Inside the weird world of audio porn

On the tube to work, in the crammed aisles of Tesco, waiting in line at the Post Office: all around us, people have their headphones on and are listening to their own private soundtrack. 

Occasionally, someone might flash a smile at what they’re listening to, or you might spy a blush creep across their cheeks. While most people are listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks, a select few might be enjoying the dulcet tones of one of their favourite audio porn creators. 

“So tell me what you want from me. Come on, use your words. You want me? Flattering. You’re not ready to cross that line now, are you? That’s fine. Go home to your husband. Pretend to roll in the throes of ecstasy as he flops around on top of you,” Hector might purr into their ears.

Or, perhaps Tom York is murmuring: ​“You look and sound so good, your breath catching, feeling the heat of my gaze all over you as you fucking pleasure yourself. You know your brother would actually kill us, right? God, you really like that, don’t you? You really like the idea of how bad we’re being. How we could get caught at any moment.”

Audio porn is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a video of one or many people doing very blue things, audio porn is a sound-only experience of sex.

• Read next: The untold lives of mature OnlyFans performers

These soundtracks come in many forms, with one of the most common being a ​“point of view” or ​“POV” narrative story being read by the creator, where the listener is a silent second character. You might assume these scenes would be rife with whipping and gagging, and while these BDSM beats are pretty common fare, not all audio porn stories are kinky. Work enemies-to-lovers, cozy relationship mornings, and illicit roommate romances are frequent tropes, though stories can branch out into romantasy, period drama, or even sci-fi genre pieces. There’s something out there for every passing want or need, every fantasy you’ve ever had.

A more plot-focused porn experience appeals to a large number of people, especially women: one recent study found that women rated ​“mood” (story-driven) clips as more arousing, while men favoured visually explicit ​“physical” clips.

This kind of porn is Gen Z’s answer to phone sex hotlines. Back in the day, you had to dial a dirty number scrawled on the inside of a telephone box just to hear the raspy croon of some cigarette-smoking woman named Patricia. With the growing popularity of free and readily available video porn online in the 2000s and 2010s, phone sex gradually faded into obscurity. However, during the pandemic, when there wasn’t much else to do, the demand for audio porn skyrocketed, with a huge spike in audio erotica platforms in the first few weeks of COVID lockdowns.

This rise in popularity is clear when you read the comment sections of some of the more popular creators on Quinn, which are flooded with fans expressing their enjoyment of each storyline. Occasionally, these overzealous fans overspill onto creators’ social media pages.

“I’ve had some direct messages where people have kind of really developed a bit of a parasocial sort of relationship,” Berlin-based audio porn creator Hector tells me. ​“I’ve always been very clear, ​‘thank you, but please don’t message me like that in future’, and then I’ve had no issue. So I’ve been lucky. That’s great. But I know there’s a lot of people who haven’t been.” 

Despite the dangers of overstepping fans, it seems that making audio porn is one of the more ethical forms of erotic content. Video porn stars, especially the young, female ones, have been historically exploited, and you never really know if a person in a given video really wanted to be there. On Quinn and the other audio porn platforms, the creators are choosing to produce this content, designing it themselves, and playing only the roles they want to play. 

With long wavy hair and a single tasteful earring, Hector looks like every bisexual woman’s dream boy. He started his journey into audio porn after he read an interview of someone who had worked for Quinn. ​“I like using my voice and telling stories, and supporting and advocating for women’s sexuality,” Hector tells me. ​“It’s been really healing for me and for other people, I think.”

Tom York, another popular creator on Quinn, also stumbled into the world of audio porn almost by accident. ​“I had no idea the incredible world of audio erotica existed, let alone that I’d end up finding such a fulfilling creative outlet within it,” Tom says.

Audio porn is one of countless symptoms of the excruciatingly online world we live in, where people can make content of any and all forms from the privacy of their own bedrooms. Apps like Quinn, Frolickme and Dipsea host a vast range of audio porn creators, both male and female, from around the globe. Most of the stories are aimed at a female audience, due to a large proportion of the audience being women (around 70% of Quinn’s identify as female), but there is also plenty of content written with men or non-binary people in mind. The majority of users are young, with the largest Quinn demographic being aged 25 – 30, followed by 18 – 24 year olds. Pornhub’s user base, on the other hand, is only 38% women, and the average visitor age is 38.

“I only watch porn for the plot” goes the age-old joke, but for audio porn, the plot is a major part of the appeal. In one story, the listener might be a moving house who is helped out by her delightfully tall new neighbour, while in another, they might have a meet-cute with someone in a bar after they were stood up by a first date. There is a palpable build-up of chemistry between the performer and the silent listener. While video porn often gets straight to the action, audio porn stories usually take their time building up to the sex.

The performers on Quinn and other platforms often write their own storyline scripts, dreaming up steamy scenes that listeners will find alluring or sexy. ​“I’ve always had close female friendships, and I try to bring that same respect and sensitivity into my work. Whether the story is playful, intense, or emotional, my goal is always the same: to make the listener feel confident, sexy, and genuinely desired,” Tom continues.

