewer and podcast industry extraordinaire Arielle Nissenblatt, learn about the most controversial episodes, fascinating facts that didn't make it into the show, how I got people to talk about this stuff, and whether my mom listens (she absolutely does).

Resources from Arielle:

• Earbuds Podcast Collective: https://earbuds.audio/
• Twitter: https://x.com/arithisandthat
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ariellethisandthat

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Hi there, Taboo Science listeners.

This is a very special Q& A episode where I talk about my experience

making the Philias miniseries all about the science of kinks and fetishes.

If you're brand new to the podcast, I'd recommend pressing stop on this

one and listening to another just to get a feel for what this show is about.

You can always come back to this one if you want to.

The first episode of Philias is the episode entitled, How Many Kinks Exist?

And that's a great place to start.

For this episode, I recruited podcasting celebrity, Taboo Science

listener, and my co worker, Arielle Nissenblatt, to interview me.

I hope you like what you hear.

I'll be back at the end to let you know the future plans for the podcast.

Take it away, Arielle.

My name's Arielle Nissenblatt.

I am a big time podcast listener.

I have a podcast recommendation newsletter called Earbuds Podcast

Collective, and I've been working in the podcast space since 2017.

Right now, I am Ashley's coworker at Descript.

I am on the community team there.

So I live and breathe podcasts, both in my professional and in my personal life.

And I am here today.

Because I am going to interview Ashley about Taboo Science.

I have been listening for a few years now.

I am especially a huge fan of the series that just wrapped up that

I think we're going to be spending a lot of time talking about today.

And I think everybody should be a fan of the show.

So I'm here to spread the word.

Yay.

I'm super excited to talk to you.

So let's get started.

Get into it.

Let's go.

So we have a bunch of questions here today, some that I

have written, some that you have written that you kind of want to ask yourself,

but you're going to have me do it.

Then we also have a bunch of questions from the internet, both from YouTube

and from social media, from the people that have been following

Taboo Science for some time now.

So let's get started with some questions that I have for you.

First, I think, this is front of mind for me, is why did you

decide to do a miniseries on kink?

Yeah, I guess I wanted to do it because I have this really big database

of different topics that, um, are options for covering on the show, and I

started adding a lot of different kinks.

And I realized that I could just dive into all of them in one miniseries.

There's also just sort of a strategy to it.

I had heard that, that miniseries are a good way to like market your

show and to do something new and, um, get people like reinvested in it.

And so I thought this would be the perfect way to, uh, to kind

of, yeah, to figure it out.

And what I didn't realize, uh, overdoing a miniseries, is that it's, it's really cool

to start seeing the patterns between the related topics and you kind of become a

little bit of an expert in the thing that you're covering versus covering a bunch

of disparate topics and kind of having to learn on the go every single time.

You start to be like, oh yeah, no, I remember this fact from this other

topic and so we can tie them together.

Um, so I, I really loved it.

It was, it was great.

I, I want to do it again.

In the past, did you do any miniseries that made you want to do

this miniseries or is this your first one?

This is my first one.

Yeah.

Cool.

Mini is an interesting word because you did a lot of episodes on Kink.

I did, yeah.

I guess it ended up being

How many

all together?

Nine?

That's a lot.

Let me make sure.

Arielle Nissenblatt: That's a big miniseries.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it, I meant for it to be smaller than this and then, um, I

ended up, kinks just kept coming up.

I just had to, there were more and more that I wanted to do, so, yeah.

Okay, so now let's get into the content

of the miniseries on kink.

Did you have any preconceptions at the beginning of your exploration

into these taboo topics that were shattered or that were reinforced?

So I think, like, I've always been very open minded about kink and, like,

I think it's very, you know, what people are into is, like, that's up to them.

It's not, you know, I'm not gonna yuck your yum, but I definitely had a few

that I was like, well, that one's weird.

Or like, that one's, I mean, people are, I don't know, I don't know about that one.

Like, why would anybody be into that?

Or, um, and I definitely had some just like judgy thoughts that

I just couldn't get rid of, um, about, about a few different ones.

