The audio app revolutionizing erotica by Lisa
Recently, my colleague Josh Rothman and I delved into the world of audio erotica, spending several hours listening to a variety of podcasts for a potential story on “sensual self-care”. The popularity of erotic podcasts has surged in recent years, making it an intriguing topic. Both Josh and I have a fondness for radio shows, romance novels, podcasts, and light-hearted content. However, our research experience was less than pleasant. We found that the majority of the content we listened to was cringe-worthy, due to the difficulty of crafting quality erotica and producing convincing audio drama. The discomfort of listening to poorly executed attempts at both was unbearable. It was akin to reading awkwardly written sex scenes in books or excerpts from embarrassing novels by infamous public figures, but with the added discomfort of having it read aloud by a stranger.
However, we found one exception that didn’t make us cringe – Dipsea. This app, launched in 2018 by Gina Gutierrez and Faye Keegan, offers subscription-based erotic short stories, specifically designed for women, with a tasteful yet sensual aesthetic. Dipsea successfully avoids the common pitfalls of both erotica and audio drama. The writing is commendable, the stories are performed by credible and appealing actors, and the entire operation has a startup feel to it. With $5.5 million in venture capital backing, Dipsea feels like a well-designed product you might see advertised on Instagram, aiming to revolutionize a specific aspect of your life. The sophistication of Dipsea’s marketing, the consideration given to its visual design, the abstract illustrations of diverse bodies, and the intriguing story titles are so in tune with the current cultural climate that it’s almost unsettling. The content is exactly as the marketing suggests: tasteful erotic scenarios featuring young, educated, sexually and ethnically diverse city dwellers, sometimes on vacation, sometimes in their hometown, encountering old flames in unexpected places. Each story is tagged with character indicators, scenario indicators, and heat ratings, as voted by listeners.
The creators have clearly put a lot of thought into every aspect of the app, including contemporary sensibilities. This is a rarity in the world of erotic content, which often reflects cultural shortcomings as much as it does healthy sexual desire. The first erotic book I read, Nancy Friday’s 1973 classic “My Secret Garden”, was filled with a variety of scenarios, some delightful, some disturbing. And all kinds of written sexual content, whether by renowned authors or enthusiastic amateurs, often involves some degree of reading around unsavoury couplings, phrases, and perspectives, which can require mental gymnastics. I avoided the “Fifty Shades of Grey” series not because I wasn’t interested in erotic literature, but because I knew that the balance of enjoyable elements (sex, romance) to unenjoyable elements (wealthy tycoon, helicopters, naive protagonist) would make the series unappealing to me.