David Zellnik tells Kevin Allison about a moment of sexual liberation in a dark back room at a gay bar in the early 90s. Check out all of our Conversation Stories!

🎙️Conversation Story: Allowed to Look by David Zellnik

David has a transformative night at a gay bar in the early 90s, during the ongoing AIDS crisis. It felt risky but it also helped him to feel more visible and confident in his identity, changing his perspective on sexual relations.

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Reba Sparrow and Smith Galtney share some of our favorite unusual love stories from our 16-year history.

🎙️LIVE Story: Pleasant Mountain by Smith Galtney

Smith had the perfect husband, house and home... till he returned to the crystal meth habit of his younger years. His husband was able to support Smith in getting to rehab and putting his life back together again.

🎙️LIVE Story: Baby Love by Reba Sparrow

Reba has a history of body shame. She’d always felt her breasts weren't big enough. When she met a boyfriend who wanted to role play that he was her baby breastfeeding from her, she was horrified... until they tried.

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Connor O’Donoghue, JC Cassis and Jay Michel share stories about crushes and rebounds. 

🎙️Radio Story: I Was the Appetizer by Connor O'Donoghue

A virgin with body shame issues, Connor falls for a straight guy he befriends in a psych hospital. He has a threesome with his crush and a girl, knowing the guy is only into the girl. Decades later, Connor sheds his sexual anxiety. 

🎤Live Story: Never Again by JC Cassis

JC gets a crush on Bobby, a glamorous classmate, and tells him about it. Bobby rejects her politely,  but when she says, "Let me know if you ever change your mind," with a joking tone, he says, "I'm never gonna change my mind," leaving JC wounded. 

🎤Live Story: Ready for Asking by Jay Michel

Jay joined the military to try to seem straight. He has a nerve wracking hookup on campus, but later has his first magical gay club experience with the guy, falling in love in a flash while kissing… then witnessing the guy hooking up with others moments later. 

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A Classic RISK! episode from our early years when Brian Finkelstein, Carrie Wade and Matt Oberg told true stories at the live RISK! show for the 2013 LA Storytelling Festival.

🎤Live Story: She and I by Brian Finkelstein

(Content note: miscarriage, suicidal ideation) Brian’s anxiety around marriage and fatherhood lead to a panic attack at a grocery store just before he learns his wife is pregnant… shortly before he learns of a miscarriage. 

🎤Live Story: Power In It by Carrie Wade

Carrie describes how her cerebral palsy affects sex, desire, and pain tolerance. She discovers through a BDSM experience that the very traits she was taught to hide are the source of her sexual confidence and power. 

🎤Live Story: The New Normal by Matt Oberg

With OCD tendencies, Matt strives to seem normal. A disastrous attempt at seduction involving a hidden collection of fingernail clippings leads him to realize honesty matters more than normalcy.

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on March 17, 2026 in NYC!

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Ezra Holmlund and Sarah Adelman tell stories about things involving coming... and going. 

🎤Live Story: Things Are Going South by Ezra Holmlund

Ezra and his brother are at home when they begin to suspect a stranger has broken into their house upstairs. When the police arrive, the two brothers are mistaken for being the criminals.

🎤Live Story: The Long And Winding Road (To Semen Analysis) by Sarah Adelman

Sarah is working at a sperm bank but loses her job after the HR department discovers her stand up comedy material is based off her work, forcing her to abandon a rigid life plan and choose an unpredictable creative path.

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on 03/17/26 at Caveat in NYC

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In memory of Jan Scott-Frazier, we revisit her 2011 story called “The Riverside” and, until now unreleased, her conversation about the story in 2021 with narrative therapist David Newman. 

00:00 Introduction

01:34 The Riverside by Jan Scott-Frazier

(Content note: suicide) At 22, Jan moved to Japan, but was lonely, as foreigners often feel. She began to notice a woman who visited the same river she did, who was even more depressed. Jan strategized how to comfort this stranger, but was too late, discovering from the newspapers that the woman took her own life. 

15:49 Discussion: Jan Scott-Frazier & David Newman

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Stella Mayerhoff and Rebecca Heron tell stories about the unbearable weight of truth.

