Vea Vesper is a professional Dominatrix who “creates safe spaces to play dangerous games.” She was the first woman in Russia to publicly come out as a Dom, blazing a trail for sex workers on social media in her home country.

We dive deep into sex and dating culture in Russia vs America (hello Russian Hooker trope!); what it really means to be a “good girl” and why intimidating women get further in life; how to “make the Universe your Mistress”; and all the ways in which BDSM can teach us about healthy boundaries, honest communication, and effective negotiation in everyday life.

And, as a special treat for us very good boys and girls, she reveals the wildest scene a submissive has ever asked for. (Spoiler alert: it involves cake.)

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and hosted by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

Feel like blowing up your life? You’ve come to the right place.

This week’s confessors range in age from 28 to 51 and reside in New York City, Los Angeles, Charlotte, San Diego, San Francisco, London, and the Netherlands. Each of them took enormous personal, professional, or physical risks in pursuit of a freer and more authentic life.

We hear from an athletic trainer who elected to amputate half his leg; a high-end drug dealer turned stay-at-home mom; a sex worker turned corporate project manager — and a youth program director turned cam girl; two former city professionals making monster salaries who opted to pursue their artistic dreams full-time; a man who found unexpected success as a journalist in mid-life; a woman who moved to Europe for a man she met in China; and two women who found the strength to leave emotionally abusive relationships after ten and fifteen years.

Together, they offer wisdom about losing and rebuilding your identity, navigating judgment from family and society, redefining success, confronting fears of failure, and understanding the complicated role money plays in happiness.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

Kseniya Sovenko (@ksenyeah) is a former nationally ranked competitive ballroom dancer, writer, and the founder of ⁠⁠NYC Rave Girls (@nyc.rave.girls)⁠⁠. After being diagnosed with HPV, Kseniya discovered she had high-grade cervical dysplasia (CIN3), an advanced type of precancerous cells. She was offered only one option for treatment, called a LEEP - or Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure - but read many reports that the procedure offered inconsistent results and bad side effects. So, in the middle of 2020's global lockdown, Kseniya traveled to Japan on a medical Visa to receive Photodynamic Therapy. Her story is equal parts wild and informative, and I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

What the f*ck is a "timeline?"

This week’s global confessors (16:35) reside in England, Spain, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Each got married — and in some cases had children — “late,” between the ages of 34 and 41.

We hear from former party girls adjusting to quieter lives after decades of late nights and globe-trotting; a woman who moved abroad with her girlfriend before returning to the States in search of a heteronormative relationship; a queer woman married to a queer man in a proud Dual Income No Kids household; a woman pregnant via surrogate at 40 after spending a decade happily unmarried to her long-term boyfriend; a woman who resisted relentless pressure from her religious family to have children; and a PhD navigating social judgment about her happy marriage to a plumber.

From sex, drugs, and rock & roll-filled twenties to lavish Christmas-themed weddings and shotgun ceremonies in Nashville and Vegas, our contributors have no shame about finding lasting love later in life. In fact, many believe that spending years focused on ambition and self-discovery allowed them to approach marriage as whole people seeking genuine partnership — not validation, void-filling, or a box to check. But they also speak candidly about the emotional and physical realities of delayed domesticity: the patience required to reject societal timelines, the strain “geriatric” pregnancy can place on the body, and the profound ways marriage and parenthood can reshape a woman’s identity after a lifetime of independence.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

Chelsea G. Summers is the author of one of my all-time favorite novels, A Certain Hunger. The story follows a sexy, successful, and sociopathic middle aged food critic as she travels around the world sleeping with, murdering, and then EATING men who have wronged her. Even more iconic than the book is Chelsea herself — a former stripper, sex writer, wine writer, and academic who self-identifies as having been a “fuckup” in her 20s and 30s before going to grad school in her 40s and writing her first novel in her 50s. Despite initial rejection by 40 publishers, A Certain Hunger went on to become an international bestseller.

Chelsea joined me in the studio to bond over being "too much"; the joys of "unlikeable" female characters; the pain and privilege of beauty; society's toxic relationship to aging; and what getting older does to a woman's identity. She also dishes about what it was like to strip through her 30s, transition from sex work into academia, and marry a man twenty years her junior (who loves to paint her naked).

~

A Certain Hunger is available wherever books are sold - and is an Audible original, too.

https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Certain-Hunger-Audiobook/B07Y46F4YG

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

It took me 10 years to graduate college. I mean, school sucks — when you’re a teenager, at least. It feels very different as an adult who actually chooses to be there.

This week’s global confessors (8:55) reside in Southern California, Maryland, Hawaii, Ontario, London, Germany, and New Zealand. Each of them decided to finish their undergraduate degree or pursue higher education in their 30s, well beyond the age society tells us it’s “normal” to do so.

We hear from a mother of two studying psychology to become a sex educator; a divorced mom back in community college at 35; and a woman pursuing her PhD while raising children in a foreign country. There’s a crime scene investigator pursuing a Master’s after seeing one too many dead bodies; a former nonprofit worker who fled abroad for graduate school after the Trump administration cut her funding; and an administrative employee pursuing a second Master’s out of fear that her mindless job would slowly rot her brain. We also hear from an Indigenous first-generation college student who took the LSAT four times before getting into law school, and a soon-to-be graduate navigating the complicated expectations of her immigrant parents.

From tuition costs and lifestyle adjustments (goodbye Pilates, hello grocery budgets) to childcare, burnout, and balancing work with studying, all of this week’s confessors agree that returning to school later in life is no easy feat. But bringing real-world hardship, work experience, and parenthood into the classroom has made education feel far more meaningful — and the satisfaction of breaking barriers, whether racial, economic, or personal, has made the struggle worthwhile.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

Colette Pervette is a professional Dominatrix, writer, and PhD in Education from UC Berkeley. A self-proclaimed “Educatrix,” she’s also the founder of MistressClass: an online course merging psychology-centric lectures with technical BDSM training to teach aspiring Dommes the ropes (pun intended) while helping them step into their highest power and purpose.

We discuss her teacher origin story of being outed to her Asian immigrant parents; the life-altering potential of honesty, in and out of the dungeon; why masks and personas actually aren't 'inauthentic' but tools for radical self-expression; and how physical and emotional pain shouldn't be avoided, but rather seen as an exciting - and important - test of boundaries. We also get into the rumors about her "sex cult" and the craziest acts she's ever subjected her Submissives to.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and hosted by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.

Would moving home with your parents be a dream or a nightmare? Depends on which confessor you ask.

This week’s stories (11:38) come from people between the ages of 31 to 45 residing throughout New York, California, and Oregon. Each of them is — or was until recently — living with their parents as an adult. I was too, until I was 28.

While the cost of living crisis played a major role in their decisions to move home, medical conditions, career changes, and relationship status factored in too. Some describe the experience as comforting and deeply healing; others admit it’s been infantilizing or emotionally complicated. But nearly all agree that multigenerational living offers benefits beyond saving money: community, relief from isolation, love, and the time and space to pursue hobbies, creative ambitions, and more meaningful ways of existing.

Most of all, it’s encouraged them to reconsider America’s traditional definition of “adulthood” — and question whether independence, productivity, and constant striving are really the only markers of a successful life.

~

Share your own story at confessions@aliweissworld.com. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating & review: it’s immensely helpful for expanding our community of confessors!

Tales of Taboo is produced and hosted by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Sound mixing by Cedric Wilson. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro.