This storytelling erotica app takes the grunt work out of getting turned on

You know the extra-steamy scenes from your romance novels that you anticipate from page 10, when the two love interests first lay eyes on each other? Well, what if I told you that there’s now one app where you can listen to a bounty of audio recordings straight-up teeming with sexual tension—and you don’t have to leaf through 200-plus pages to get to the it-just-got-HOT-in-here narrative twist?

Enter just-launched Dipsea, which is basically the Headspace of erotica. The app offers a library of audible content ($9 per month) that you can access anywhere (as in: on the train, in bed, or on vacay), anytime, when you’re trying to get turned on. The company’s mission is simple, really: to appeal to women’s sexuality using a science-backed method called “sexual framing.” Meaning, the brain, not the body, leads the charge. 

“A piece of research that was done by OMGYes [a subscription-based service that informs women about the science of pleasure] at the Kinsey Institute found that 90 percent of women use sexual framing, essentially like scenario-conjuring, to get turned on,” says Dipsea co-founder Gina Gutierrez. The survey, which took place back in 2015, included 1,055 women ages 18 to 94.

Using this research as a springboard, Gutierrez and her co-founder sought out more data via an alpha version of the app to pinpoint what women crave in their sex lives. “We found that women were really excited to have something that was more explicit, because they didn’t have a place to go to for things like that. We found that women were really sensitive to voice actors. They were looking for that believability—that true empathy in the characters’ voices,” she tells me. Hell yeah, we are! 

“Eroticism at its core doesn’t even need to be physical. It’s a way to feel more alive, to heighten intimacy with a partner, to have more confidence. Basically, to cultivate well-being.” —Gina Gutierrez, Dipsea co-founder

Dipsea’s spicy stories cater to different sexual preferences, serve different intentions (like, “feel sexy,” “escape,” or “mood lift”), and are ignited to different levels of hotness (measured in fire symbols, of course). You can also specify the exact type of rendezvous you want to hear play out in your headphones: A rekindled romance? A spur-of-the-moment hookup? A surreal and dream-like romp on the beach? Sure, sure, and sure (but think twice before you try that last one yourself).

While yes, pressing play might work as foreplay for you and your partner, Gutierrez explains that the big-picture goal is show boss babes that sexuality can last more than, say, seven minutes. “Eroticism at its core doesn’t even need to be physical,” she says. “It’s a way to feel more alive, to heighten intimacy with a partner, to have more confidence. Basically, to cultivate well-being.” In other words, just like you have meditation apps to give you brain a little TLC, your sexual health now has a space to land on your home screen too. 

Here are the answers to a bunch of questions about sex that you’re too scared to ask. And if you’re wondering whether or not your time at the gym can amplify your orgasm, here’s the deal.