But it’s also nonsense to say that stories about moms are not relatable. I don’t hear anyone fretting over whether “99 Percent Invisible” listeners are all architects or “Radiolab” listeners are all scientists. In story-based reporting, this is what we do: We take the specific and we present it in a compelling way, to make other humans connect with it.

I made the show for three years — and raised tens of thousands of dollars on Kickstarter — before big shops got interested. Eventually I was picked up by WNYC and then Stitcher. In the past few years, motherhood has become a boom market, with publishers churning out books on the complicated realities of pregnancy, life with kids, or choosing not to have them at all. But back then, many of the concerns of motherhood still seemed unpopular, if not downright taboo.

In 2015, I wanted to do an episode about childbirth injuries that I could also pitch to a network radio show. Most of these injuries can be remedied by pelvic floor physical therapy, but doctors rarely recommend it, or even know about it. I wanted to investigate why so many moms were living with pelvic pain for months — years, even — after giving birth, resigned to painful sex or no sex at all.

When I pitched a public radio editor, she told me it was an interesting topic but that you just can’t talk about something that sexually explicit on the air. I brought the story to another radio editor, this time with an economic peg. I told him the question I wanted to ask was: What is the cost of saving a mom’s sex life?

He told me he wouldn’t commission the story because the answer to why we don’t prioritize pain-free sex is that sex is extra. It’s not essential.

And yet, if you type “erectile” into the search bar on NPR’s website, you get a plethora of results. In 1998, we learned about the new popularity of Viagra, the “magic pill for impotence.” In 2008, NPR assessed a decade of Viagra. And in 2014, we got “Love and Sex in the Time of Viagra — 16 Years On.” In between, dozens of pieces mention erectile dysfunction.

When you talk about male sexual dysfunction, you’re talking about problems with arousal. When you talk about childbirth injuries, you’re talking about problems with chronic pain. From a health perspective, one talk seems much more essential than the other. And it doesn’t involve discussing boners.