And, um, I, I shattered them completely.

Like, I just, I mean, it completely, learning about all of these

kinks kind of made me realize that, like, they're all the same.

It's, it's all the same.

It's all just stuff that we're kind of, we find ways, I don't

want to say we're wired for it.

So it's like, I'm trying to figure out a better way to say it.

Like, we all just, we grow up, we experience the environment, we experience

things that turn us on, that kind of wire our brains in a new way, and

then we're into that thing, and then that thing is the thing that brings

us pleasure, and, and it's like, it doesn't really matter what it is.

Some people have things that are really common, some people have

things that are like way more niche, but they're, they're all kind of

just flavors of the same thing.

Uh, so I, I feel like now if I learn about a new kink that I've never heard of

before, it, it, I process it a lot better.

I process it of, of just like, oh cool, that's, that's very cool that,

that someone could be into that.

I, I totally understand.

Yeah.

Our brains work in mysterious ways.

They do.

They do.

Yeah.

I first was exposed to the kinks beyond, you

know, the classic ones that you hear of, like, feet, foot fetishes, which

is, I think, your last episode.

It was your white whale, as you called it.

It was.

Um, and some of the other, like, I don't want to call them mainstream,

they're not mainstream, but they're kinks for a reason, right?

They're paraphilias for a reason.

ABDL, I heard about for the first time listening to Dan Savage's podcast, Savage

Love, and a bunch of other ones like that.

I learned by listening to Dan Savage in like 2016, and I, that's what first

exposed me to this, so I feel like me listening to Your miniseries, I

was sort of desensitized to the, oh my god, people are into that, right?

So it's very interesting and I'm curious how other people took it.

Did you get any people reaching out to say like, this is either

super inappropriate or appropriate?

Did anybody get mad?

So the only one that anyone ever got mad about was the zoophilia episode.

And a good number of people got mad about that one.

Really?

What, on YouTube?

On YouTube, on, I got some Instagram DMs, uh, and I think the big thing was there's

a consent issue there with animals.

Right.

And which I, you know, I tried my best to, to, to, you know, cover that and kind of

show where you did, where they, you know, where this community is coming from there.

Um, and I think a lot of people thought that I didn't come out

strong enough to say that like, it's wrong, but like, that's not

really what the show is there for.

You're not an activist in this.

Yeah.

Like I'm, I'm here to humanize groups of people and I

humanized that group of people.

And that's, I mean, I, I was successful in that.

And I think there were still a lot of people who thought that that's not.

what I should have done.

And yeah, you know what?

I, like, to be completely honest, like, that's, that's still on my mind.

I'm still constantly processing that, because this is, some of this stuff

is the most controversial topics that I've ever covered in my life.

Uh, so that's a new skill that you have to learn.

that I feel like I am still learning, um, so I'm not saying that those people are

like 100 percent wrong, but I do feel like that's not the purpose of my show, and if

you want to hear a show that goes after zoophiles, you can find a ton of them.

There are a lot of people who are, who are against that.

Arielle Nissenblatt: Villainize, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, otherwise, the feedback has been people, it's mostly people

emailing me saying like, this was such a humanizing episode, like, I feel

like I, you know, either they're in the community or they had heard about it,

and they just, they really appreciated how like nuanced and, um, sensitively

I, I covered a lot of the topics.

So yeah, I mean, most of the feedback has been good.

So in past episodes, you know, all of the other taboo topics

that you've covered leading up to this.

What would you say, on average, how many emails would you get per episode?

How many comments would you get on YouTube?

And then, what I'm getting at here is, how much did it spike from this miniseries?

Yeah, the, the feedback has spiked a lot, uh, from this miniseries.

In the beginning, there still was, you know, I mean, it ramped up.

Um, and actually YouTube, the, I've had this whole process with YouTube

that maybe I'll, I'll mention too, but like, with YouTube, the The

feedback has just skyrocketed.

Yeah, generally, like, per episode, maybe I'll get two to five emails, and

then YouTube comments go from anywhere from 10 to, boy, I think the biggest

one has like 50 on it, or maybe more.

