My Dad Wrote A Porno host on podcasting's "dirty little secret"

A few years ago, Jamie Morton discovered something somewhat unsettling: his father had written an erotic novel using the pen name "Rocky Flintstone."

After sharing the book, titled Belinda Blinked, with his friends Alice Levine and James Cooper – the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno was born. It's become a cultural phenomenon with over 150 million downloads, a best-selling book, a sell-out world tour, and an HBO special. Jamie spoke to hosts Lindsay Michael and Matt Galloway about the podcast's success, and just how ridiculous erotica can be.

This is a podcast that's now in its fourth season. Would you have ever imagined that something like this would have been as popular as it's become?

Genuinely not. Just even hearing you say that intro it is still baffling to me because it's the least popular kind of concept, right? Like porn, and badly written porn, and dad porn. I mean how is this popular? It makes no sense but obviously it's very exciting.

Why do you think it's worked?

I don't know. I think there's an element that everyone has an embarrassing parent. Dads particularly are pretty embarrassing, and mine kind of is the king of embarrassing dads at this point. And I think it's an element of the camaraderie between me, James and Alice. We've been friends for over a decade, I think that kind of comes across. People like to listen to us. So yeah, I think it's been a combination of things... but mainly bad sex.

When your father presented [his book] to you, what did you make of it?

It was horrific. I mean really awful. Because he didn't tell me that he was writing porn. Very sensibly, he said that he was writing a book, a novel of... I just assumed it would be like a cowboy story or like a James Bond rip-off or something. So when I started reading it and the first line is literally "Belinda taking off her clothes," I was like, "What the hell has he written and why has he sent it to me? Does he not got any friends? Send it to your mates instead of sending it to your son!" Bizarre.

I mean it could just be published and that's one thing, but is there something about presenting this through a podcast that you think makes it work?

Yeah I think so. I mean what's great about podcasting is that it's such an intimate medium. And I think we couldn't really get away with telling this particular story in any other way really. People listen to podcasts either with their headphones on or in the car or whatever. So there's no kind of judgment from other people knowing what you're watching or reading as you would have if we did like a web series, for example. So yeah, I think [our podcast] became everyone's dirty little secret on the way to work, which I think has been really beneficial for the success of the show.

So the premise of Belinda Blinked is actually very corporate for erotica. It follows the sexual adventures of a pots and pans salesperson named Belinda. Jamie, is that a fair description?

That is, and that's kind of where the plot begins and ends. Nothing happens in my dad's books! It's actually a skill in and of itself to write so much about nothing at all. It's impressive.

So why do you think that he decided to include such a disproportionate amount of work talk in these erotic scenes?

I have no idea. I mean that's obviously sexy to him, which is worrying, on like, a whole other level. There's levels of trauma with this show for me: it's the fact that he's writing about sex, then what he finds sexy is even more disturbing. And I guess he kind of started his career in sales. So I think he took that initial life experience, then took it rogue, and went into crazy places that he probably should avoid going to ever again.

Yeah, they always say to write what you know, so it sounds like he stuck to that.

What's great about this is that he literally doesn't know anything about sex. So I know that he's had a very, very vanilla life. There's been no extra marital affairs because he literally knows nothing about the vagina.

Jamie, what is it about erotica, or poorly written erotica, that can be so funny?

I think it just is inherently hilarious, isn't it? Trying to to describe sex is always a bit awkward and weird. So doing it badly is even funnier. I mean it's one of those things that I can't believe that no one else has really done it before. Because even good erotica that people think is brilliant is kind of ridiculous and silly. So I think you can't really win with it, in a way. But dad obviously takes it to the next level of crazy. [laughs]

You can listen to Jamie's full interview on this week's episode of Podcast Playlist.

Want to hear Belinda Blinked for yourself? Check out My Dad Wrote A Porno here or on your favourite podcast app.

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