
In Bed With The Right
On In Bed With the Right hosts Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub welcome a range of scholars and critics to analyze right wing ideas about gender, sex and sexuality – and to plumb the ways in which these ideas persist in and shape our present moment.
Episodes (73)

Episode 91 -- The Mailbag Episode, Part 1
It's taken us forever to do this, but here it is at last: In Bed With the Right's first ever mailbag episode! We asked our Patreon supporters to send in questions, and they sent tons and tons. All of...

Episode 89: IQ Fetishism with Quinn Slobodian
Historian Quinn Slobodian (Crack-Up Capitalism, Hayek's Bastards, and the forthcoming Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed) walks Moira and Adrian through the fate of IQ on late 20th century and early...

Episode 88 -- Project 1933, Part V: July 1 - July 31
For this episode of In Bed with the Right, Adrian and Moira return to the year 1933. They continue the story of how Hitler seized power, what it did to society, what it felt like to live through it,...

Episode 87: The Epstein Files with Patrick Blanchfield
2025's strangest scandal involves facts that have been known for years and absolutely no new information. And yet it has managed to keep consummate bullshitter Donald Trump seemingly flatfooted. In...

Episode 85: The Moonies
Moira walks Adrian through the long, twisty story of the Moonies -- a story that, somewhat improbably, brings together North Korea, the Hudson Valley, the murder of Shinzo Abe and New England...

From behind the Paywall: Episode 51: The George Circle
We first recorded this episode -- on the gaggle of bizarre right-wing cranks around the German poet Stefan George (1868 - 1933) -- for IBTWR's Patreon. It's one we're very proud of, and it's also an...

Episode 82 -- Project 1933, Part IV: June 1 to June 30
For this episode of In Bed with the Right, Adrian and Moira return to the year 1933. They continue the story of how Hitler seized power, what it did to society, what it felt like to live through it,...

Episode 81: MLM Nation with Bridget Read
Journalist Bridget Read talks with Moira and Adrian about the most American of scams, the multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme. Companies like Amway, Mary Kay and Herbalife have had an outsize impact on...

Episode 78 -- Project 1933, Part III: May 1 to May 31
For this episode of In Bed with the Right, Adrian and Moira return to the year 1933. They continue the story of how Hitler seized power, what it did to society, what it felt like to live through it,...

Episode 77: San Francisco
Moira and Adrian tackle the longstanding conservative fixation on the city of San Francisco, its people and its mores. From demographic anxieties, via Joan Didion's hippie-hate, to disaster movies,...

Episode 76: Depp v. Heard with Kat Tenbarge
In this episode, Moira and Adrian are joined by journalist Kat Tenbarge for a look back at the media spectacle that was actor Johnny Depp's April/May 2022 defamation suit against his ex-wife, actress...

Episode 74: The Trustees (with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd)
Have you been enjoying stories about all-powerful student activist groups shutting down vigorous debate on college campuses? Of the insidious cabals of Performance Studies professors thwarting the...

Episode 73 -- Roy Cohn with Matt Sitman (Part 2)
The second part of Moira and Adrian's long conversation with Matt Sitman of Know Your Enemy on Roy Cohn -- lawyer to various deplorables, closet case and mentor to a young Donald Trump. This part...

Episode 71 -- Roy Cohn with Matt Sitman (Part 1)
Moira and Adrian are joined by Matt Sitman of Know Your Enemy to discuss the life of Roy Cohn -- lawyer, closet case and ratfucker extraordinaire. This first part deals with Cohn's childhood, the...

Episode 70 -- Project 1933, Part II: March 15 to April 15
For this episode of In Bed with the Right, Adrian and Moira return to the year 1933. They continue the story of how Hitler seized power, what it did to society, what it felt like to live through it,...

Episode 68 -- Republican Makeup with Jessica DeFino
When it comes to the protagonists of MAGA world, they -- like Roxette circa 1990 -- have THE LOOK. You know the one: hair that rises and crests like a mountain range, lips that are strangely beige...

Episode 67 -- Project 1933, Part I: January to March 15
Germany 1933 is having a bit of a moment. Which made us at In Bed with the Right decide to explore that year in detail. In this series, Adrian and Moira tell the story of how Hitler seized power, what...

