First Person podcast’s latest episode explores BDSM, sexual empowerment

Human interest podcasts have really taken off since the likes of NPR’s Serial captured listeners back in early 2015. But while Serial focused on a specific person’s predicament for an entire season, South Africa’s First Person podcast is reworking this format to a more acute and local degree.

First Person podcast is the brainchild of Kagiso Media, journalist Marianne Thamm and producer Jayne Morgan. The half-an-hour weekly cast focuses on seemingly ordinary South Africans who harbour curious, tabooed and captivating secrets. And I mean captivating.

The podcast’s first episode is a good example. Launched late June, it tells the story of Thomas Mollett — an amateur detective living in Piketberg who believes he’s single-handedly solved the murders of Inga Lotz and Reeva Steenkamp. This was followed up by “South Africa’s psychedelic mushroom champion” in episode two.

Life, let’s not forget, is sexually transmitted

The latest episode however delves even deeper.

Faeth Lyon-Wall reveals why she practices BDSM with her husband — from her initial feelings of rejection that led her to experimentation, to exploring her deepest, most spirtual sexual desires.

“Sex is, for most people, a driving force, an animating urge,” the podcast’s narrator Thamm notes in the episode.

“Life, let’s not forget, is sexually transmitted. But we often have quite conventional ideas about who we have it with and what kind of sex we have.”

Aptly titled 50 Shades of OK, it should go without saying that the episode is NSFW/for earphones only. Even so, Morgan explains the podcast’s content aims to do more than shock and surprise its listener.

“Apart from getting a fascinating glimpse into someone else’s life, I think this kind of content has the power to get people talking – in this case about their relationships – more openly and more valuably. It’s a different kind of experience for our audience,” she adds.

Have a listen to the latest podcast, and previous episodes below. Additionally, if you’d like to subscribe to the First Person podcast, it’s available on both iTunes and iONO.fm.

Speaking of great podcasts, be sure to subscribe to Memeburn’s on Soundcloud for in-depth tech news and analysis.