Love, sex, current affairs and pop culture in the new podcast 'Embolicades' by ARA

BarcelonaLove and sexuality are eternal themes, which have occupied and preoccupied people since the beginning of time, but which can also be analyzed from a contemporary perspective and through current events. It is this intersection that Embolicades aims to explore, a new podcast that ARA is launching this Friday with Beti Badia and Estela Ortiz to talk about sex-affective issues from the present moment, building bridges between culture, thought, current affairs, and personal experience.

The first season consists of 15 episodes, which will be published on a monthly basis, with a duration of between 40 and 50 minutes. Each chapter will address two or three topics based on cultural references, news, experiences and testimonies, or new editorial releases, with the goal of analyzing how we relate to each other in an affective economy marked by capitalism, digital dynamics, and social changes. The objective is twofold: on one hand, to promote more conscious and healthy, and therefore satisfying, sex-affective relationships. On the other, to provide tools for critical thinking, but always with the aim of making scientific knowledge accessible in an understandable way that is applicable to daily life.

Beti Badia is a psychologist, sexologist, and communicator. Direct and approachable, she presents Afers Interiors on 3Cat's SomEVA channel, in addition to collaborating on the radio programs Les gates, El loft, and La turra. She balances outreach with clinical practice. Estela Ortiz, for her part, is a cultural analyst. A communicator with a background in political science, fine arts, and contemporary philosophy, her work has consisted of connecting the analysis of the internet, pop culture, and trends with social and political debates. She has collaborated with major media outlets, stations, and cultural institutions, and directs the podcast Club de Serias on Radio Primavera Sound.

Embolicades is a podcast that, redundancy aside, gets tangled up with the ARA newsroom: the newspaper's journalists will contribute to some of the topics proposed by the authors, based on their experience and knowledge covering areas where sex-affective relationships play a prominent role, that is to say, almost all of them. This transversal perspective also affects the audience the program is aimed at: the more reflective dimension may resonate with older listeners, while the incorporation of pop culture and current events appeals to younger ones. In any case, it is a meeting space that broadens the conversation about relationships with a feminist, LGBTIQ+, intersectional and inclusive perspective, attentive to diversities and inequalities.

A podcast to educate and inform

"The idea is to talk about the things that worry us regarding love for two people from different generations... even if it doesn't seem like it," explains Beti Badia. "It can range from taking pop culture figures and delving into their dramas, to looking at what advice was given on television or in magazines years ago. We want to get into it, break it down, and understand what’s going on, because that is key to learning, and many of us haven't had the opportunity until now."

Estela Ortiz, for her part, will seek to move from the anecdote to the category: "My specialty is using pop culture examples to explain situations that are not individual, but rather an example of dynamics or phenomena that occur at a structural level. I provide sociological or philosophical readings of cases we all know, such as, for example, why Marge Simpson stays with Homer despite it being an absolutely unequal marriage and her having to take care of Homer as if he were her own child," she details.