"Good erotica is hard to write; graceful and convincing audio drama is hard to produce; and the awkwardness of flawed attempts at both is excruciating."

"Think of the wrong-note sex scenes you’ve read in books, or in those bad-sex-writing awards that come out every year, or in excerpts from embarrassing novels by disgraced public figures. Reading them silently, you might chuckle and wince. Now imagine a stranger’s voice unctuously reading them right into your ears. The only appropriate response is heebie-jeebies. But there was a startling exception... Dipsea... [In one Dipsea story, the female character] sounds present, non-creepy; she avoids the pitfalls of over-obvious self-description... Her narration doesn’t use an 'Ooh—sex is around the corner!' tone.... The language is straightforward... You hear realistic, non-gross sex noises—the depressing yips and 'Oh, yeah's of porn are almost entirely absent on Dipsea.... Narrative balance and a well-imagined scenario can be hard to achieve in fantasy, even [when you're doing your own fantasizing]. The comedian Jen Kirkman, on her 2007 album 'Self Help,' articulates this in a bit called 'Underdeveloped Sexual Fantasies.' In sexual fantasizing, 'Guys need a visual,' she says. 'Women don’t need that. I need a story.' But if the story doesn’t work, she says, she gets confused and falls asleep. She tries fantasizing about a sexy movie star, but she can’t just think about him '“in some friggin’ vacuum that makes no sense'—How did she meet him? Why is he interested in her? 'I thought he was married. Is he still married? Because I don’t want to be an adulterer,' she goes on. 'I thought he lived in France. Is he visiting? Am I going to France?'"

Writes Sarah Larson in "The Audio App That’s Transforming Erotica" (The New Yorker).