Episode 65 -- "So Long, Pamela Paul" with Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri
Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri of If Books Could Kill visit In Bed with the Right to talk about the life, times and very, very milquetoast opinions of Pamela Paul, who recently departed from her...

Episode 64: Whither the Preachers? With Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Moira and Adrian welcome historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Jesus and John Wayne) to talk about what happens to conservative "preacher" masculinity in the age of swaggering, crass and often libertine...

Episode 62: AI Slop and the New Fascist Aesthetic with Roland Meyer
Why have our new right-wing overlords taken such a shine to chintzy, shiny AI slop? What is persuasive about these phony, artless, slightly desperate images? How do they originate, and how do they...

Episode 60: Emergency Episode: The German Elections
Germany voted for a new parliament last Sunday, and if you weren't ready for the words "far right" "Germany" and "20% of the vote" to pop up on your doom bingo, well, then you don't know 2025....

Episode 58: The Pelicot Trial with Manon Garcia
TW: This episode is almost entirely about a horrifying case of sustained and organized rape. On December 19, 2024 a court in Avignon, France convicted Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men of rape. It...

Episode 57: Mark Zuckerberg
Moira and Adrian delve into the career and political trajectory of Mark Zuckerberg. From Facemash to The Facebook to the Metaverse to putting on an absurd amount of sunscreen, they trace Mark...

Episode 55: Emergency Episode: Mark Joseph Stern on Executive Action
Donald Trump is issuing executive orders faster than people seem to be able to metabolize what's happening. And many of them have to do with gender, sexuality and wokeness! So Moira and Adrian turn to...

Episode 53: The Moynihan Report
The Moynihan Report (1965) written by later New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) is an important document in the backlash against the Civil Rights era, but it constitutes an important...

Episode 50: The Second Annual Cursties, Part II
In what is already being described as a Festivus miracle, we present you -- at long last! -- the second part of the Second Annual Cursties! It's Moira, Adrian and special guest Michael Hobbes doing...

Episode 49: The Second Annual Cursties, Part I
2024's hottest awards show is THE SECOND ANNUAL CURSTIES. Conjured up by Adrian, Moira and special returning guest Michael Hobbes, this all-gay gabfest has everything. Rapid onset transphobia! How to...

Episode 47: Trans Kids
Moira walks Adrian through the right wing fixation on trans kids and the way it is reshaping our politics. In early December, the US Supreme Court heard US v. Skrmetti, and is almost certain to uphold...

Episode 46: Live from City Lights Books it's THE CANCEL CULTURE PANIC
Back in September, Adrian and Moira did an event at San Francisco's legendary City Lights Bookstore for an event launching Adrian's new book The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession went...

Episode 44: So You Want to be a Right-Wing Grifter... with Matt Bernstein
As a special holiday treat, podcaster extraordinaire Matt Bernstein (A Bit Fruity) joins Moira and Adrian to talk about the right wing grift machine. It's a tough world out there, so here's your step...

Episode 42: 2024 Election Debrief, Part I
Moira and Adrian delve reluctantly into the horror, the horror -- aka the results of the 2024 presidential election. We didn't realize it when we recorded it, but this will be first installment in a...

Episode 41: George Gilder and the Birth of Right-Wing Silicon Valley
Stanford researcher Becca Lewis talks Moira and Adrian through the life and influence of George Gilder, who started out as a standard anti-feminist and then reinvented himself as an evangelist for...

A Very Special Announcement from In Bed With the Right
In Bed With the Right has an announcement: the show is coming to Patreon! You can sign up for extra content (2 episodes per month!) here! But our main feed (meaning episodes wherever you have been...

Episode 39: The Meme Wars with Morgan Sung
Journalist Morgan Sung (who hosts the terrific podcast Close All Tabs ) talks Moira and Adrian through the memes, stan armies, influencers, hatewatchers, bots and trolls of the 2024 election. How has...

Episode 38: The 2024 Election
Hey, did you know there's an election coming up? And that gender might have something to do with the outcome? In this special emergency episode (recorded on Oct. 30, 2024), Moira and Adrian talk about...