I haven't actually looked recently, but, um, yeah.

Lots of, lots of feedback.

Lots of, um, lot, a lot more feedback than I am used to as a podcaster, for sure.

I think a lot of podcasters have trouble getting

any feedback at all, but if you decide to cover a topic that you

know a lot of people are going to have opinions about, that's one way.

That's one way, and you do it well.

That is one way of getting people to slide into those DMs.

Totally.

Um, Ashley, do you have one?

Most important thing that you've learned.

Can you pinpoint a few lessons or one particular lesson?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I've learned is

that we all experience shame.

I think, I think this, this podcast has really given me an education in shame.

Um, and that shame is something that when we experience it, our Knee jerk

reaction is to hide it and to cover it up and to not address it and doing

that causes all of the problems.

It's the, it makes, it just seeps into every part of your life and

it, it poisons your relationships and it, and it just makes it so

that you can't live as a full human.

Um, and I think that what I've learned is that if you are experiencing shame,

the best thing you can do is talk to someone about it that you trust,

either a friend, if you have someone that you trust, or, or a therapist.

Um, and obviously with kink, it's like you have to find the right

therapist because therapists can also cause, cause harm with that too.

But yeah, I think it's like, Shame is such a universal and um, and also the reaction

to shame is such a universal and I think it's, it's just I've realized like how

important it is to like, get that out of your system and like, because as soon as

you let it out into the world, it really, I think, from what I've heard from all

the people I've talked to is like, as soon as you get it out, you find out that

it's actually not as bad as you thought it was, and suddenly it dissipates.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of why podcasts like this

and Reddit forums and other sorts of groups are so important for people to be

able to search for online so that they don't feel alone, so that they don't

feel like something's wrong with them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

So thank you for creating.

Ashley, how did you get people to talk about such sensitive

topics on this podcast?

And, where I'm coming to from that is, I know that you work really

hard to, you know, source the right guests for the right episodes.

You, and you, and you Go after them and sometimes it takes a really long time.

So, you had a combination in this series of like professors and people

who've done research and then people who are advocates for the community,

the kink community that they're in.

So, how did you find all of those guests?

Yeah, so I, from the very beginning, I took my kind of template

from my asexuality episode, which was the first time that I had had a researcher and

someone from the community in the episode.

And I felt like it made it so well rounded and you got to hear the science,

but you also got to hear the emotion and like the personal experience of it.

And I knew that I wanted to do that with this.

Um, so the researchers were relatively easy as long as I could, you know,

convince them that I'm not a crackpot and I'm, I'm gonna make their, their research,

you know, make, make them look good.

And then, um, and the way that I did that was Every time I got another researcher

on board, I would just send that list to the next person, be like, I have these

people who are going to talk to me.

And sometimes they'd be like, oh, yeah, no, I, I'm a big fan of that person.

I'll go on your show.

So that really worked.

And then for the people to, from the community, that was something that I, I,

it took me a really long time to crack that because nobody wants to talk about,

you their private life on a podcast.

Uh, and so I didn't really know.

I, at first I was like, maybe Reddit, like maybe I can find, so I, I sent

some things out to people on Reddit and I never got any responses.

And, and I knew a few people who were into some of these things.

I won't say who, but like one of the, one of the people that I interviewed

on, on the show actually has, is like a very longtime friend of mine.

And I was just like, Oh yeah, definitely.

I'm going to talk to them about this.

But finally the way that I cracked it was podcasters, like.

Podcasters, there are already people who are podcasting about this.

Yeah, they're already, they're already out there.

Maybe their faces aren't, aren't out there, but their voices are out there.

And they, they seem like they would be happy to, to talk to me.

And that ended up being a really nice double edged sword because not only

were they willing to talk about it and able to talk about it, but also, you

know, you know, you know, of all people,

Are you talking cross promos?

Yeah, like getting other podcasters on your show and then they

talk about it on their podcast and then other people come on to listen.

So.

