The set list from Adam Zmith’s event for In The Dark, where he asked: what does sex sound like? And what can those sounds tell us about identity, community and power?
W. Kamau Bell Asks His Mom About Sex (2016)
For most of his life, comedian W. Kamau Bell assumed his single mom never had sex after she made him.
The episode was produced by Hillary Abigail Keel for The Longest Shortest Time, a podcast hosted and executive produced by Hillary Frank. The story editor was Peter Clowney and the guests were W. Kamau Bell and Janet Cheatham Bell.
Nick Charms: On Fred Flintstone Feet (2021)
Nick Charms worships feet. That is, he enjoys licking and sucking other men’s feet, and films himself doing so for an audience. In this episode of Sexual Heroes, Nick is talking with podcaster Robert Black about his earliest memories of fancying feet.
Sexual Heroes is produced and hosted by Robert Black.
The Serpentine Podcast: On General Ecology – Episode 3: PLANTSEX (2019)
Sex is happening all around us, all the time, literally in the air, under our noses… with PLANTS. It’s what they do!
In this episode of On General Ecology, Sin Wai Kin & Lucia Pietroiusti reflect on the long and deep relationship between botany, eroticism, agriculture and myth, featuring exclusive interviews with Emanuele Coccia and sound works by Jenna Sutela, among others.
The episode was produced by Femi Oriogun-Williams and Jesse Lou Lawson for Reduced Listening for The Serpentine.
A Very Offensive Rom-Com (2019)
Journalist Yowei Shaw explores sexual hierarchies. It started when Shaw started asking other Asian women, like her, why they only dated white men.
It was produced by Yowei Shaw for Invisibilia. Invisibilia was hosted by Alix Spiegel and Hanna Rosin, produced by Yowei Shaw and Abby Wendle, edited by Anne Gudenkauf, executive produced by Cara Tallo, assisted by B.A. Parker and Liza Yeager.
Neon Touch (2020)
Neon Touch is a queer BIPOC gathering hosted by Meghan Gordon (Meesh) and Angela Peñaredondo (Mercury) in Los Angeles, where guests explore pleasure. NK told us that they wanted the piece to feel like circular, like queer sex, rather than a narrative with a chronology of “foreplay to climax”.
Neon Touch is an episode of The Heart, produced by Nicole Kelly (NK) and hosted by Kaitlin Prest.
The Too Hard Basket (2009)
John Blades was a veteran radio producer in Australia. He had MS, which gradually changed his life and his choices. In 2009 he made a very personal programme about how people don’t perceive him to have a sex life, and how stigma gets in the way of disabled people having the sex that they want and need.
The Too Hard Basket was produced by John Blades for ABC. Technical production was by Timothy Nicastri and the executive producer was Claudia Taranto.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/360-documentaries/too-hard-basket/5936894
Espera (2017)
Intimacy and distance between lovers in a late night conversation. A beautiful and devastating piece about the life choices we make (or don’t) due to sex and how it’s perceived.
“Espera” was produced by Sayre Quevedo.
Stroking your Girlcock (2021)
Verbalifyouplease is a moderator on a huge subreddit where people share audio porn. They run an inclusive one, GWA Sapphic and they make their own porn.
Audio porn is a more humane, inclusive form of porn — it’s more DIY, genitals and gender can be nicely ambiguous (think of the scope in the word ‘hole’…) and it can include all sorts of pleasures.
Verbalifyouplease made this piece for 2021’s Transgender Day of Visibility. It uses the word ‘girlcock’ for the genitals of some trans women, but Verbal also released a version using ‘cock’ for those who name their genitals differently.
Say More with Dr? Sheila – Episode 3: “Open Relationship” (2023)
Amy Poehler made a series where she played a couples therapist – it was called Say More with Dr? Sheila – the question mark is important for legal reasons.
In this episode, Dr? Sheila is trying to counsel a couple who are supposedly considering opening up their relationship to have sex with other people…
The episode stars Amy Poehler, June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer. It was written and produced Amy Poehler, Liz Cackowski and Alice Dailey.
Dreamboy – Episode 8: “The Great Pornography of the Cosmos” (2018)
In 2018 a podcast series landed that, for Adam, remains unrivalled: Dreamboy. Dreamboy just ran for a few episodes, and so far has never returned. It’s the work of Dane Terry, who also wrote original music for it, as well as the story, and also starred in it — it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a dream and what’s fiction.
It has surreal elements, and mystery, and weirdness—and a hot gay sex scene that takes place when Dane and his love interest are looking at a pair of fossilised fish.
It contains explicit sex scenes including impact play, which is consensual hitting between partners.
That’s it! And, a little bonus, here is some monster and goblin audio porn that In The Dark London curator Talia Augustidis didn’t let Adam play:
https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=646e40325110a