Can porn with no pictures thrive in a world of visuals?

In the wake of a podcast boom, it’s unsurprising the erotic industry also wants a slice of the pie. Audio porn — a new genre of picture-free X-rated recordings — is creating a huge noise, but can it be propelled into the mainstream?

By Valeria Martinez

Illustration by Brittany England

“Remember that time we went to Maui?” asks a smooth male voice. As the sound of ocean waves plays in the background, the voice continues to describe that trip to Hawaii — which seems to have been spent mostly under the sheets. This voice belongs to Jim Nova, a man who records audio porn under the pseudonym Feel Good Filth.

As the term ‘audio porn’ suggests, its content has no visuals. No videos of naked bodies are involved. Does this format of porn with no pictures sound strange? Jim doesn’t think so.

In 2018, he began sharing his audio porn on Reddit, simply as a hobby and for fun. That was until 22-year-old Caroline Spiegel — the sister of Snapchat’s brainchild Evan Spiegel — contacted him in January 2019. “She offered to pay for my audio if I published it on her new audio porn website, Quinn,” he says. “So I thought, ‘hey, maybe there is something here.’”

As shown by the latest figures, there is certainly something about audio porn. In 2019, audio erotica startups have collectively raised over $8 million (£6.1 million). Dipsea, a podcast app that releases erotic audio stories, has been valued at 17 million dollars and downloaded over 300,000 times.

Photo provided by Dipsea

Even though websites like Literotica, YouTube, Reddit and Tumblr have been hosting audio versions of erotic stories for a very long time, the recent audio porn take-off is little wonder in the wake of a thriving podcast industry. In the UK, Ofcom says that nearly 6 million people tune into a podcast each week, double the number of five years ago.

This doesn’t mean traditional porn is dwindling — not even close. Last year, 6.83 million videos were uploaded to Pornhub, which attracted 43 billion visits in 2019 — that’s a daily average of 115 million visitors.

In comparison, audio porn continues to be a niche market despite considerable popularity growth in the past year. Our survey found that only 18.75% of respondents had ever consumed audio porn. So how can this format keep people’s attention in an ocean of visual content?

The full version of this article is available in Sorry Not Sorry's new issue out now.