Downloads of apps like Quinn and Dipsea [dip-see] are skyrocketing. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re audio erotica platforms. Giulia Leo takes us inside this world of sweet… and spicy whispers and explains how audio erotica gets made.
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LEO 1
You just listened to The Siren’s Song by Wicked Faerie, an audio erotica creator.
Rachel Lotus listens to audio erotica all the time. She is the founder and director of The Talk NYC, a sex-ed initiative for youth, parents, and schools.
LOTUS 1
Because there is such an absence of quality sex education for so many young people, there is this gap to fill and porn often fills it.
LEO 2
Lotus says Mainstream porn very often provides a limited and curated snapshot of what sex in real life is like. It’s unrealistic. And, sometimes, even dangerous.
LOTUS 2
A huge percentage of mainstream porn includes violent and aggressive acts. There's not a lot of body hair. There's not a lot of diversity in types of body size, ability, color, race, ethnicity. So, yes, it does mislead young people quite dramatically in many cases, and it sort of sets people up to have unrealistic expectations and the sort of fantasy of what sex should be.
LEO 3
But Lotus says audio erotica is much different.
LOTUS 3
So for example, I was listening to something the other day that was between, like, a hetero couple and there was a moment where they paused and one partner asked the other for a condom. Don't see a lot of that in mainstream porn.
LEO 3
Many of the creators of audio erotica are anonymous. Why? Well, creators say one reason has to do with privacy and distancing who they really are from the characters they play.
ELI 1
For me it is acting. It is sound design. It's work. So, for me, it's all about, sort of, performing. I'm not trying personally to, to get intimate with, you know, whoever is listening to my content.
LEO 4
That was Eli, an anonymous creator known as This Guy Eli on the audio erotica platform Quinn. He says the choice to remain anonymous also allows him to be whoever his listeners want him to be.
ELI 2
I make as much of my content as possible M For A, male for anybody. I do as much as I can to remove gender and body descriptors so that as many people as possible can appreciate the content.
LEO 5
Wicked Faerie takes a similar approach.
WICKED 1
They know that I'm caucasian, that I’m obviously Australian, and that I have long hair, long red hair, that's it. So from there on I can be anybody that they want.
LEO 6
And listeners love having that blank slate. I mean, Eli has almost four times as many listeners as some of the most popular voice actors on Quinn who chose to disclose their identity.
So, why do listeners prefer anonymous creators? Psychologist and NYU Professor Arthur Fox has a theory.
FOX 1
A certain kind of anonymity might be necessary for people to be able to trust in letting another person's voice carry them along into an experience of sexuality. You don't have to worry about the spell being broken. There's no reality like knocking on the door and saying, Hey, recognize me?
LEO 8
Headphones can be the keys that open doors to new worlds. Audiobooks, music, and… well… radio stand as proof.
Perhaps it’s time to add audio erotica to the list.
Giulia Leo, Columbia Radio News.
