Can this no-visuals porn site appeal to women? Its female founder thinks so
When it comes to mainstream porn, the sex depicted frequently fails to mirror real-life sex: the unrealistic bodies, sounds, and even the moves shown are all pretty much BS. In fact, most mainstream porn doesn’t even depict women enjoying themselves, and the sex being had almost always focuses on male pleasure. And while sometimes any ol’ porn will do when you’re in the mood, what if there was a porn site that relied on sexy text and audio instead of visual sex scenes? That’s the idea behind Quinn, the first startup from Caroline Spiegel (younger sister of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel).
“There’s no visual content on the site—just audio and written stories,” the 22-year-old college senior told TechCrunch in a recent interview. “And the whole thing is open source, so people can submit content and fantasies, etc. Everything is vetted by us before it goes on the site.”
The site is set to launch April 13th, and Quinn’s all-women team will include Spiegel’s three best friends, whom she met while attending Stanford.
Spiegel came up with the idea for a no-visuals porn platform based on her personal experience with sexual dysfunction as a result of having anorexia during her junior year of college. When researching treatment options for sexual dysfunction, she found that “there are about 30 FDA-approved drugs for sexual dysfunction for men but zero for women, and that’s a big bummer.”
By using only text and audio to spark users’ sexual imagination, Spiegel hopes to destigmatize the idea of women pleasuring themselves, and hopes that Quinn can serve as a porn alternative for women, free from the male gaze. But there is some male influence, since the site got its name from one of Spiegel’s best guy friends. “He said this girl he met—his dream girl—was named Quinn,” she told TechCrunch.
Quinn will use sites like Reddit and Tumblr (RIP) for inspiration, and give adult content-makers a new home. The audio on the site will range from guided masturbation to narrated stories, and, of course, people having sex.
Spiegel has raised under $1 million in funding so far, and will rely on social media influencer campaigns in an attempt to not only normalize masturbation, but make it “cool.” And while she has some fears about convincing women to give Quinn’s style of porn a try, she believes in the concept.
“What I’m banking on is if you’ve never had chocolate before, you don’t know [what you’re missing]. But once you have it, you start craving it,” she told TechCrunch. “A lot of women haven’t experienced raw, visceral pleasure before, [but once we help them find it] we’ll have momentum.”