🎙️Radio Story: In Ways I Never Could Have Imagined by Stella Mayerhoff

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, out in the field studying bonobos, Stella has to get a local man back home by lying to him, saying his baby is sick, when in fact, his baby has already died.

Keywords: Congo field research, bonobos, primatology, grief in the jungle, moral dilemma, scientific fieldwork, malaria loss, human conflict abroad

💻Workshop Story: Unfolding by Rebecca Heron

(Content note: sexual assault, emotional abuse, child sexual abuse.) In a Zoom session for Kevin’s online storytelling workshop, Rebecca considers how her uncle, a victim of child sexual abuse never shared his story and she feels holding that in killed him, so she shares her own story of her own survival of sexual abuse. 

Keywords: trauma memory, dissociation, childhood coping, sexual assault survival, storytelling workshop, inherited pain, silence and disclosure

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A Classic RISK! episode from our early years that first ran in October of 2013, when Janine Latus, Scott Whitney and Dan Telfer told stories about brushes with madness that left scars.

🎙️Radio Story: Revelations by Scott Whitney

(Content note: cults, suicide ideation) A Jehovah’s Witness struggling with his faith, Scott knocks on the door of a traumatized recluse to attempt to convert him. The brief, troubled friendship convinces Scott to leave the church.

Check out our “Revelations, Revisited” episode, where Scott talked to Kevin about his then 12-year-old story.

🎤Live Story: Boots on the Ground by Dan Telfer

(Content note: suicide, suicidal ideation) After his brother’s suicide, a grieving young man channels despair into obsessive protest attendance until a police kettle triggers a panic-driven flight that forces him to confront his own paralysis and fear.

🎙️Radio Story: If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus

(Content note: murder, domestic violence) Janine's sister is murdered by an abusive boyfriend. In retrospect, there were too many signs witnessed by too many people who knew the victim and her killer, but no one was sharing the story.

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Shem, Nonye Brown-West and JC Cassis share stories of sexual discoveries.

🎤Live Story: Shem's Guide to Sexuality by Shem

As a joke, young Shem's frenemy gives him a sexy book, but it's a feminist book and he learns less about eroticism and more about the emotional needs of middle aged American women. 

🎤Live Anecdote: The Joy of Toes by JC Cassis

JC marvels at the outsized role that men’s big toes seem to play in that legendary guide to love making from the ‘70s, The Joy of Sex.

🎤Live Story: When I Came To by Nonye Brown-West

After a long history of medical trauma, Nonye is diagnosed with colon cancer. It is scary but eventually she is grateful she got her early diagnosis, and it all ends with her having an orgasm while getting a colonoscopy.  

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC March 17th!

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A Classic RISK! episode from our early years that first ran in October of 2013, when Stephanie Douglass, Shannon Cason, Lily Be and Jim Padar were at our very first show in that toddlin’ town.

🎤Live Story: You Don’t Know Jack? by Stephanie Douglass

A high school erupts in laughter over a mysterious name on the morning announcements, sending a well-meaning teacher on a frantic mission to protect a bullied student who, disastrously, does not exist.

🎤Live Story: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got by Shannon CasonAfter obsessing over penis size and attempting a risky DIY “enhancement,” a man temporarily loses sexual function, panics through days of humiliation, and learns the terrifying medical reason behind his self-inflicted scare.

🎤Live Story: The Great Detective by Lily Be

Lily learns the reason her mom threw her dad out was that her mom once took on the role of private detective and hid in a car while her husband and his mistress had sex in it.

🎤Live Story: Dressing the Wound by Jim Padar

(Content note: fatal injury) A homicide detective in the ‘70s, Jim saved a dying boy by keeping his hand on the neck wound. The boy’s parents thanked him for giving them a chance to say goodbye.

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Ms. Aishia tells Cyndi Freeman about the time she navigated a complex, emotionally abusive relationship, and ultimately found the strength to prioritize her own happiness and independence. You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Check out all of our Conversation Stories!

Conversation Story: Create My Life by Ms. Aishia

EDITOR’S SYNOPSIS: After leaving an abusive relationship, Ms. Aishia enters an intense, largely virtual romance that slowly destabilizes her sense of self, leading her to sever ties, confront emotional dependency, and ultimately rebuild her life through radical change and solo travel.

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