“You Are Perfect, Baby”

This chapter situates audio erotica within the context of the audio medium and considers the affordances of audio for telling erotic stories. Audio storytelling is a very old medium, but it has boomed in the last ten to fifteen years, with the emergence of new technologies abetting the rise in popularity of podcasts and audiobooks. This chapter traces the history of erotic content in the audio medium, considering audio-described visual pornography and phone sex chat lines as progenitors of audio erotica, as well as considering audio erotica not hosted on the four apps on which this book focuses (Quinn, Dipsea, Emjoy, and Ferly). This chapter also considers the particular pleasures of the human voice, the ways in which it implies a body, and its capacity for generating feelings of intimacy, authenticity, and immersion – all of which audio erotica seeks to heighten and exploit, including through technical practices like binaural recording techniques and the use of headphones.