Audio For Women (It's honestly for anyone who wants to listen)
macaroni in the pot for your ears
this post is long.
I have been influenced into buying a lot of shit over recent years. Here’s a quick list of items social media made me buy and I’ll never be without again:
Naturium Glow Getter body wash
Audio Erotica
Audio erotica is exactly what it sounds like– explicit, adult content for your ears. Sometimes it’s a single voice, acting out a scenario you can project yourself into, or maybe there are multiple voices like a radio play. Some people narrate like an audiobook, and other times, the voice actor speaks directly to the listener. Sometimes it’s guided/mutual masturbation. Sometimes it’s overheard sex, which means we’re listening to at least two people getting down. It is people performing sex acts of all varieties for the purpose of audience arousal and (usually, presumably) getting paid for it. It is a form of sex work. It is porn. And it has changed my life.
When I first moved to New York in 2017, someone put me on to Reddit’s GoneWildAudio. In that forum, people upload all kinds of freaky audio and submit scripts for specific scenarios. There, you’ll see tags like M4A or F4M, which mean Male voice For All listeners or Female voice For Male listeners, respectively. The tag MDom indicates the voice is performing in a Male Dominant role, and Msub means Male submissive. Remaining tags reveal what kind of content to expect: spitting, choking, accent, oral, L-bombs (saying “I love you”), BFE, GFE (boy/girl-friend experience), loving, nonconsensual, historical, sound effects, no sfx…
And when they say sound effects, boy, do they mean it. I’ll come back to this.
I found GWA too messy to navigate and it wasn’t very mobile-friendly unless you downloaded the Reddit app. Every now and then, I’ll pop back in, but my favorite creator stopped posting, and a lot of the content has become a little too outside of my personal taste so I let it slip from my mind. Now I subscribe to Dispsea and Quinn for my weekly fix.
When Bim and I were hosting Thirst Aid Kit, I learned about Dipsea, an audio erotica app. Disclosure: The company sponsored ads for TAK, and later for This Is Good For You, and I actually wrote two stories for them. I was into it, but the selection was a bit limited at the time, so I let my subscription lapse. When I picked it back up last year, at the suggestions of my friend M, there was a better range of offerings, and I found a voice I never want to leave me. I’m not telling you who the character is, but every week, I check to see if there’s a new installment of his series.
Dipsea has a wide range of content and has really good production, but it relies less on sexual sound effects and more on storytelling. Everything is scripted. There are a lot of one-off stories, but there are also series to binge. Each series will feature a collection of the main characters interacting with each other, then there are the “Pillow Talk” installments where one of the characters speaks as if you’re their partner. These can be labeled “Him + You” or “Her + You” or “Them + You,” etc. Dipsea also has a wellness section, which includes audio teaching you how to touch yourself, and a sleep section, with the characters doing things like tucking you in while they do laundry so you can fall asleep to the sounds of them piddling around. I was skeptical of the sleep section, until one night I decided to listen to my favorite complete a chore for 45 minutes. I hit play; he said some sweet things; and the next thing I knew, it was morning and my cat was staring at me, waiting for her second breakfast.
And then there’s the Quinn app. Quinn is very similar to GWA, mentioned above. In fact, you’ll find many voice actors from GWA there. I discovered Quinn last year when I saw someone post their year-end summary of what they listened to (the equivalent to Spotify’s Wrapped). On Quinn, it appears that the creators produce themselves so the sound quality can vary immensely, and it took me a second to find my favorites, but once I did… hot diggity dog.
Dipsea has had celebrity guest voice actors such as Sarunas J. Jackson and Luke Cook; otherwise the voices are anonymous. You follow characters and series and you can favorite specific stories, but that’s about it. Quinn has original series, the first two of which are voiced by Thomas Doherty and Jesse Williams. You can also favorite your preferred creators, stories, categories (like Msub or Rough, etc), and they even do playlists, which is a good way to help you sample the flavors. Each creator has a landing page for their stories, and on each story, subscribers can leave comments. The comments are often so good and thirsty and can help you figure out if you want to listen. I also like how you can see how many plays an audio has and how many people have favorited it. It’s not necessary info, but I think it’s neat.
I’ve learned so much about myself as I listen to all of this “porn for women,” as it’s often described, even though there are voices and scenarios across genders and sexualities. I’ve always known the sounds of sex were a key component of arousal for me, perhaps as a result of listening to the end of “Girl,” a Prince B-side, at a formative age. During the early part of my sex life, we had to play music during GrownUp time to cover any sounds from roommates or anyone else around. I’d get frustrated because I’d get distracted by the music, wanting to sing along, and it sometimes made it hard to hear our bodies talking.
