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Everybody has a healthcare nightmare — but when you’re an escort, living with bipolar disorder, or managing chronic illness, getting sick comes with its own set of complications. In this episode, Isadora and Janine talk about medical bills, inadequate insurance, lost income, and the frightening reality of working when your body is telling you to stop.

Isadora recalls powering through illness during her years as an escort, even leaving the emergency room and going straight back to work. That same instinct — to put everyone else’s needs ahead of her own — has resurfaced as she confronts a mysterious cluster of symptoms, including life-threatening anaphylactic reactions, while struggling to find a doctor willing to investigate the whole picture.

Janine shares her own experiences with dangerous medical treatment, including a psychiatrist whose license was revoked and an antidepressant that triggered a devastating bipolar cycle. Together, they consider what happens when doctors dismiss patients who “look healthy,” treat symptoms in isolation, or imply that an illness is somehow the patient’s fault.

With their trademark honesty, humor, and compassion, Isidora and Janine explore the terror of no longer trusting your own body or mind — and the exhausting search for someone who will listen. It’s a deeply personal conversation about bad medicine, invisible illness, financial vulnerability, self-advocacy, and the healing power of finally hearing: “This isn’t your fault.”

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Welcome to NUTTY & SLUTTY
Where Mental Health, Sexuality and Unfiltered Truth Take Center Stage

NUTTY & SLUTTY is a bold, sex-positive podcast exploring the messy, complicated and often hilarious intersections of mental health, sexuality and real life — without shame, filters or pretense.

Hosted by Janine Noel (living with bipolar disorder) and Isadora O’Boto (ex-escort), this show brings together two radically honest perspectives for conversations that are as raw as they are insightful. From navigating mood swings and medication to unpacking the realities of sex work and desire, nothing is off-limits.

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Isadora O’Boto (co-host) is a Juilliard Drama grad. Under the pen name Sephe Haven, she is the author of two award-winning memoirs: My Whorizontal Life and A Someday Courtesan, and playwright/performer of the solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” Isadora co-hosted the podcast My Index to Sex with Lynn Ferguson. Find her at: isadoraoboto.com

Janine Noel (co-host) is creator and host of Bipolar She podcast, where guests sh...

Have you rated the podcast yet? Review, Subscribe & Share with a friend!

What does it mean to feel powerful in a profession the world insists on seeing as degrading? In this episode, Isadora and Janine examine the complicated relationship between escorting and empowerment — and ask whether sex work can offer women a kind of control often denied to them elsewhere.

Isadora reflects on how escorting transformed her relationship with money. After years of low-paying jobs and financial insecurity, she discovered the freedom of earning enough to pay her bills without fear. But the empowerment went beyond income: clients valued her beauty, wit, talent, playfulness and intelligence — qualities that frequently went unseen in her romantic life.

A disastrous birthday date reveals the painful divide between Isadora’s professional and personal worlds. While one man can barely bring himself to call her beautiful, her answering machine is filled with birthday messages from clients telling her how much she means to them. The contrast raises a provocative question: Are transactional relationships necessarily less genuine — or can they sometimes make people feel more fully seen?

The conversation also ventures into pleasure, performance and the expectation that an escort should enjoy the encounter without ever forgetting whose experience she is being paid to provide. Honest, funny and unsettling, this episode complicates easy assumptions about prostitution — and explores the strange power dynamics hiding inside both paid sex and “real-life” romance.

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome to NUTTY & SLUTTY
Where Mental Health, Sexuality and Unfiltered Truth Take Center Stage

NUTTY & SLUTTY is a bold, sex-positive podcast exploring the messy, complicated and often hilarious intersections of mental health, sexuality and real life — without shame, filters or pretense.

Hosted by Janine Noel (living with bipolar disorder) and Isadora O’Boto (ex-escort), this show brings together two radically honest perspectives for conversations that are as raw as they are insightful. From navigating mood swings and medication to unpacking the realities of sex work and desire, nothing is off-limits.

_________________________________________________

Isadora O’Boto (co-host) is a Juilliard Drama grad. Under the pen name Sephe Haven, she is the author of two award-winning memoirs: My Whorizontal Life and A Someday Courtesan, and playwright/performer of the solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” Isadora co-hosted the podcast My Index to Sex with Lynn Ferguson. Find her at: isadoraoboto.com

Janine Noel (co-host) is creator and host of Bipolar She podcast, where guests sh...

Have you rated the podcast yet? Review, Subscribe & Share with a friend!

What happens when the person you love discovers the part of your life you fear they’ll never accept? This week on Nutty and Slutty, Janine and Isadora turn their attention to the men who stood beside them through bipolar disorder and escorting — until, for one reason or another, they didn’t.

Janine looks back at the college boyfriend who remained remarkably supportive after her hospitalization and bipolar diagnosis. But as questions about marriage, children, heredity, religion, and social class crept into the relationship, she began to wonder whether his family saw her as a whole person — or simply as the illness she carried.

Isadora recalls falling for a man while hiding the truth about her work as an escort. When he discovered the secret, his heartbreak exploded into rage, a room full of feathers, and a frightening campaign of stalking that followed her all the way to an acting job in Boston.

Together, Janine and Isadora ask a question that has haunted them both: When someone rejects you, how do you know whether they dislike who you are — or what they think your label says about you? It’s a raw conversation about love, stigma, shame, judgment, and the moment you decide you’re finished apologizing for your own life.

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome to NUTTY & SLUTTY
Where Mental Health, Sexuality and Unfiltered Truth Take Center Stage

NUTTY & SLUTTY is a bold, sex-positive podcast exploring the messy, complicated and often hilarious intersections of mental health, sexuality and real life — without shame, filters or pretense.

Hosted by Janine Noel (living with bipolar disorder) and Isadora O’Boto (ex-escort), this show brings together two radically honest perspectives for conversations that are as raw as they are insightful. From navigating mood swings and medication to unpacking the realities of sex work and desire, nothing is off-limits.

_________________________________________________

Isadora O’Boto (co-host) is a Juilliard Drama grad. Under the pen name Sephe Haven, she is the author of two award-winning memoirs: My Whorizontal Life and A Someday Courtesan, and playwright/performer of the solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” Isadora co-hosted the podcast My Index to Sex with Lynn Ferguson. Find her at: isadoraoboto.com

Janine Noel (co-host) is creator and host of Bipolar She podcast, where guests sh...