"Sex Robots Titillate and Childish Gambino Provokes with Ross Douthat and Doreen St. Felix"

New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) joined Ana this week to continue the discussion they started in columns last week. Ross wrote an op-ed in the Times about the prospect of sex robots as the answer for people who can’t fulfill their sexual desires, to which Ana responded with a lengthy critique. To take that debate off the computer screen, they conducted a wide-ranging conversation that encompassed Ross’ argument, Ana’s problems with it, and what it’s like writing in the age of Trump.

After the conversation with Ross, the New Yorker’s Doreen St. Felix (@dstfelix) joined Ana to talk about Childish Gambino’s music video for “This is America.” Doreen analyzed the new video, and they tried to parse through who it was actually made for as well as what makes Glover so compelling.

You can find Ross’ sex robot piece here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/opinion/incels-sex-robots-redistribution.html

Here’s Ana’s response to Ross’ piece: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/robot-sex-w519788

You can find Ross’ Hefner piece mentioned in the episode here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/opinion/hugh-hefner.html

Here’s Doreen’s analysis of “This is America”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-carnage-and-chaos-of-childish-gambinos-this-is-america

Get in touch with the show at withfriendslikepod@gmail.com and on Twitter at @crooked_friends.

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