Nancy Updike and UPS Men.

This American Life producer Nancy Updike on a family where the father was one kind of sissy and the son was another kind, and how the family was destroyed despite the fact that no one wanted it to be.

How does a person who's not gay convince herself that she is for two years? Host Ira Glass talks to one of the show's contributing editors, Nancy Updike, about her two-year stint believing she was a lesbian, even though she was not attracted to women.

Audio artist Gregory Whitehead weaves a story of sexual discovery. And This American Life producer Nancy Updike makes an odd discovery about condom use ... or the lack thereof.

Sketches from the neo-futurists on the subject of double lives.

Two-and-a-half years after Jack Hitt wrote the story that makes up Act One of our show, he returned to the tale of Dawn Langley Simmons.

A Walter Mondale-voting, gay-rights-supporting unrepentant liberal signs up as a Republican party member—and ends up a party functionary—a delegate to the state Republican convention...where he wreaks havoc. Dan Savage tells the story.

From England, Ruby Wright has a story of an affair where—even years after it ended—it wasn't much discussed. Ruby Wright's radio show Ruby's Chicky Boil-Ups airs every other Sunday on Radionowhere.

When the United States Congress saw a problem — sex trafficking — it acted to eliminate it.

Ira calls up his mother Shirley Glass after unexpectedly finding her quoted as a “sexpert” in Marie Claire magazine, back in 1996. One of the first stories we did on our show.

Robyn Forest thought she'd gotten her big break when a magazine assigned her to write about a famous Japanese pop singer. Instead, Robyn ended up on Japanese television denying that she and the singer were having an affair.

A reading of a pamphlet written by ex-con Stephen Donaldson for heterosexual men who are about to enter prison, about how to "hook up" with a stronger man —"daddy" or "jocker"—who'll provide protection in return for sex. He explains the rules and mores that govern this part of American prison culture.

New York writer Sarah Miller talks about two men she knows.

Patrick Wall was a special kind of monk. He was a fixer.

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declared that homosexuality was not a disease simply by changing the 81-word definition of sexual deviance in its own reference manual. It was a change that attracted a lot of attention at the time, but the story of what led up to that change is one that we hear today, from reporter Alix Spiegel.

Barbara Adams, a former member of the Whitewater trial jury, showed up for jury duty wearing a full-scale costume from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ira dissects a discussion on an Internet mailing list about fandom, inspired by Adams' celebrity. Also: Temple University professor Cindy Patton's childhood infatuation with G.I.

David Cale's Lillian.

Six-year-old DJ has two dads, Dan Savage and Terry Miller. DJ is being raised by two gay men, but he has a preschooler's understanding of what gay means.

Regular This American Life contributor Dan Savage, a syndicated sex columnist with possibly the filthiest mouth of anyone you could ever meet, finds a TV program so dirty, so weird, and so perverted that he won't let his son watch it—even though it's a kids' show, made for kids, and broadcast on a network for kids.

Ian Brown of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the normal struggle most people experience when they try to stay monogamous. Parts of Ian's story are excerpted from his book, Man Medium Rare.

A nice Florida girl changes high schools and takes the opportunity to try on a new personality...the slutty kind. Sascha Rothchild reads from her own teenage diary.

Ali Davis literally hands people their fantasies, in her job at a Chicago video store with a huge porn section. She tells true stories about what the job is like.

Ira talks with Jessica Pressler, who writes the Daily Intel blog for NewYork Magazine, about a phenomenon she noticed in the wedding notices in The New York Times. Couples were cheerfully telling—as part of their "meet cute" stories—how their relationships began with one of them cheating on a spouse or long-time partner.

Ira Glass mentions a very silly mistake he made with a girl when he was in junior high. Then comedian Mike Birbiglia tells the story of his rocky foray into the world of making out with girls.