“I'll Talk You through It”

This chapter offers a formal definition of audio erotica: sexually explicit audio-only content, designed to arouse the listener and bring her fulfilment. This emphasis on fulfilment sets audio erotica somewhat apart from other forms of pornographic media, imagining it as a form of self-care. This chapter positions the four apps under analysis in the book – Quinn, Dipsea, Emjoy, and Ferly – along a “self-care spectrum,” locating them and their stated aims between the poles of listener self-pleasure and self-actualisation. It also provides a detailed taxonomy of different forms of audio erotica, grouped under the umbrella categories of “narrative audio erotica” and “educational audio erotica.” In the former (the most common for audio erotica), the listener is invited to immerse herself in a fictionalised narrative erotic scenario. The latter, by contrast, is non-fictional and/or self-help material designed to help the usually presumed female listener have better sex and be an all-round better and more fully realised intimate citizen. Broadly, this chapter argues that audio erotica is multifarious, with different foci, aims, and structures depending on the platform and the function it is designed to perform.