Listen to Episode No. 2 of The Checkup: Below the Waist

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The Checkup is a new health podcast, a collaboration between Slate and WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, and features the authors of WBUR’s health care blog CommonHealth: Carey Goldberg, former Boston bureau chief of the New York Times, and Rachel Zimmerman, former health care reporter at the Wall Street Journal. New episodes will appear on Mondays in the Slate Daily Podcast and The Checkup’s individual feed.

Welcome to The Checkup. Our second episode, "Below the Waist," gets intimate, with some frank talk about sex problems—and some solutions. We delve into research that suggests about one-third of women (including one of our hosts) experience pain during sex. And we speak with a physical therapist who specializes in various treatment options like pelvic floor massage (who knew?), biofeedback, and specific exercises that can help women deal with this little-discussed but incredibly widespread problem.  

Not to leave men out, we also explore a little-known disorder called Peyronie's disease, in which the erect penis becomes crooked, sometimes making it difficult to have intercourse. (Yes, this came up during the Bill Clinton impeachment saga, and there's more on that in the podcast). 

Your hosts are Carey Goldberg and Rachel Zimmerman, former newspaper reporters and co-producers of WBUR's CommonHealth blog. Each episode of The Checkup will focus on a different topic—our debut was on pregnancy myths—and future episodes will look at students’ mental health as they head back to school, fitness snake oil, and vaccine controversies. Tune in next Monday for Episode 3.

You’ll find a partial transcript of one of the interviews in this episode on the CommonHealth blog.

The Checkup Podcast is produced at WBUR by George Hicks.

Like CommonHealth on Facebook, and tell us and other listeners what you think of this week’s edition. Or drop a note to podcasts@slate.com.