 Douglas Palermo's 2004 "Learning to Live" imagines future aliens exploring a desolate Earth and discovering the "At Fillmore East" recording; the aliens study it and eventually succumb to an overdose of emotion, Tim McCleaf's 2004 novella "For They Know Not What They Do" uses the song as a metaphor for suffering, while Mary Kay Andrews' novel "Little Bitty Lies" refers to the song as an example of "soul-scorching blues".In non-fiction, John C. Leggett and Suzanne Malm's 1995 work "The Eighteen Stages of Love" uses "Whipping Post" as a metaphor for a romantic relationship in which the participants masochistically stay in though it has gone bad.In comedic context, the song was featured in the 2008 "My Name Is Earl" television series episode "Joy in a Bubble", in which Joy gets sick and Earl has to perform all of her regular duties.