I love podcasts that are highly information dense or overflowing with personality, and I think that this podcast more often than not feels like listening on a casual conversation that happens to hit some of the day's news. I guess it just isn't a conversation that I particularly want to be a part of. I feel like the guests of this show are make or break for me because I don't personally find the host that engaging. Although not familiar with his work, I'm sure that he must be a great writer, but his personality as a podcast host just feels lacking to me: not particularly funny, sharp, charismatic, or much of anything really. And actually, sometimes the ways in which he phrases questions in a sarcastic way or an attempt at humor miss the mark for me, in a way where if it doesn't achieve that intended tone makes it instead feel like the opposite of smart interviewing.[Note: bumped it up a star because I will listen to any and all episodes with Julia Ioffe. I could listen to her talk about literally anything, from the weather report to transcripts from Capitol Hill.]

I think that this episode would be really great for people who have never done therapy and are apprehensive about starting. It is really informative for addressing various doubts and fears. But for people who have done therapy, and especially for people who have benefited from therapy, none of it is new information.

I don't feel like the type of audience that subscribes to Vox is the type of audience that really needs or wants to hear voices such as the one in the first half of this episode. Let's have a conservative on that agrees with the Alabama ruling, but you'll never guess how he doesn't agree with IVF? Spoiler alert: it's homophobia and God's will if you can't conceive naturally. Can we pull a couple people from the 1950s to get their take on the devil's pill (birth control), too? I am not saying that people shouldn't hear points being made from different perspectives, but giving a platform for people to spew ideas such as this is exactly what led us to 2016. I don't go searching for speeches made by homophobes in my free time for a reason, and I feel neither more informed nor enriched from listening to it. It was disappointing, to say the least.