Dipsea
The biggest noise on the audio porn scene is Dipsea, whose range of consensual, sex-positive stories are written by women, for women. The stories, all between 10 and 20 minutes long, are streamlined, yet grounded in character and situation. By the time things descend into panting, the idea is that attuned listeners will be, too. The app has more than 400 stories behind a paywall: straight and queer and diverse in content, with a few enticing freebies concerning military-style yoga instructors and massages between friends. Anyone whose primary erogenous zone is inside their head will find succour here.
Why Are People Into That?
Self-explanatory sex talkshow. Each week, writer Tina Horn goes deep on a particular kink with a different guest. Topics are fascinating and fearlessly underground, whether it’s two Jewish leftist queers discussing the aesthetics of fascism, age play or the eroticisation of Covid-19. The mode is literate but humorous, political and nonjudgmental. An analysis of pregnancy fetishism might easily take in nomenclature, Susan Sontag and structural inequality, which is pretty hot. It’s necessarily extremely explicit, and having various series in the feed can feel sprawling. But Horn always avoids lecturing, opting for a curious, idiosyncratic walk around each topic – and at over an hour per episode, there’s wriggle room for the conversation to roam. Eye-opening and highly recommended.
Bawdy Storytelling
The Moth, but hot. This popular live podcast, hosted by “sexual folklorist” Dixie de la Tour, does exactly what the title says. Don’t expect hushed intimacy: it’s raucous and giggly, incorporating fruity banjo songs and an obscene number of puns. Do expect diversity, from humiliation workshops and Disney roleplays to ecosexuals marrying trees; this is a field where a thousand flowers bloom. The gay porn producers, performance artists, techies and sex nerds who step on stage are gloriously empowered and wickedly funny. Like any big US podcast, there’s a great deal of advertising to sit through, albeit spots for sex toys rather than mattresses. Although that would work, too.
Dirty Diana
Demi Moore reading porn with celebrities is a strong, if reductive hook. This metafictional mini-series from the Dipsea stable (produced by and starring Moore) is about a woman secretly running a website where women record their fantasies. It’s an adult drama that gives itself a lot to do. The fantasies – read by Lena Dunham, Gwendoline Christie and Melanie Griffith among others – are atmospheric and psychologically acute. They’re relatively brief, a framing device for the story. More narrative real estate is given to Diana’s pill addiction, brittle friendships and her husband’s hapless attempts to save their marriage, giving early episodes a Radio 4 quality – but Moore’s husky rasp is perfectly suited to the material.
Dying for Sex
Sex is the opposite of death, as illustrated in this true story of a 44-year-old woman’s erotic awakening, during stage 4 breast cancer. Host Nikki Boyer talks with her best friend, known only as Molly, about the latter’s decision to leave a 15-year marriage following her terminal diagnosis. Molly’s adventures range from swinging to watersports to kicking (willing) men in the balls. It’s candid and knockabout, although ultimately the sex stories play second fiddle to a friendship forged beneath the gallows. (The pair collaborate on Molly’s Tinder bio: “If you’re commitment-phobic, I’m your girl!”) Heartbreaking, funny and galvanising as much as erotic; a combination of elements that point to a life fully lived.