That was a, that was a great, like a winning strategy that I landed on

that I was, I was super happy with.

Audience growth.

Yeah,

yeah.

That's great.

Any other controversies that stand out to you?

I had a couple comments about the furry episode.

Hmm.

Um, just in like, like privately from people.

Hmm.

Uh, who maybe were in the community or adjacent to the community who actually

sort of pushed back on me saying that it's not a fetish because they're and and I've

I've tried to kind of wrestle with this too because it is very clear that there is

a furry fetish and it is very clear that like furry pornography is a huge part of

that community and The media has been so awful to furries that there's this, like,

knee jerk, like, pushback on, like, No, no, no, this is totally not a sex thing.

There's no sex involved.

Uh, this is all about just, just fun animals.

And it's like, um, some people kind of were suggesting that I was,

I didn't actually delve into the sex part as much as I could have.

Um, or, or even not, not delve in, but just, like, I think I was protesting

too much that it wasn't a sex thing.

Whereas, like, the sex thing actually is a bigger part of the

community that I portrayed and

yeah, um, and I think what that was just like, I really wanted to do right by my

guests and my guests were saying that

there's a line.

Yeah, it's hard.

It's hard,

right?

There's a line.

You're also not employed by a journalistic outlet that makes it so that you

must equally represent both sides.

This is up to you.

Ultimately, it's tricky.

You can not.

You can put disclaimers in there.

You can say, here's my methodology.

Here's my ideology.

Here's why I'm thinking this, but that would be a boring episode.

So you put out the episode that is entertaining and is educational and

is respectful to the people whose time you are asking for as your guests.

And then also your listeners.

I think that providing them with a product that teaches them is great.

And then obviously you are.

admitting to some of the potential shortcomings by having this episode.

Yeah.

So let's now move to some questions from listeners.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

Okay, this question comes from Paul, who is your follower on Twitter.

Paul asks, what was the most surprising thing that you learned, and what was the

most fascinating thing that you learned?

Hmm, I, I learned a ton of fascinating things.

I think the thing that comes to mind most right now, that I actually, it

didn't make it into an episode, um, but I think I might make a YouTube short

on it or something, is that in the ABDL community, the diapers they buy, are

made by the same companies that make like medical supply diapers and they, these

companies basically, they saw that there was this community that was buying their

diapers not for a medical need and they were like, oh, Well, what do they want?

Like what we should talk to them.

And they did some user research and they're like, Oh, they

want cute pictures on them.

They want cute colors.

Like, okay, we'll do that.

And they made like a bunch of lines of different cute ABDL diapers,

which I feel like if you look at so many other industries where as soon

as anything, like, for example, I'm listening to a wonderful series on the

history of the magic wand vibrator, uh, and, and what they did, the Hitachi.

Hitachi makes all sorts of like kitchen machines and stuff like that, and

they had this personal massager that ended up becoming this, this like

legendary thing in the sex world.

And they were like, Oh, we're just going to stop making it because we

feel uncomfortable about that, even though it was selling incredibly well.

And someone actually, a different company had to, had to come in

and be like, do not do that.

Like, sell it to us.

We'll, we'll continue to make it.

Like that.

Like capitalism didn't save the day there, right?

It was just sort of like, they're like, no, no, no, we're,

this is associated with sex.

We don't want to be associated with sex, which is what so many companies would do.

And I think it's so cool that this diaper company was like, yeah, okay, cool.

We'll make some stuff for you.

Great.

More diapers for everybody.

Wow.

Yeah,

that's great.

Yeah.

So that's surprising and fascinating.

Did you want to add something else?

Um, another one that maybe didn't make it in was that in the just

general Kinks 101, um, episode, Aella told me that violent porn is actually

most popular among women, not men.

And so a lot of people say, like, we need to, we need to stop violent

porn because it hurts women.

And she pointed out that, like, putting a stop to violent porn actually would

hurt women more because, like, they're the, they're the main consumers of this

stuff, which was so surprising to me, too.

There you go.

Yeah.

Wow.

So, not only do you teach, you also learn.

