So Many Women Are Listening to Audio Porn Right Now—And You May Want to, Too

Do you ever find yourself closing your eyes when watching porn? Or maybe you forgo it altogether because the, err, art direction isn’t really your thing? You wouldn’t be alone. In fact, that’s the reason there’s a new type of erotic entertainment trending right now—audio porn.

Digital platforms are offering everything from videos on sex techniques to podcasts on spicy stories, all tailored specifically to women. But that certainly doesn’t mean they’re tame. The spectrum of explicitness is just as wide as you’d find in the video porn realm, as is the quality, ranging from low-fi recordings to grand productions with celebrity narrators—yes, really. Demi Moore lends her voice to the erotic podcast Dirty Diana, and Grey’s Anatomy’s Jesse Williams narrates the saucy series The Misty Door.

Audio-only erotica has been around for over a decade but has recently grown in popularity thanks in large part to companies finally focusing on women. The female-founded, female-focused erotica platform Dipsea clocked 5.4 million streams in 2022. OMGYes, a platform that offers audio-only teaching techniques focused on female pleasure, currently has over a million users. Even the traditionally male-targeted platform Pornhub is seeing thousands of searches for “audio porn for women.”

It’s about time female customers are considered. The mainstream porn industry has historically neglected the interests of women, despite the fact they make up a significant portion of the viewership—30 percent and steadily increasing—on popular video-focused porn websites like Pornhub and xHamster. Some people just don’t get very aroused by a visual medium, and that’s where audio porn comes in.

With audio porn, people “can use their own imagination to create the visual scene that aligns with what pleases them,” says Lori Brotto, a professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. And that’s especially important for women. A 2018 study by OMGYes and The Kinsey Institute found that 90 percent of women use “mental framing” as a technique to enhance focus on pleasure by tuning out distracting thoughts. In other words, many women need to harness the power of their imagination to get off. And that’s exactly what audio porn fosters—it’s a form of adult entertainment focused solely on audio stimulation rather than visual imagery.

But it’s not just the imaginative element of audio porn that attracts women—it’s also that the majority of it is made by women, for women. Much of it falls under “feminist porn,” which sexual health and consent educator Samantha Bitty defines as, “erotic materials that share the same values found in feminism, including racial, gender, and labour equity.” Defining porn as feminist has less to do with the actual content than the politics of how it’s made, says Bitty, a key aspect being consent.

This emphasis on consent is prominent in even the most explicit forms of feminist porn. Research by McGill University psychologist Eran Shor shows that more women are turned on by violent porn than men, but only when the female performers actively consented and appeared to be having fun. In fictional audio porn, active consent is clearly depicted in the dialogue—like the sound of a crinkling condom wrapper, followed by an enthusiastic “yes.”

Diving further into semantics, Brotto says that many researchers in the field refer to content that is female-made, female-friendly and female pleasure-focused erotica, not porn since porn tends to be more male-focused and women-objectifying.

While erotica certainly sounds like a safe, mindful, positive approach to porn, other experts bristle at the connection to wellness. It’s often labelled as a mindful form of adult entertainment or has something to do with wellness. Presenting audio erotica or porn as a form of self-care can downplay the importance of shame-free sexual exploration, says Val Webber, a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University’s Sexual Health and Gender (SHaG) lab, who goes by the pronouns they/them. “Saying, ‘It’s okay for you to do horny things because it’s good for you’ reinforces the idea that it’s not okay to just be horny,” they say.

No matter how you label it, feeling sexual desire and engaging in entertainment solely for the purpose of getting off is perfectly healthy and beneficial to your sexual health. “Listening to audio porn equips you with the language to talk about desire,” says Bitty. “Anything that invites curiosity into our sexual relationship with ourselves and others is beneficial.”

Wondering where to find this new age of audio erotica? You have plenty of options to choose from, including websites, podcasts, audiobooks and apps. While you can certainly find some free options, paid content tends to be better produced, and packaged in a more aesthetically-pleasing interface, with no ads. Here are a few places to start:

Dipsea

Dipsea is a subscription-based platform, online and app, with collections of audio stories, wellness sessions, and sleep aids. You can try it for free with a 30-day trial, and then subscribe for $60 USD per year. Dispea also produces the free (with ads) erotic fiction podcast Dirty Diana featuring Demi Moore’s narration.

Ferly

Aimed to help women with “sexual difficulties,” Ferly is an audio guide to mindful sex with science-backed programs and a selection of erotic stories. It offers a free seven-day trial, and then is $17 CAD per month.

Girl On The Net 

An audio porn pioneer, the pseudo-named “Girl on the Net” is a sex blogger and creator of audio porn in the form of BDSM stories, true sex stories and erotic fiction. The browser-based platform is free with ads, or you can subscribe on Patreon for an ad-free experience

Scribd

If you like long-form stories, Scribd is an audiobook platform with options for erotica. It offers a 30-day trial, and after that, it’s just $13 per month.

Voxxx

Vous parlez français? Voxxx offers hundreds of French language-guided masturbation sessions via podcast and online platforms for 10€ per month.

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