“I focus on making the listener feel safe enough to explore different dynamics while keeping the tone warm, human, and grounded in connection. I also try to weave in a little humour and softness where it fits, because that’s often where the real intimacy lives. Each story asks for a different energy, but I always try to stay authentic to myself, and that seems to resonate.”

• Read next: Inside Japan’s most notorious Love Hotel

Some performers have more of a niche that they stick to, always tending to perform certain storylines or dynamics, while others are happy to try their hand at anything. Hector’s main niche, he says, are Bridgerton-esque, Regency era scenes where he plays a tortured and repressed gentleman who becomes a freak in the sheets. 

“I kind of work backwards to fill in the story, and work out how to strike that balance with talking to the listener, giving them enough agency to imagine giving a response and having a choice in the scenario, but at the same time, you’re also kind of railroading into a story,” he explains.

The actual act of performing these erotic scenes isn’t necessarily as sexy as you might think, however. If you listen to one of these performances, you might notice some ​“wet” sounds associated with certain body fluids. The performers also create these ​“foley” effects themselves, sometimes during the act of recording the scene, or occasionally added in later on.

“Let’s just say it’s a mix of trial, error, and a healthy sense of humour. It can definitely get a bit ridiculous in the moment, but somehow, amidst the chaos, when you land on something that works. It’s weirdly satisfying,” Tom explains.

“I mean, we’re pretty big in the hand lotion game,” Hector says, jokingly.

Around half of the creators on Quinn use their own face and name with their audio content, while the other half have pseudonym usernames and anonymous profile pictures. ​“I started always using my face,” Hector says. ​“Occasionally, it feels like it clashes a little bit with my musical theatre career. People are generally very cool, but I think I wanted to always have a little bit of accountability. Obviously, it’s a fantasy, but I always wanted to do this right, backed by what I feel is kind and fun and sweet, and me still having my normal face out there felt like a good way of keeping me on a vibe, rather than creating a persona.”

• Read next: A behind the scenes look at the atomic wedgie community

Tom, who has acted in several TV series including Poldark and Death in Paradise, is also open with his identity and visual recognition. ​“I’ve always associated my name and face with the work; it was part of the deal from the beginning, and honestly, I’m really glad it was,” he explains. ​“I completely respect those who choose to remain anonymous, but for me, there’s something powerful about owning it. I’m not ashamed of the work I do – I’m proud of it. It’s an honour to hold space where women can feel sexy, seen, and desired. Audio erotica offers a unique, low-pressure environment for exploring pleasure, and being part of that feels like a genuine positive in the world.”

Other creators, such as UselessTimidity (who his fans refer to as Timmy), keep their identity under wraps. Timmy uses an illustration as his profile picture, and keeps all personal details except his gender to a minimum, with only his Australian accent giving away his antipodean origins. Even when I called him to chat, he kept his camera turned off — and fair enough. ​“For every 100 perfectly nice, polite listeners, there’s always one or two who might LinkedIn message your boss being like, ​‘Hey, did you know this person might be doing?’” Timmy tells me.

He views anonymity as a form of security, keeping his personal life and his work separate. His friends know about his work, but his parents do not, and he thinks that they would never quite understand why he does what he does. 

Timmy also likes how his anonymous character can be a blank canvas upon which the listener can project their fantasies, rather than intermingling with their preconceived notions of him as a person. ​“I think for a lot of listeners as well, when a creator is anonymous, they can kind of visualise whatever they want on top of the voice. So in a way, you can be whatever the listener wants rather than one specific thing,” he says. 

His anonymity also means that he cannot get recognised by fans in public, which has happened on occasion to non-anonymous creators. Tom York says: ​“I’ve had someone come up to me and ask if I’m Tom York, and then have this funny moment of trying to work out whether they’ve seen me on TV… or if they’ve been listening to Quinn! But honestly, it’s pretty rare and always very respectful.”

While these performers do create porn, they don’t necessarily view themselves as porn stars, per se. ​“I guess [for] video stars, their story is just themselves, whereas I suppose you are performing a different character in every storyline,” Hector explained. ​“So, yeah, you are an actor.”

“It almost feels like a label I’m semi-reluctant to take, not because of any shame – I completely respect and support all sex workers – but it almost feels like, ​‘Oh, I haven’t earned that’. Because I haven’t, you know, gone through, you know, kind of the levels of scrutiny and perception that a lot of quote, unquote, real sex workers would go through.”

Timmy views himself as a sex worker, but not a porn star, due to the inherent isolation of the job.

“I’ve never considered myself to be a porn star. It’s just such a I think it’s a word that’s so associated with, like, visual porn, kind of mainstream porn, and I think audio porn is vastly, vastly different to that,” he says. ​“I’m not interacting with anybody physically. I’m in my room.”

Jess Thomson is a freelance journalist and writer. Follow her on Instagram.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram and sign up to our newslet­ter for more from the cut­ting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.