Although people often casually refer to ASMR content as "whisper porn," and call the tingling, relaxing sensations of ASMR itself a "headgasm," most mainstream ASMR creators, consumers, and researchers frequently and stringently insist it’s not a sex thing. No way. Not in the least.  

The soft sounds, repetitive motions, personal attention, and other hallmarks of ASMR content aren’t about getting people hot and bothered, Craig Richard, a biopharmaceutical sciences professor at Shenandoah University and one of the leading authorities on the science of ASMR, tells Mashable. They’re about making people feel safe and special. And the sensation itself is not expressly erotic. 

Yet despite these ubiquitous explanations and protestations, in recent years the adult industry has gone all in on "ASMR porn," which generally puts tight focus on sounds of licking, sucking, stroking, and the like, often paired with explicit yet slow and sensual visuals. In 2019, a trade magazine reported on an apparent flood of explicit ASMR content flowing out of both indie outfits and big studios — like Brazzers, which hosted a live erotic ASMR show featuring prominent performers like Abella Danger and Lisa Ann in Brooklyn that year. In 2020, an edition of GQ profiled the adult performer and director Nica Noella and her run of erotic ASMR content, and detailed the spike in demand for this sort of porn in the process. In 2021, the sex writer Gigi Engle, in an article about a new ASMR porn project created by the prominent indie producer Erika Lust, declared that that the "once niche genre [was] beginning to enter the mainstream porn world."

It's easy to write off the adult industry’s apparent obsession with ASMR as the latest example of its longstanding habit of pornifying everything that takes off in the SFW zeitgeist in hopes of piggybacking its way to a quick buck. "For a while, it seemed like every new porn had fidget spinners in it," says performer Penny Barber. 

Thomas Hostler, a psychologist at the University of Manchester who studies ASMR, points out that this boom seemingly did kick off around the same time ASMR transitioned from a subcultural oddity to a mainstream phenomenon, inspiring ASMR-y pop and rap songs, dances, games, and even commercials. A Brazzers representative acknowledged that the rise of adult ASMR "coincides with the moment… people outside the ASMR community heard of it and wanted to be involved."

But Pornhub data released last year demonstrates that demand for ASMR porn is more consistent and enduring than the surge and crash associated with most industry cash-grab fads. (Searches spiked massively starting in 2016 and leveled out around 2019, but have either held steady or grown modestly since then.) In truth, porn producers’ affinity for ASMR, and the success of some of their ASMR content, may reflect the sexual potential within what many people tend to think of as entirely nonsexual stimuli and experiences. And mainstream backlash against that likely speaks to widespread discomfort with anything that blurs the boundaries between the supposedly distinct sexual and nonsexual realms of human experience.  

A handful of very online porn performers and producers stumbled upon ASMR content around 2010, just after the first YouTube channels dedicated to the genre launched, and as enthusiasts were still popularizing the recently-coined term ASMR itself. Almost immediately — and well before the genre escaped the niche edges of the web — they started to experiment with ASMR themselves. (Noella says she discovered ASMR in 2010, while searching for videos on YouTube that featured "voices that would give me tingles." She made her first erotic ASMR film in 2011.) 

Some early adopters made SFW ASMR content and shared it through channels on mainstream, porn-free platforms like YouTube — often while still using their adult stage names. Although this might seem like an odd pivot, it was actually part of a wider trend: As the rise of free tube sites in the late aughts threw the adult industry into economic upheaval, many porn insiders spent the early 2010s in search of ways to diversify their audiences and income. "You can reach a much wider audience when creating SFW content," notes Bea York, an adult performer who makes explicit ASMR porn but also runs a small, conventional ASMR YouTube channel. 

SEE ALSO: 'ASMR toys' at big box stores may just be fidget toys in disguise

There was clear demand for ASMR content of all sorts, with plenty of room for experimentation; creators have produced true crime ASMR, sports analysis ASMR, and even Shrek parody ASMR, to name just a few inventive offerings. Some of the most successful early ASMRists were also conventionally attractive young people making content with clear sexual undertones. (Think: slowly licking and nibbling on microphones to make wet mouth sounds.) In these early days of the genre, it seemed as if this emerging subculture might welcome rather than shun people with roots in the porn world. And a few porn-world creators have been relatively successful in the SFW ASMR sphere. Cherry Crush, a well-known indie adult performer, notably created a SFW (but still sexified) ASMR YouTube channel in 2012, apparently around the same time she was launching her porn career. The SFW channel has since amassed nearly 1 million subscribers, which puts her on par with some of the best-known mainstream SFW ASMRists. 

While some creators use their SFW world success to drive new viewers toward their adult industry content, others partition off their two fan bases and income streams. 