Thank you to Paul for that question.

Let's go to this question from YouTube, from Jasmine Stealth 1.

They write, After looking at this, I looked at your web, and I wonder,

with a platform like this, and being introduced to all these things, has it

affected your personal intimate spaces?

Or are you just fascinated?

And, of course, this is a very personal question.

You can choose how much you would like to tell us, and how much you

would like to keep to yourself.

Totally!

Uh, so yeah, basically the question is, like, Did you introduce any of this

into your own sex life, which I'm not.

No, I didn't.

I'll just say that.

I didn't like my sex life is the same.

Um, but what I was actually expecting was for me, not for, for my libido to

just tank because I was talking about all these things and like, in like this

very clinical way and, um, and very academic way that didn't happen either.

Really, nothing, nothing is different.

There's for me, nothing is different.

You just learned.

I just learned, I learned and I felt, uh, maybe I felt a little bit more

comfortable about my own sexuality, just like, because being able to talk

about this stuff just is, you know, it's a way to break taboos, right?

So, um, it, yeah, that made me, I mean, more comfortable about

my own sexuality in my own way.

Like, personal life.

It still sucks to talk about my podcast with, like, professional

colleagues, but, um, but yeah, not a lot, not a lot changed with that.

Does your family know that you made this miniseries?

My mom listens to every episode.

Which is a little, a little mortifying, um, but I do like to say she's the

one who taught me what circumcision was at the dinner table when we were

eating, uh, what were we eating?

Uh, okra.

It was okra in, in gumbo.

And she like, peeled off the outside of the okra to show what that, cause I, I

was like, I don't know, what is this?

No, no, she's a lawyer, but yeah, I was just, yeah, I was like, I was like a

tween and I was like, what circumcision?

She's like, well, uh, and she showed me, so she's not, she doesn't, she

doesn't blush about this stuff.

So I guess that's where I get it.

Going back to Jasmine's question about whether

you introduced this into your life.

I think another question we can pull from that is how did learning

about ABDL make you feel differently about motherhood because of the

connection to diapers, of course?

Right.

That was another one that I thought I was going to feel really uncomfortable about.

I, I really, when I got into it, I was like, this could, this could

bring up some weird feelings for me.

Um, and it didn't, it didn't because I'm just, I was so happy about that

because the thing is when I learned more about it, it's just a game.

It's just, it's, it's so far removed from actual babies

and actual, like any of that.

It's like, Um, I mean, I love, you know, to bring in Dan Savage, you know, kink

is cops and robbers with your pants down.

Like that's, it's a, it's a game, it's a role play.

Uh, it doesn't really have a lot of connection to real parenthood,

real babies, real diapers.

Um, so it actually, I was fine.

I was, a lot of this was like that.

A lot of this, I was like, oh, I don't know.

And then it was great.

It was great.

And then you were fine.

Yeah.

You're so resilient.

Actually, I will say the one that I did have to do a lot of thinking about, coming

back to this topic again, bazoophilia.

I had to, of course, I think it took me, because they, they pitched me on that.

And I, at first I was like, no.

And then.

I thought about it for a few weeks, and then I decided to do it was basically like

I had to just educate myself for a little while and kind of come around to it, which

I think was one of the reasons that some of these comments were frustrating because

I think I may have started out where they were, and then I thought about it.

Like, I really put in some hard work.

You did the thinking, yeah.

Yeah, and so the, I just saw that these people hadn't thought

about it, and it was frustrating.

But also, like, yeah, they just haven't had as much time with it as I have.

Yeah, they need to be exposed to it.

And then, maybe over time, their minds open a bit.

Yeah.

But they would probably say, I don't want

to open my mind to this, right?

There's a lot of layers here.

True.

We have one more question from a listener.

This one comes from Oliver, who sent in the question via email.

I'm curious whether there are any kinks slash fetishes you wanted to

cover but couldn't, or any newly emerging kinks which need more

research before they can be covered.

So there's so many kinks that need more research.

