The Power of Articulating Your Fantasy

Think of audio porn as sexy ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), ranging from audiobook-style readings of prewritten erotic stories to voice memos someone clearly improvised while masturbating, which might make you believe audio porn is super-easy to make. And, actually, it might be even more fun to make than it is to listen to.

Might be.

The self-lust element of self-care isn't as easily celebrated or sold the way a bath bomb or a face mask can be. Perhaps the male-dominated discussion of masturbation convinced us all self-intimacy is a consolation prize, a distant second to sex with another person. Maybe, regardless of gender, the majority of us received such a sparse sexual education, focused on how to avoid pregnancy and infection, that pleasure was never prioritized, if mentioned at all.

In any case, we still arrived at a cultural spot where masturbation is somehow on par with picking your nose: You probably do it, but you shouldn't boast about it, and certainly shouldn't make an ordeal of it. In the name of making the best of a solo sex life (or for people in relationships, just needing alone time), let's appreciate the parts of having sex with ourselves we may have taken for granted.

Speaking of sex with yourself

Once you reevaluate masturbation as the act of having sex with the most important person in your life (that's you!), it becomes easier and more enticing to reassess fantasies that have grown stale. Consider your go-to fantasy—a compelling, yet worn-out scenario you keep coming back to even if it's just to speed up the process toward orgasm. When you entertain the fantasy, do you go through it as slowly as you first did? Or do you process the stimulation as more of a gist of the original fantasy?

If you've been rushing over details, it's likely the fantasy hasn't grown any less hot so much as you've been appreciating it less. Start over and take it slow. By vocalizing your fantasy and narrating it, whether to yourself or a recorder, you're forced to go through the scenario much more thoroughly. Speaking out loud to no one in particular might feel silly at first, but you're actualizing thoughts you might otherwise rush past. In the same way a couple might spice up their sex life by pretending to be strangers meeting for the first time, think of this as your first meeting with an old fantasy.

Get specific

If your fantasy takes place outside, think about how the breeze would feel on typically covered body parts. If the excitement comes from the possibility of being discovered and interrupted, talk yourself through that tension. How loud are you? If this fantasy involves others, how quiet would they be and how would you keep the noise level at a safe point? Or is the whole point not to stay quiet? Can you replicate certain parts of the fantasy? While you can't conjure up a tropical beach, if the idea of a lover running an ice cube over certain parts of your body turns you on, you can always go to the freezer and do the job yourself.

If you're not feeling particularly creative, have fun masturbating and just saying what you're doing and how it feels. Describe past sexual experiences that were especially sexy that have stayed with you. You might realize you remember more of the encounter than you thought. Whatever enhances the experience without taking you out of it is worth a shot.

When we try a new position with a partner, the point isn't immediately to nail it so much as trying something new and having fun. Our self-intimacy deserves the same curiosity and playfulness, where the journey is every bit as important as the destination.

Maybe DIY audio porn isn't your thing or maybe it is, but it's a very safe form of sexual exploration. Send the voice memo in your next sexting session, delete it or even keep it for yourself—maybe you didn't know it, but you have a kink for hearing yourself get off. And now you've made a low-budget home sex tape, so you can check that one off the bucket list.