Episode 37: We Need to Talk About Usha
Moira and Adrian talk with New York writer and CNN contributor Irin Carmon about Usha Vance and the liberal-coded women in the orbit of the various MAGA men.

Episode 36: Jordan Carroll on Science Fiction and the Alt Right
Jordan Carroll, author of the new book Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (which you can buy here) walks Moira and Adrian through the connections between science fiction fandom,...

Episode 35: Talia Lavin on the Christian Right's View of Marriage/Parenting
Author Talia Lavin (whose Wild Faith is out on 10/15/24) talks Moira and Adrian through the Christian Right's takeover of American life, through objects that are unlikely to appear on your bookshelf,...

Episode 34: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
Moira and Adrian grab their Stanley cup and identical hair extensions to follow guest Kate Kelly into the reality show phenomenon "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" -- an episode all about the gender...

Episode 33: The VP Debate
It's debate night in America, and you know what that means: MASCULINITY THUNDERDOME! In this special emergency episode, Moira and Adrian discuss the different styles of masculinity on display at the...

Episode 32: In-Vitro Fertilization
Moira talks Adrian through the latest fissure in the war on reproductive freedom: in-vitro fertilzation! A fixation of conservative Protestants and the Catholic Church alike, a stand-in for changing...

Episode 31: Pro-Natalism
In this episode of In Bed With The Right, Moira walks Adrian through the long, creepy history of pro-natalism, and its resurgence amongst conservatives. It is textbook 'weird'!

Episode 30: The Olympic Games (of Gender Panic)
In honor of the Olympic Games in Paris and of the way conservatives seem intent to freak out about them almost daily, Adrian walks Moira through the various ginned-up controversies: drag queens...

Episode 29: Harris
In another emergency episode in a veritable era of emergencies, Adrian and Moira discuss the gender politics surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign, her potential VP picks,...

Episode 28: Richard Wagner: Act III
Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker and author of the book ‘Wagnerism’ joins Moira and Adrian to talk about Siegfried, the Wagner clan, and Wagner’s complicated and multifaceted legacy.

Episode 27: Biden
Moira and Adrian talk about Joe Biden's campaign, about the age question and the fallout from the calamitous presidential debate. NOTE: We recorded this before the assassination attempt on Donald...

Episode 26: J.D. Vance with Gabe Winant
In a special emergency episode, Moira and Adrian talk with historian Gabe Winant about J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's pick for vice president. Gender, class and the political ascendancy of creep...

Episode 25: Richard Wagner: Act II
Adrian and Moira return for another episode on the life and works of Richard Wagner, investigating the radical political/philosophical influences that led him to some of the good, the bad, and the...

Episode 24: LIVE SHOW Anita Bryant with Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About
For this live show, Moira and Adrian blinking step into the big world and come face to face with other human beings! Specifically Sarah Marshall of the amazing “You’re Wrong About” podcast, and an...

Episode 23: RFK Jr.
Moira walks Adrian through the strange, tragic, enraging life of RFK Jr.—vaccine skeptic, presidential candidate, and literal brain worm survivor. Along the way, your hosts touch on Kennedy...

Episode 22: Richard Wagner: Act I
Adrian leads Moira through the life and career of composer Richard Wagner—a not-so-great man with some of world history's worst fans. Aesthetics, politics, revolutionary zeal that curdles into...

Episode 21: "The Campus" in the American Imagination with Samuel Catlin
Samuel Catlin (University at Buffalo) joins Moira and Adrian to talk about "The Campus" -- about the peculiar mental image Americans seem to have, how little it comports with reality, and the uncanny...

Episode 20: Conservatism's Daddy Issues
Moira and Adrian speak to political scientist Jeff Dudas about his 2017 book Raised Right: Fatherhood in Modern American Conservatism. The conversation touches on campus panics, Clarence Thomas's many...

Episode 19: Judith Butler's Who's Afraid of Gender?
In this episode, Moira and Adrian delve into Judith Butler's latest book -- about the worldwide movement against "gender" and the role it plays in right-wing politics.

Episode 18: Trad Wives
Moira guides Adrian through the strange, troubling world of tradwifery -- the latest trend in butter-churning, vaguely religious gender conservatism that's taken over your Instagram feed. Come for...