Other porn world figures have tried to make adult versions of ASMR content, or to bring ASMR techniques into their adult content, just because that’s what industry insiders do, as Ginger Roy of Blush Erotica, an adult studio that puts a strong focus on the auditory elements of its content, explains. They play around with "any new technology or idea" in an effort to develop something unique that might strike a chord with viewers, and thus carve them a valuable niche. 

But for many of the folks making adult ASMR content, there's a deeper motive at play than general experimentation: These porn insiders took an interest in ASMR early on because they recognized something within even entirely nonsexual videos that resonated with their work. 

Anna Lee, the CEO and head of content at 2049, an adult VR studio, says she quickly connected the whispered tones of ASMR to the voices that many phone sex workers use to elicit strong responses from clients. Kelli Provocateur, a longtime dominatrix and adult content creator, saw parallels between ASMR content and BDSM that involves luring people to sleep with soothing tones and soft, sensual actions. No matter what researchers say, Provocateur adds, "anything that’s nice and calming is still a form of pleasure. And anything that’s pleasurable has some sort of sexuality in it."

"Many of the triggers for ASMR and triggers for sensual foreplay do overlap, including whispering, touching lightly, and providing loving attention," acknowledges Richard, the ASMR scientist. 

Most modern porn is "focused on the impact of images," says performer and producer Axel Abysse, and often doesn’t pay much attention to sound design. But "arousal is the sum of all the senses working together."  Mainstream modern porn often lacks the types of audio stimuli that ASMR content excels at highlighting, through high-quality mics and recording techniques that laser focus in on key sounds. 

"What fascinated me when I first encountered ASMR was its ability to create a physical sensation," adds Lee. "That was a sensory experience we were missing." She holds that, with good ASMR, "you can actually feel a tingle on your face" as an actor comes in for a POV kiss. 

SEE ALSO: How YouTubers discovered a human condition no one had talked about before

Noella believes that ASMR techniques like close whispering and personal attention-giving are also uniquely efficient in developing a sense of genuine care and connection between performers and viewers — a type of connection absent in most mainstream porn. For a decade now, she's felt that ASMR techniques have the potential not just to add a new, potent layer of physical sensation to porn, but also to imbue scenes with more "authenticity and intimacy."

There is no single approach to bringing the apparent potential of ASMR into adult content — and as such, there is no one definition of ASMR porn. Some of it is your standard ASMR content, just with nudity and dirty talk thrown on top. Some of it is more like traditional porn, but with an ASMR-style focus on and accentuation of specific sounds associated with sex acts. Lee explains that as soon as anyone stumbled upon a formula early on that resonated with consumers, other studios stepped up to try to copy it, leading to a rapid escalation in adult ASMR production.

As high-quality mics got cheaper and easier to find, York adds, smaller industry players decided to take a crack at ASMR content as well. The industry was, as such, already on its way toward an ASMR boom well before conventional, SFW ASMR content took off in the mainstream. But despite some follow-the-leader behavior, at the heart of this industry trend is a belief held by many insiders that, as performer Casca Akashova puts it, "ASMR truly represents a new, immersive erotic frontier." 

Adult industry insiders are not the only people who’ve recognized erotic potential within even overtly nonsexual ASMR tropes and techniques. Surveys conducted in the mid-2010s, just as the academic community started to probe this new realm of content and its devotees, suggested that between 5 and 10 percent of all mainstream ASMR fans found the content sexually arousing, regardless of creator intent or experts’ views on the effects of ASMR sensations. Over the last couple of years, lifestyle publications — and Planned Parenthood — have acknowledged and explored the common eroticization of conventional ASMR videos. In the past, some folks even copied SFW ASMR clips and uploaded them to Pornhub.  

However, pearl-clutching about the latent seeds of sexual potential within the overall ASMR oeuvre has reportedly led to the demonetization of some mainstream ASMRists channels in recent years. Chinese regulators even issued an order in 2018, telling local streaming platforms to crack down on "vulgar and pornographic ASMR content," which led to the disappearance of most ASMR of any sort from the nation's social media ecosystem. 

Concerns about demonetization and stigmatization likely explain some of the mainstream ASMR world’s insistence that their content is definitely not a sex thing. (Mashable reached out to several mainstream ASMR creators for comment on this story; none of them replied.) SFW ASMR content creators often push back on the idea of erotic ASMR not because they’re puritans, Richard explains, "but rather because it would result in confusion between erotic ASMR on porn sites and true ASMR." 

