Don't Make It Worse
Everything is political, but that doesn’t mean everything has to be a fight. From sex work to prison abolition, we take the topics people usually argue about and unpack them with curiosity and empathy. Meet brilliant guests, learn something new, make things better.
Episodes
Episode 4 - Pole historian and career stripper AM Davies tells the story of pole dancing: from carnival tents, where the stripper pole was known as the “snorting pole,” to the #notastripper backlash that separated the art from the sex workers who created it. Mak and AM unpack how that divide became whorephobia—and what makes sex work punk.
RESOURCES:
International Pole Dance Day: https://yaswork.org/international-po...
Episode 3: A conversation about the housing market takes a hard turn into whether money is even real. Realtor and creator Zach Foust joins Makenzie to talk gold, fiat currency, and the systems that determine who gets to build wealth. Turns out real money might be about as made up as Monopoly money.
RESOURCES:
Learn about the Georgist (basically socialist) roots of Monopoly: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/ruthles...
Episode 2 - Professor Meaghan Wetherell has thoughts on dinosaurs, Noah’s Ark, and not being an asshole. Makenzie sits down with her to unpack why facts alone rarely change minds, how science communicators can avoid “winning” people into a wall, and what learning-style myths reveal about everyone’s need to protect their worldview. It all ends with a free paleontology video game and a fossil find she can bare...
Episode 1: August McLaughlin turns “What is sex?” into the episode’s most complicated question. Makenzie sits down with August to unpack pleasure, purity culture, and the masturbation experience that made her realize her sexuality didn’t depend on anyone else. From Mormon loopholes to porn moves nobody actually wanted, the conversation ends with a simple challenge: look at what you learned about sex, and wha...
Enjoy this sample of the first episode of Don't Make It Worse, featuring sex educator August McLaughlin. Full episodes begin Wednesday June 4, with new episodes every Wednesday after that.
Find August online at @augustmclaughlin
Follow Mak on TikTok at @makenziemizell
Visit MakenzieMizell.com
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