Episode 17: Otto Weininger, or Gender and Anti-Semitism
Adrian takes Moira into the wild, wildly misogynist and deeply depressing world of Otto Weininger (1880-1903). A posterchild for all manner of fin-de-siècle neuroses, to say nothing for massive...

Episode 16: Kate Manne on Anti-Fatness
Philosopher Kate Manne (Down Girl, Entitled) joins Moira and Adrian to talk about the politics of anti-fatness – where fatphobia came from historically, how it intersects with racism, sexism and...

Episode 15: Taylor Swift
Follow Adrian following Moira following various conservative pundits down what is already shaping up to be one of 2024 weirder rabbit holes: the Great Taylor Swift Conspiracy! What it says about...

Episode 14: Prisoner of Sex – Norman Mailer vs. Kate Millett and Women
In her 1970 book “Sexual Politics” feminist critic Kate Millett devoted 20 pages to a critique of novelist and public intellectual Norman Mailer. In this episode Moira guides Adrian through Mailer’s...

Episode 13: The Cursties with Michael Hobbes
2023 was a year rich in truly cursed discourses, In Bed With the Right has already analyzed many of them. In this episode — our first annual CURSTIES — your able hosts (with guest Michael Hobbes)...

Episode 12: The Morehouse Man with Saida Grundy
Founded in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Morehouse College in Atlanta remains one of the most elite HBCUs. As Prof. Saida Grundy argues, the all-male college also sheds light on gender...

Episode 11: Homocons
Together with their guest, historian Samuel Hueneke, Moira and Adrian delve into the history of the homocons. Gay (and sometimes, very sometimes, lesbian) conservatives. Toggling between the...

Episode 10: Nietzsche and his Heirs
Moira and Adrian continue their earlier discussion of the thought and influence of Friedrich Nietzsche — morality and the critique of metaphysics, antisemitism and anti-feminism.

Episode 9: Marriage Boosters with Rebecca Traister
Every few years, it seems, a set of academics and pundits discovers marriage as a panacea for a host of social ills — poverty, unhappiness, social cohesion, research assistants. Moira, Adrian and...

Episode 8: Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) is one of the 19th century's most versatile, counterintuitive and ... well, misogynistic thinkers. Moira and Adrian talk about the legacy of his thought in later...

Episode 7: The “Transsexual Empire” with Susan Stryker
Often considered the ur-text of trans-exclusionary feminism, Janice Raymond’s “The Transsexual Empire” came out in 1979, but rehearses a bunch of tropes you could just as well get off JK Rowling’s...

Episode 6: Perverts, Creeps and Priests!
It's Moira and Adrian's version of a classic Cher-song: Perverts, Creeps and Priests! This episode takes deep dives into three texts that illuminate contemporary "crisis-of-masculinity"-debates: those...

Episode 5: Crisis of Masculinity
Moira leads Adrian through the endless discourse about the "crisis of masculinity" -- where it comes from, what has motivated it in the past, and why we're having it again. Together, the two of them...

Episode 4: Fag Hag with Moira and Adrian
Ever since the 1960s, the figure of the “fag hag” — a (mostly) straight woman hanging around gay men — has been a mainstay in and around queer spaces. As a woman who refused heterosexuality she...

Episode 3: Susan Sontag with Merve Emre
Susan Sontag (1933- 2004) was a writer, critic and activist, one who isn’t thought of (and didn’t think of herself) as conservative. In this episode, your hosts talk with Prof. Merve Emre to think...

Episode 2: Midge Decter with Matt Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell
Midge Decter (1927-2022) has often been called the "grandmother of neoconservatism" -- hers was in some ways a pretty classic trajectory, from New Deal liberalism to profound unease with the social...

Episode 1: Gay Marriage with Moira and Adrian
For their inaugural episode, Moira and Adrian delve into right-wing (ahem) contributions to the gay marriage debate. Ten years ago the Supreme Court decided Windsor v. US and Hollingsworth v. Perry,...

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About this Podcast
Copyright
Adrian Daub and Moira Donegan 2023
Language
en
Categories
Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Sexuality