Audio erotica is doing a lot for me in ways that visual porn doesn’t. I like hearing filthy dirty talk that centers my pleasure. I also want to hear some real lovey dovey shit sometimes. And I really like hearing men moan and gasp and whimper.
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I told My Little Friend about my love for audio erotica so he decided to listen to his next few sessions of porn-watching. He closed his eyes and used headphones. He later told me how hot it was to focus on the sounds of breathing and how the body makes its appreciation known, and it made him realize how silent men are in explicit videos. The dirty talk in a lot of porn is often degradation-based, which has its place, but even in FemDom or Female Worship videos, the male subs are quiet.
I’ve been turning away from visual porn more and more. It can be ethically fraught, for sure, but I think, ultimately, I just don’t see myself there. Black women are usually not treated very well. It’s very rare to see someone actually concerned about Black women’s pleasure in porn. Most often, people are trying to show how much pain or discomfort or roughness Black women can take. There’s very little aftercare. I’m not suggesting that porn has to be tender all the time, but can someone out there make sure a Black woman actually enjoys herself and is not your sexual punching bag?
So since I can’t see a fictional version of myself being pleasured on screen, I’ll project myself into the scenarios of audio porn.
In audio erotica, I get to experience storylines most mainstream romance novels shy away from, like infidelity. You can find it in indie and dark romance, don’t get me wrong, but there’s usually some way it’s written so the heroine is still "a good girl,” like maybe her husband is awful so, of course, she cheats. On Dipsea, one of my favorite stories features a double date at a restaurant. One guy goes out for a smoke and the other woman, not his girlfriend, joins him and they end up Doing It, just for the thrill. On Quinn, there’s a story of a guy who approaches his best friend on her wedding day. He declares his love and they go to Pound Town but he doesn’t try to tell her to leave the man she’s about to marry. In his dirty talk, he says something about her walking down the aisle, leaking his baby batter. (I promise he doesn’t use the phrase “baby batter” and that it sounds sexier in the story). I am not condoning cheating. Everyone is allowed to establish the boundaries of their relationship, but fantasies can be healthy exploration of things you may not allow yourself. And maybe the safest way to handle some wedding day nerves is to cue up an anonymous voice telling a naughty tale of something you’ll never do.
I have a kink I’ve avoided researching fully because I felt ashamed and weird about it, but in my headphones, as I’m washing dishes, I got to dip my toe into the waters and realize it feels good. I brought it to someone in real life, and he was down to cater to my needs and honey, let me tell you that O was like someone setting off a truck full of roman candles… in my pants.
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So here’s the thing… the creators on Quinn do sound effects. It’s some freaky foley shit, okay. You really have to be in the mood for it because when I was checking it out at first, I was cringing and then I found someone who did it right. I found several someones. I only listen to the male voices, so I can’t speak to everybody, but some people are much better than others at simulating oral or the thigh-slapping sound of doggy or the grunts of being ridden. You can tell who’s just licking their hands and who has props, okay? There’s this one guy (I’m not telling you who. He’s mine)... not only am I pretty sure he’s using an anatomically correct pocket poon, but I’m fairly confident he is very talented in real life because when he is simulating oral… yes, he has the wet sounds down but he also makes these little noises like there is no other place he’d rather be. He has the rhythm down for when things are right there and when “You” go over, he makes these encouraging, surprised yet delighted humming sounds, and I love him. I never want to meet him or see what he looks like, but I love him.
One time, I was cooking and had my headphones on (my cat judges me when I play this stuff on speaker), listening to a very tender story about an ex coming back to apologize. Things escalate, and in the middle of a really soft moment, the voice actor whispers, “I love you,” and embarrassment of all embarrassments, I burst into tears over my sautéed spinach. What the fuck.
Anyway, I listen to these apps when I’m cleaning or cooking, or when I’m expecting a certain type of company because some of these stories really get the engine going. I’ve enjoyed learning new things about myself and having other tidbits confirmed. Audio erotica has been a safe way to explore parts of my sexuality I wasn’t getting elsewhere, and if you think it might be your thing, I encourage you to check it out. My friend M and I alert each other when our respective favorites drop new stories and it’s fun giggling about this adult form of make-believe. Plus I hope to write audio erotica and romance one day. Stay tuned.
This is not sponsored. If you want to try a free month of Quinn, via either the app or the website, use the code YOUCOMEFIRST when you subscribe. And you can use this link to get 30 days free at Dipsea. I hope you find something you like, and if you don’t, it’s not my fault!
I interviewed Penn Badgley for Harper’s Bazaar
I was a guest host on The Waves, talking to Eliana Dockterman, about sex in film and tv
Listen to me and Matt Bellassai hosting The List at SiriusXM
Buy one or all of my books
Current TV: Abbott Elementary, Will Trent, The Company You Keep
Next post, I’ll tell you what I’m reading. Ciao!