There are just, there are just a whole, there's a whole ocean of kinks

that have not been looked at at all research wise, um, and so that's,

that's why this is a mini series, right?

It's like, I can't do an entire podcast that's like 100 episodes

long on this, um, whereas, you know, some people, some people have.

Why are people into that?

Tina Horne's podcast that she, she just talked about on the most

recent episode, they do talk about.

different kinks, but they don't have that research angle.

So they, they have a little bit more freedom there.

But for me, I, yeah, I'm, I'm limited.

But one that I really wish that I had covered was actually sent in by,

by someone via email, was basically like, salirophilia, or like a love

of just, you know, gross stuff, um, which kind of goes in with,

you alluded to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I got, I like touched on it, but like people, you know, they, they were asking

about like people who buy soiled underwear on the internet, like what's up with that?

Or like, it's like dirty bath water or things like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, I, I looked into it and it's just, there isn't a lot there.

I would also love to do one on, on just like pee fetishes.

Not a lot there either.

Um, yeah.

Those are, those are the two, like, just the gross stuff, yeah.

That one gets a lot of coverage in media, I think,

the pee fetish, but yeah, I guess not enough people doing research on it.

Yeah, I was able to do a tiny bit for that, like, sampler

episode that I did, but I would have loved to do a whole one.

Oh, well.

Okay.

Those were our questions from your audience.

Thank you to Paul, JasmineStealth1, and Oliver, much appreciated.

And I think more people will probably have questions as they

continue to discover your podcast.

So where can they go to continue asking those questions?

Yeah.

Email me at ashley@tabooscience.show or just tweet at me at Taboo Science.

Awesome.

Ashley, any other questions, comments that you'd like to make before

we close out this Q& A episode?

Hmm.

I feel like I just want to make it clear that like, I am a straight married

mother that, like, got into this, so it just feels, it feels very, as much

as I've always been interested in this, and I am a Dance Savage listener, and I

just like, like to think and talk about this stuff, I feel like an outsider.

I feel like an outsider looking in on these, these different communities, and,

like, I Like, at first, it started, it would, like, make me blush, and I feel

like I've, I've become desensitized to it a lot over, over the time.

Except at work.

Except at work!

And so, yeah, um, people are like, oh, what is your podcast about?

And I was like, let's change the subject!

Uh, but, um, it's been so fulfilling and great, and I've loved everyone that I've

met through it, um, and I, you know.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's changed me a bit.

Um, so that's been, yeah, it's been really nice.

And you even got to tackle your white whale of

doing an episode on foot fetishes.

Yes.

So if you haven't listened to that episode yet, listeners,

viewers, definitely go back because that's, uh, would you call that your, it's

your white whale, it's your magnum opus.

It was, it was my white whale because It was first on my list.

I was like, obviously I'm going to do one on foot fetishes.

And then I just could not get anyone to respond to me to go on it.

And, uh, eventually I pulled it, I pulled it off.

I finally got, you know, Justin Lehmiller and, and Tina Horn on there.

But, um, yeah, it was, I was actively attempting to do that while

creating the rest of the season.

And finally, finally, I got it all together.

Yeah.

So podcasters, creators, if you have a specific

interview in mind, keep pushing.

You never know when it'll come through and make a really great episode.

Yeah.

Well, Ashley, thank you so much for making this mini series and for inviting

me to ask you questions about it.

I really appreciate it.

And I look forward to the next mini series and regular episodes.

Yay.

Thanks so much, Arielle.

This was great.

Thanks for listening.

Hope you sated your curiosity.

If you have more questions, definitely reach out.

How to do that, again, is by emailing ashley at tabooscience.

show or tweeting at tabooscience.

This is the final, final episode of Season 4, Philias, and I will be

taking a long break before Season 5.

So, if you want to stay updated on what's next, subscribe to the newsletter.

Just head to tabooscience.

show and enter your email address in the newsletter box.

In the meantime, why not give the show a rating and review on Apple Podcasts?

It'd be really nice.

Thank you, truly, for listening.

When we come back, I hope you tune in to Season 5.

I won't tell anyone.