I Tried “Quinn:” Audio Erotica and the Joys of Sexual Play

So last week in my stories I'm sharing about The Inventor's Apprentice and how excited I am for it. From what I know of it, its a sensual audio recording, historical story, from one of my favorite actors, on an app I’ve never heard of. So on a very chill Saturday night alone in my house, I download the Quinn app, pour a glass of wine, and get in the bath.

I turn on the first episode and yes, Thomas Doherty's voice is everything you want it to be. Horatio is adorable. It's historical and sci fi and slow burn and I'm pretty sure designed for yours truly. A few things surprise me, namely that it’s not an audio production: there’s no other half of the conversation. He talks, pauses, there’s space for a reply, but no other voices. It’s completely self-insert. My little theater kid heart is thrilled; it’s like imagination improv with a sexy slant. So, I listen to the first episode and I'm hooked.

But I figure I should explore the app a little, and that's when I stumble on a button for "categories" of which there are a lot. Then I see the word "Edging" as a category and nearly drop my phone in the water. I start to freak out a little as I read through the options for this insane, beautiful world of audio erotica. There is romance and guided masturbation, historical and wlw, there’s bondage and praise and degradation and age gap, until my head started to spin.

As I'm scrolling through the many options, I click on The Mob Queen because I assume that will take me to a place that tells me all about it. Oh no, it just starts playing, all loud, intense, breathy beauty through my air pods where some mob boss is growling at me about making him happy as I'm tied up. And, as an aside, if you have a good imagine and lean into the fantasy hard, it starts to feel pretty authentic.

But as a woman who likes control in her life, the idea of being out of control is simultaneously horrifying and extremely appealing. So I tend to dip a toe into the water of things I'm not yet familiar with. So kidnapped, bound, and groupfucked would probably not have been my first selection if it had been purely my own volition. Fate, however, intervenes. And I listen to the whole thing.

One thing I will forewarn is that occasionally the wet sounds are little...extra and border on the gross. So, if that's a thing that wigs you out, know that going in.

Still, though, its an overwhelmingly positive listen. Obviously I can't be done after that because there's a whole world for me to discover here, and also the next one just starts playing, so what's a girl to do? I landed on a professor one where they're discussing one of my personal favorite quotes from Oscar Wilde, but noped out of that one real quick. I can't handle authority figures being disappointed in me, even in fantasy.

This feels like a good moment to mention, please read the tags for each story so you know what's coming and whether it's something you're up for or might be triggering. It's also a good thing to do some trial and error, which led me to my next choice, "The Thigh's the Limit" which I feel like is a turning point for me in my consumption of erotica.

Because fuck. Wow. Its the really intense whispering in one ear while Night of the Living Dead plays in the background in the other. It's the danger, the need, the praise (which is coming up a lot for me in these and doesn't surprise me a bit), its just all of it. It was an experience, to say the least.

Suffice it to say, I'm hooked. The Inventor's Apprentice is just the tip of the iceberg. And honestly, for someone who is extremely auditory, this is a dream come true. I experience everything more acutely when I listen to it, and these are largely well done, intense, and extremely well catered to specific wants and needs.

So, because it's me, this can't just be about expressing pleasure, though that is a worthy end in itself. Still I like to look for the bigger societal takeaway, and I think I've found it. Recently I was discussing with someone how I think of role play, dress up, a large majority of bdsm expressions, as extremely normal for sex, and how they should in no way be see as something extra but instead as something often deeply integral to healthy sexual expression. Why I am so firm on that is because our desire to play doesn't stop as we leave childhood. We think it does because playing us beaten out of us by schools, jobs, social norms, until we have an extreme lack of creativity and spark. But that imagination doesn't have to die. Instead, it can morph.

It makes sense that as adults, when we have healthy sexual expression, it feels like play. When we're children, playing and make believe is fun, it's freeing, it's wild and confusing and sometimes messy. Playing pretend with another child is a complex debate over who does what, where the story will go, what roles are adopted, even, as is very often agreed beforehand, what the rules of engagement are. So as we grow and discover a way that our bodies can experience yet more pleasure, it seems like a natural fit to blend that playing instinct with a sexual one, either alone or once we have partners who want to do the same.

Sadly, though, we've lost imagination as adults. We don't have time for play. But personally, I think this is art of what is killing sexual self esteem in both men and women, that we're taught to separate sexual desire from the desire for fun and pleasure that we've always had. Sex is fun. It's supposed to make you feel better, happier, closer, lighter. And just like when you were a kid and pretended to be a horse, you got something good out of being something you weren't. So if you go into a bedroom and want to be degraded or felated, pampered or pounded, it doesn't matter. It's play. We try things on, see if we like them, let them go if they don't work for us. We should give ourselves the same freedom of expression we gave ourselves as children to find out what we enjoyed. And then we can get the joy and the fun out of it that makes sex in all its forms the best it can be.

So, check out some audio erotica. Try Quinn. I’ll link it below. But most of all, be safe and have fun.