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In an era where true stories are increasingly going from audio platforms to television screens, Dying for Sex is the newest addition to cause a stir with its controversial title and strong premise. Released on April 4, 2025, and written by 20th Television and FX in script form, Dying for Sex is not within the realm of ordinary fiction; it is based on a real event that originally reached listeners via the medium of a widely praised Wondery podcast. But what is the actual connection between the new series and the original podcast?
Yes, even Dying for Sex is Wondery's drama. The drama centers around a woman called Molly, who has terminal breast cancer, and chooses to abandon her lackluster marriage and embark on a sequence of s*xual escapades to take charge of her life again and find a sense of happiness and self. First recorded in intimate back-and-forth between Molly and her best friend, Nikki Boyer, the podcast is raw, often laugh-out-loud commentary on s*x, trauma, friendship, and facing death. That very intimate journey will now come onto the screen as a new FX series.
From experience with death to confronting death in Dying for Sex
The Dying for Sex podcast launched on Wondery in February 2020 and soon became renowned for its unbashfully honest and emotionally charged narrative. Host Nikki Boyer invited listeners along on her actual adventure with her best friend Molly, who was given a terminal prognosis. Rather than living in terror, Molly tried everything, quit her marriage, pursued s*xual liberty, and battled deeply suppressed trauma in the process.
Unlike stories of illness that typically preceded it, Dying for Sex focused on Molly's voice, agency, and nuanced humanity. The podcast was intimate, frequently funny, light but deep, and closer to a chat with a friend than hearing someone else's story recounted. It wasn't about sex, it was about power, recovery, and being as much alive as possible when death looms. The show ruled the podcasting world with its combination of truth and lack of reverence, and as a show, it was purely a tribute to the truth and friendship.
Who's behind the TV adaptation of Dying for Sex?
20th Television is producing the new FX drama series adaptation of Dying for Sex. Liz Meriwether, creator of New Girl and executive producer of The Dropout, is on board.
Her investment is a good creative gamble on the show, as Meriwether has proven adept at handling emotionally charged and character-driven stories with sophistication and wit.
How does the series depict the story of the podcast?
While the podcast was based on actual dialogue and audio drama, the FX series is scripted. Therefore, the actions, feelings, and quantities are dramatized for television so a broader, visual journey is shown along Molly's path. However, the underlying points, s*xuality, disease, friendship, trauma, and empowerment, are central to the adaptation.
The drama is structured around Molly's life after her diagnosis, tracing her out of her marriage and along her efforts at emotional and physical intimacy. While some specifics will probably be fictionalized to serve up narrative momentum, the adaptation bases its grounding in actual events as presented in the podcast. The emphasis is less on justifying her decisions so much as on providing a complex, human response to the final tests of life.
Reception of the podcast in culture
Upon its release, Dying for Sex jolted listeners with its unflinching presentation. Critics and audiences alike were attracted to its realism, and the podcast was rewarded with acclaim for engaging stigmatized subjects like terminal illness and s*xual agency without sensationalism. Rather than reducing Molly to victimhood as a cancer patient, the podcast presented her as a character reclaiming agency over her life, one decision at a time.
The honesty of the podcast also made it possible to discuss loss, lack, and agency on a greater level. It cemented that human beings have the right to pursue pleasure, comedy, and sense when they are weakest. Its popularity made it a prime candidate for adaptation, not because it was something that would be best-seller material, but because its story already had profound resonance with a broad group of individuals in ways that felt significant.
Ultimately, Dying for Sex is an extremely human show. The show is a dramatization of an actual podcast, which has been the dramatization of the actual life of a woman who has chosen to live on her own terms after a life-changing diagnosis.
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The podcast laid the groundwork for a tale that refuses to fit into neat boxes. The television show, if it stays true to that tone, could experiment with illness and s*x on TV in a way all too uncommon, honestly, sensually, and in straight-up defiance of apology.
Also read: These Stranger Things scenes were so tense that we forgot to breathe
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