Hard choices, spoken carefully.
Death, Sex & Money treats intimate decisions as stories with consequences, not neat lessons. Recent conversations move from IVF and career risk to AI relationships, settlement money, military trauma, and the complicated math of caring for aging parents.
PRESS PLAY
Death, Sex & Money is an interview show about the decisions people carry quietly. It is interested in the point where a public topic becomes personal. Fertility treatment is not just a medical process here; it is hope, cost, fear, body math, and the moment when one embryo changes the whole story. Money is not just a balance in an account. It can be rent, family support, retirement planning, caregiving, or a settlement tied to violence and memory. The show is comfortable with discomfort, but it does not push for spectacle. Its questions are direct, often almost simple, and that simplicity is part of the force. Recent episodes move through abortion decisions, single parenthood, OnlyFans as a survival strategy in fiction, IVF disappointment, AI companionship, marriage strain, workplace precarity, and elder care. The range is wide. The connective tissue is emotional consequence. A conversation about a career change becomes a conversation about pride, risk, and being treated like an expense line. A conversation about chatbots becomes a conversation about loneliness, validation, grief, delusion, and corporate incentives. A political interview becomes a life story about rural Maine, military service, PTSD, oysters, class, and whether Democrats can still speak to people they have lost. The show has a steady editorial hand. It sets context clearly, then lets the guest’s uncertainty do real work. There is humor in small details, but rarely as escape. There is sympathy, but not softness that avoids the hard follow-up. Death, Sex & Money suits listeners who like intimate conversation with civic and cultural edges. It does not pretend hard choices become clean once they are spoken aloud. It makes them more legible.
Made for: For listeners drawn to intimate interviews about family, money, work, politics, technology, grief, and desire. It suits people who want emotional honesty without melodrama.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its patient follow-up: it takes a polished answer and keeps asking what the choice cost, what still hurts, and what remains unresolved.
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.Get more Death, Sex & Money with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of DSM and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Death, Sex & Money show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/dsmplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Anna Sale turns careful interviews into clear accounts of how people navigate money, parenthood, work, politics, and uncertainty.
Anna Sale treats an interview as a way into the choices people struggle to explain even to themselves. Reported introductions establish the stakes, then direct conversations move through military service, political ambition, pregnancy, fertility treatment, money, and creative…
A Senate race gets you in; Anna Sale's questions about a Marine's friendships keep you there.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A college pregnancy story that turns toward OnlyFans, family history, and recovery.
Rufy Thorpe's Margot's Got Money Troubles follows a young college student through an affair with one of her professors, an unplanned pregnancy, and the collapse of both the relationship and the rent cushion after the baby arrives.
A frank IVF conversation about uncertainty, testing, and the strain of not knowing.
The episode treats IVF as a hard choice shaped by medicine, money, and timing. It works best when it stays close to the waiting and the uncertainty, from the shots and egg retrieval to the lab work and genetic testing that can cut a hopeful pile of blastocysts down to one normal…
A Maine Senate primary profile that threads campaign math through Graham Plattner's military service and oyster-farming life.
The episode turns the Maine Senate primary into a broader Democratic question about whether change is the right answer, and how far that instinct can stretch.
Ira Glass frames weekly theme-driven segments spanning family secrets to Portland's protest conflict.
Shankar Vedantam unpacks the psychology behind relationships, careers, and money through researcher interviews.
David McRaney interviews researchers on cognitive bias, motivated reasoning, and why minds change.
Ryan Holiday pairs daily Stoic lessons with long-form guest conversations at his Texas bookstore.
NHPR's Jason Moon investigates the Bear Brook barrel murders and a New Hampshire wrongful-conviction case.
Russ Roberts interviews authors and economists on ideas from classical liberalism to AI.
Anna Sale opens with Rufy Thorpe and Margot's Got Money Troubles.
Writer Doree Shafrir discusses her IVF journey with host Anna Sale, covering the emotional and financial toll of multiple egg retrievals, the misconceptions people have about fertility treatment, and the unhelpful things people say to those struggling to conceive.
A listener shares her experience of receiving over a million dollars from a settlement after being sexually assaulted by a gynecologist at USC, exploring the complex emotions and questions around managing money from trauma.
The host discusses a conversation with tech writer Ed Zitron about the decline of innovation in tech due to a focus on revenue growth, and then introduces a segment answering listener questions about career changes in a precarious economy.
This episode explores the destructive impact of AI chatbots on relationships, including upended marriages and mental health crises.
Exploring how people are using AI chatbots like ChatGPT for emotional support and life advice, with personal stories of their impact.
Anna Sale opens with Maine's Democratic primary and the odd shape of Graham Plattner's challenge to Susan Collins.
Anna Sale and Felix Salmon discuss the financial and emotional challenges of budgeting for aging parents, joined by financial advisor Adriana Adams.
Anna and Felix discuss retirement planning with a financial advisor, blending practical advice with emotional insights.
This episode explores the creative and personal breakup between filmmaker brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, using their story as a lens to discuss the challenges of maintaining a successful partnership.
Allison Williams discusses her role as Marnie on 'Girls', addressing privilege, Botox, and Gen Z's appreciation for the character.
This episode is an advertisement for Angie and Rothy's, not a discussion about love life changes.