Today's episode discussing the greatest X-Men story of all time, the Dark Phoenix Saga, and BDSM features my brilliant mentee, Monica Geraffo. Monica is something a renaissance woman - a fashion professional, co-host of the VoxPopCast, and PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies - so her thoughts are layered, scintillating, and unapologetically MATERIALIST. Her fetish is for what you can touch, build, and construct: Jean Grey's dominatrix gear as the Black Queen, Storm's leather jacket as leader of the Morlocks, the Hellfire Club's period costumery at their 5th avenue soiree. We come to find midway through the pod that your host's kink is altogether different, invested in SUBJECTIVITY, role play, and identification: The White Queen's cannibalistic desire for Kitty Pryde and Jean Grey's sadistic role play not only as the Black Queen but as her own teenage self, Marvel Girl, in the Dark Phoenix Saga's tragic conclusion. (Are you ready for the DARKEST interpretation of the DARK Phoenix Saga you've ever DARKED in your life? Because I'm about to give it to you . . . DARKLY). We also discuss: how mutants have sex (on a butte, of course), theories of masochism as temporality (Cue: "Slow" by Kylie Minogue), and how some of our faves can be problematic (trigger warning: race play and racism) and then learn from their own mistakes to become progressive icons. At the end, despite our erotic, academic, and ideological differences, Monica and I achieve flesh to flesh contact. If you want to find out who absorbs whom, GIVE US A LISTEN.

This podcast is a little engine that might, pulling out of the station with a clunky adhd addled engine fueled by nothing other than insistent sisterhood, expensive ideas, and cheap gags. We are starting off with a discussion about a forever fave, Uncanny X-Men's Phoenix Saga as a case study in second wave feminism (think 1970's, Row v. Wade et al), with my mentor and soul-sister, Ramzi Fawaz, who just happens to be an icon in the world of queer theory (the author of Queer Forms, The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination). Despite the intellectual heft of my guest, basic gay moments (cringe!) occur amidst discussions of some Classic Storm power feats. Consider yourself warned. When you're done with this nonsense, you can check out Ramzi's brilliant pod, Nerd From the Future, wherever you do the listening.

Producer: Oliver Gerharz
Graphic Design: Eric Rodriguez