The Heart Radiotopia

I have loved this podcast for about two years now it’s so very unique and has such beautiful story telling That I’ve never heard anywhere else, this podcast should be more popular Considering its hard work and dedication and I think it deserves recognition for that

In my old college symbolic logic course, they taught us about how "provisional assumptions" work in an argument. This is a term Kaitlin Prest should learn something about. Provisional assumptions are the things you say, along the way, like: "Say for example you had 100 cars..." The crucial thing in a logical proof is that you make these small assumptions along the way, but they are not *proof* of anything by themselves; they need to come out in the wash, so to speak, or you've only ended up proving that having 100 cats would mean you own 100 cars.

At the start of her "No" series, Ms. Prest begins by saying she wanted to have sex "like men do" -- and she explains herself to mean that men don't attach any feelings to sexual activity. This is a provisional assumption she has made. She doesn't establish that her assertion about men is at all accurate. She accepts it without question. She immediately backs off the idea for herself, too, telling us she hates "casual" sex.

That doesn't keep her from spending many, many hours tangled up in that provisional assumption of hers, seeming to see it in everyone.

To give you some idea of how frustrating that can be to hear, and how convoluted and tangled-up her thinking is on the subject of consent, I will point to a single example: Ms. Prest at one point invites a person over to her apartment in the wee hours of the morning and holds a recorded "interview" about the subject of consent, at the end of which she later claims to have had a non-consensual sexual encounter with the other person. While recording.

This is a person whose assumptions go half-examined, often in painfully self-centered ways. She's a gifted storyteller who seems unaware of the circles and stumbles in her own thinking. "The Heart" is a listen I don't resent having made, but gosh I found myself wanting to sit its narrator down for a simple talk about not manipulating oneself or others.

the heart changed my life, in the best possible way. when I’m feeling confused or frightened or anxious about this wild world of sex and love in which we all operate, I pause, and play an episode. i miss it everyday dudes.