I tried audio porn for a week, and it is the best thing I have ever done for myself

The porn industry has come under some necessary interrogation recently. With Mia Khalifa starting a petition against “manipulation” in the industry, and calls to boycott Pornhub due to its alleged lack of verification and regulation, it’s become abundantly clear: using free porn to get turned on is completely wrong.

I was cooped up inside the box room of my family home when the girls group chat lit up: “Might use this, not going to lie.” And, just as your mate would introduce you to someone you don’t know, I was introduced to Dipsea.

Dipsea is an app that was set up in 2017, filled with short audio stories averaging at around 10 minutes in length. The app has one aim, and one aim only: to sexually arouse women.

Last year, Dipsea creators, Gina Gutierrez and Faye Keegan, told Bustle that “For far too long, sexuality has been defined by men, as physical, rather than mental. And we’ve heard so many women question whether something is wrong with them because they don’t get spontaneously horny, or because things need to feel really right for them to access their sexual feelings.”

The app encourages empowerment, wellness and self love. A recipe I can get behind, I grabbed my earphones and downloaded the app.

Getting intimate with Freddie

I won’t lie, I did not dip my toe into Dipsea in any way. I decided to scroll straight to the deep end and commit myself to about ten minutes of getting intimate with Freddie.

I don’t know much about Freddie, but the three flame sexiness rating had me intrigued. The description of my audio meet-up was simple: “Meet up with Freddie from ‘Secret Rooms’ at the Armory. Bring your blindfold and do exactly what he says. He’ll take care of you and make it worth it.”

I’ll admit to you now reader, I did not have a blindfold, so I sceptically folded my blanket over my eyes, plugged my earphones in and settled onto my bed to listen to whatever Freddie had to say.

I was very, very sceptical going in. Freddie, like any man, has his flaws. He laughs way too often and skips over the foreplay like an eager beaver way too quickly for my liking, but he is a master of using his words to build up the sexual tension.

I’d by lying if I didn’t admit I held a strong internal conflict during my first Dipsea dive. It was a conflict of: “Oh this is really really sexy, but also am I having sex with Siri? Is my life going to evolve into the sad plot line of ‘Her’? A lonely writer developing a relationship with an operating system designed to meet their every sexual need?” I found the first obstacle with audio porn here, trying to get over the idea of what you look like to the fly on the wall.

About four or five minutes in, things fell into place. I’m not sure exactly how Freddie does it, but the environment that was created was notably safe. Despite the fact mysterious Freddie was tying me up and pinching my nips, I didn’t feel that I was submitting to someone who was above me. Freddie made me feel like a powerful woman who likes to be told what to do in the bedroom, and in the bedroom only.

Visiting “The Shop”

After my one on one session with Freddie, I decided the next day to visit “The Shop”. I thought I would probably prefer this to the direct, imaginary sex I had with Freddie the night before, but listening in on a woman shagging her tattooist felt alike to trying to sleep when your housemate is shagging her boyfriend.

“The shop” also had a three flame sexiness rating, with our female narrator enticing listeners with the description: “I’d always found a reason not to get that tattoo. But as soon as I stepped into the studio, I felt comfortable with Nick. It was like he already knew me… or like he could see who I was trying to become.”

I’ve got seven tattoos, so imagining myself laid out on the client chair wasn’t a stretch. It was a 15 minute two parter, and the first six minutes was like standing too close to a very hands-on couple at a bar. There’s a lot of sexual frustration in the first six minutes, a lot of using words such as “curved”, “filled in”, “tight” and “stroke” to describe the design of the narrator’s tattoo design.

After getting past the build up, and the fact the narrator sounds just like Kourtney Kardashian, things became very sexy.

For me, this one was like watching a really good sex scene in a film and deciding there and then that you’re going to sort yourself out when you return to your bedroom. The orgasm wasn’t awe-inspiring, but it was seemingly relaxing to tune into someone else’s impressive sex life for fifteen minutes.

Getting intimate with Ari

By the time I was due to get intimate with Ari, I felt that my time with Freddie had prepared me to be open-minded about my fly on the wall fears. I was more open-minded, and allowed myself to take on the preformative role the listener is supposed to when tuning in. Ari told me to grab my boob, and that I did.

I do not mean this lightly, the orgasm I had during this is one of the best orgasms I have ever given myself. Somehow, I got my timings perfectly aligned with the audio and Ari’s instructions seemed only to lead me to the gold mine of orgasms. It wasn’t just Ari’s masterful seduction that made this experience so great for me, Ari allowed a space for me to feel comfortable in my sexuality, and perhaps that is why the orgasm was so great: Because it made me feel comfortable with myself.

Self Touch: Glow Up (Female Narrator)

The self touch, glow up audio is the most liked audio out of all of the ones I tried on my venture. In comparison to Freddie’s 367 likes, this solo erotic exercise had accumulated 1,165 likes. I needed to know what the hype was about.

With the promise of levelling up my self-pleasure and reconnecting to the subtle sensations of my body, I treated myself mid-afternoon for some down time.

This self pleasure sesh aims to reconnect the listener with their body. The female narrator acted as a guide, but did not intrude on me exploring what felt good for me.  She invites me to create my dream self seduction space, adjusting the lighting and heat to suit me.

Before this sesh, I was certain that I was reliant on both the visual element of porn as well as toys. This self touch session allows neither of these things, something that at first made me hesitant. The narrator lets you do you. She assures you that you are in charge of your pleasure, and I genuinely believe that was the first time I have thought that.

My orgasm was different to the gold mine I found with Ari. It was my orgasm, the first time I think I have ever been responsible for pleasuring myself, without even imagining someone else being there to sort me out. It made me feel like I never have to be with a man ever again, it made me feel like I could climb Snowdon eight times in a day, I immediately wanted to dance around my room to Savage by Beyonce. That, is powerful.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• ‘It’s a problem in the entire industry’: Sex workers on the calls to boycott PornHub

• Why I have given up on porn

• I got bored in quarantine so I phoned all my exes and asked them what went wrong