However, Noella suggests that the level of vitriol SFW ASMR "purists" direct toward pornographers who make ASMR content, and toward other SFW ASMRists who get a little sexy in their videos, seems to go beyond concerns about respectability and profits. After she made her first ASMR porn movies, for example, she claims that a mainstream ASMRist she loved sent her a message "yelling at me for mixing porn and ASMR, and telling me that I was bringing shame to the community." She also says that a SFW, mainstream ASMRist known for wearing sexy lingerie and making kissing sound videos has faced years of "relentless bullying" from other conventional ASMRists. "Why can’t they let her do her thing?" she asks. 

SEE ALSO: All the best places to click on when you want to get off

This degree of pushback against erotic ASMR likely reflects an intense personal discomfort with the idea that someone might sexualize an experience that they find entirely nonsexual, several sex therapists Mashable spoke to for this story explained. Having something you see as wholesome turned into a fetish by someone else "might feel creepy," says therapist Tammy Nelson, "and ruin the whole thing for you." It can also feel like they’re "cheapening" something that holds a special place of value, tied up in purity, for you, says therapist Sari Cooper. 

As Paste magazine staff writer Jim Vorel put it in a 2020 article, this discomfort can turn into a vehement denial that anything in someone's beloved content could ever be sexualized — "that any sexuality you perceive is YOUR perverted projection," and therefore something wrong with you. 

Noella argues that these impassioned rejections of both sexual ASMR and any sexual potential in SFW ASMR are "naïve" and "disingenuous." But Lust, the prominent indie porn producer, suggests that this outrage reflects decades of cultural programming, both in the mainstream and porn worlds, which has told us that only certain realms of human existence are sexual, and that any sex or sexualization that doesn’t fit those molds is an aberration to forcefully reject. 

In reality, Nelson explains, human sexuality is not so simplistic and clearly bounded. For proof of that, just look at the world of kink: Many kinks seem to be extensions of associations formed between people's early sexual experiences and outwardly nonsexual stimuli. Others are just the result of idiosyncratic interpretations of strong but typically neutral sensations, like pain or lightheadedness, as sexual. Others still may stem from some other source entirely. Whatever their source, many kinks plainly transgress the boundaries that mainstream culture has set up around the realm of sex and sexuality. 

Despite all the sexual potential within ASMR techniques and triggers, and all the porn world’s enthusiasm for ASMR content, there’s a good chance that this recent industry boom won’t last. Although several of the performers and producers Mashable spoke to for this story say their ASMR content sells well, many others say their sales are up and down at best. 

Lee suggests that some content creators may be struggling because they’re failing to harness ASMR’s potential. She’s found that just importing common ASMR triggers like tapping on glass into an adult video reads as contrived to most viewers; ditto just doing sexy things while using a soft whisper voice. Figuring out the triggers that speak to a specific audience’s sense of sexuality, and how to package them alongside images for maximum effect, "is laborious," she says. "It requires a higher level of investment than most people in the industry are looking to make." 

Akashova, the performer who’s particularly bullish about the potential of ASMR tactics for improving adult clips, notes that she hasn’t made more of that type of content because it’s hard to find "someone who has the technical resources" in order to produce ASMR porn to the standards she’d like to meet.

There’s a ceiling on the demand for even well-made ASMR porn, as well. Abysse, the performer-producer, notes that the one time he tried to make an erotic ASMR film, "focused on the sounds of lube on skin, the friction of sex toys penetrating my body," he found some people loved those triggers while others found them disgusting. Any strong auditory trigger, whether SFW or NSFW, has the potential to be polarizing — and the audience for a specific trigger is likely limited. There’s also only so much ASMR porn performers and producers can pump out before they start to alienate portions of their wider audience, and end up oversaturating themselves into unprofitability. 

SEE ALSO: Can't figure out what kind of porn to consume? This handy infographic can help.

Many of the adult industry insiders Mashable spoke to for this story believe that ASMR porn will eventually settle into an equilibrium, becoming just one more niche category in a sea of kink content. Producers may still incorporate elements of ASMR into conventional content, though. Barber, for one, says ASMR inspires her to pay more attention to her POV perspectives and audio quality overall, even if she’s not hyper-focusing on sounds to the extent an ASMR video would. 

As the current surge of ASMR porn ebbs, concerns about sex in mainstream ASMR will likely recede, too. And that’s likely good news for conventional ASMRists and their efforts to maintain profitability and respectability. 

But it’s arguably a shame for the world at large, because the discomfort that erotic ASMR inspires for some people is potentially productive. It poses questions about the source of that discomfort and inspires introspection about the lines we draw between sexual and nonsexual realms of experience. 

ASMR porn may not be everyone's cup of tea. It may even run counter to the deep, nonsexual connection many people feel to the genre. But its existence and appeal reflect the incredible, and far too often under-acknowledged, complexity and diversity of human sexuality. It demonstrates humanity's capacity for mapping our sexuality onto, or drawing sex out of, almost anything.