We live in a confusing era. Thanks to the most modern jobs, which can even be done from home, we should have much more free time for ourselves. And yet, we are busy all day, from here to there, without stopping for a single moment. Because when it’s not work, it’s the house, taking care of the kids, or our own free time, swallowed up by the demands of the system. Of course you have time for yourself… but you should use it to cook something healthy, to go to the gym, to dance or yoga classes. Even if you like watching series, such a common entertainment nowadays, society itself shows you the path towards what is interesting and what is not. Sure, the catalog of your trusted platform is very extensive and there is absolutely everything… but if you miss out on watching the fashion series, what are you going to talk about with your friends?
We are enslaved by so many obligations that even pleasure has become something we do just because. For example, reading. We barely have time at night to pick up a book before going to sleep, and let ourselves get carried away a little by those stories. We read more and more, in our work, on the screens of mobile phones and tablets, but books are becoming very secondary. And, as many say, they don’t even have time for that. So audiobooks have become a great solution to the problem. You can “read” the new novel by your favorite author while you are in the car, or while waiting for the bus, or simply being at home doing anything else. You no longer have to pay as much attention to reading because there is a voice that tells you everything that happens in the novel. The audiobook sector has taken off in recent years and today moves millions of dollars, under the protection of a society that seems to have no time to concentrate on reading. There are all types and genres, but today we want to focus on those erotic and morbid, which tell very explicit stories.
The potential of the audiobook as an electronic format has been more than demonstrated in recent years. Various reports have placed it as one of the cultural sectors that is growing the most, especially since 2020, the year of the pandemic. More and more people are encouraged to try this medium to be able to enjoy “reading”, even if it is nothing more than a direct translation from text to audio. In Spain, for example, the sector grew by 52% in the last year, and does not seem to have reached its ceiling yet. Thanks to different platforms, such as Audible or Storytel, users have very easy access to these audiobooks, at very affordable prices. This is another possible reason for its success, having all the books we want for a small fee, less than purchasing a physical book.
And what are we going to find in one of these audiobooks? Well, very simple: a reading of the novels and books that have recently appeared on the market, or of great classics of literature. Good audiobooks, those that are made professionally, feature popular voices, voiceover professionals and even voice actors. This can work very well in some cases, such as those where Brad Pitt’s voice in French reads us the Game of Thrones saga, for example. There are audiobooks of all kinds, and of every genre, so erotica, so fashionable lately, also has its own. In these cases, it is usual for a female voice to read the book, since they are usually the creators and also the regular readers.
The books of this genre fluctuate between romanticism with certain erotic touches and explicit pornography with very hot scenes. In the 50 Shades of Gray saga, available in this format in many languages, we can find passages that would make even some pornstars blush. The same happens with books like those by the Spanish Megan Maxwell, or with the entire Caballo de Fuego saga of fetish novels, with really intense scenes. All of them are brought to the voice in a sublime way, since the person in charge of reading them not only has to dictate, but also interpret at a certain point. There are audiobooks that are, literally, porn scenes without images, the kind that we wouldn’t want others to listen to while we’re on the subway, for example.
Erotic literature has always been an eminently feminine field, with novels created by and for women. It has always been said, and there are scientific studies that confirm it, that men are much more into seeing what is sexual, and women are much more into listening or reading it. That is, the man needs that visual stimulus to get excited, but for the woman it is enough to imagine it through a stimulus like reading, or in this case, sound. The gigantic success of the Grey’s saga, by E.L. James, was a turning point for a genre that has been skyrocketing for more than a decade. This has also led to an abuse of easy and predictable erotic novels, but equally, there are many interesting works.
The audiobooks of these erotic and pornographic novels have very hot and explicit passages because in the end, these novels also include them. Some stay with those baroque descriptions of sex, with many useless adjectives, and others go directly to describe every centimeter of the protagonists’ genitals. The “fear” of talking about explicit sex and showing it in books, and consequently, also in audiobooks, has been lost. In fact, some experts suggest that this type of format, which goes beyond reading, even more encourages women themselves to fantasize about what they are “reading.” When you listen to it, the stimulus is even greater and you enjoy the story more. For this reason, the erotic genre is one of the most popular within this new wave of audiobooks.
We have so intrinsic in our minds that pornography is something very explicit and usually visual, that when it is only read or listened to it seems less intense to us. That is, when porn can be seen, whether in a magazine or in a video, we do not doubt that it is pornography. However, if it is only read, as in erotic stories, or listened to, as in this type of audiobooks, we lower its “intensity”. And in reality, the porn you listen to can be more morbid and lascivious than any video we have already seen a million times. It’s a new way of showing sex, an imaginative and creative one, because it’s not as trite as regular pornography, and that’s very interesting.