Erotic City Radio: Life Beyond College Radio

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 23:01:56 -0400

Life Beyond College Radio

By Cassie Becker

Mehgan Bowers settles herself in front of her suspended microphone, soundboard and monitor, her smooth cocoa skin bathed in a mixture of yellow fluorescent and computer monitor lighting, and begins to slip into character. In the final moments before the show penetrates its listeners’ eardrums, Bowers narrows her enticingly outlined brown eyes so that they smolder and seduce all at once. Like an evil temptress looking to get into your pants, a slightly wicked smirk graces her lips. She’s prepared to be naughty. Bowers arches her back slightly to make her ample breasts and booty draw the attention of anyone who would walk into the room. The transformation is complete. All the while, a woman’s soulful voice croons a disclaimer to warn unprepared listeners of the impending intercourse that they have stumbled upon a zone only for open minded and sexually curious adults 18 years of age and older. Bowers’ physical expressions meld with her voice and travel through the radio waves so that by the time Erotic City Radio’s warning ends, Lady Sapphire’s listeners feel the raunchy, steamy sex dripping from her voice as she welcomes them to another delicious Friday night. With a low, sultry tone, Sapphire’s voice coats listeners like a vocal lube, preparing them for the coming auditory intercourse. In the KSFS studio, Sexology 101 has begun.

“You are listening to the young, sexy, crazy and not so cool - ‘cause it’s hot up in this studio tonight - you are listening to Erotic City Radio. I’m your girl Sapphire. Let me me say that it is a full studio with a lot of fine looking women tonight of all different colors, all different shades, all different flavors, and I’m lovin’ it.”
- Super Strokers: Batteries Not Included, 10/14/11

As sexy instrumental versions of dirty songs play in the background, Sapphire asks each woman in the studio to introduce herself. Each gives her stripper name, determined by an old pet’s name and a street she used to live on. The women squeal delighted as each new name pops up, analyzing its potential for a stripper name in real life and determining how much they like it before Sapphire pushes the show along to the night’s topic: sex toys. She dives right in by acknowledging an odd habit of breaking her own playthings and then launches into a discussion about one of the most popular toys in the country, the Rabbit, a vibrator famous for its pulsing, mobile shaft and signature bunny ears to tickle the clitoris. Like a mistress teasing her all-too-willing audience, she switches gears to ask her peer sexual health educator co-hosts to explain the different types of orgasms. Anxious to answer, one of the guests throws out her responses. Acknowledging that she’s partially correct, sexpert Deirdra Bridgett elaborates in a pleasant, helpful tone, her full-bodied voice delivering its first tidbit of juicy information as she scoots forward in excitement, her mocha face getting as close as possible to the microphone. She begins to share a personal story as Nicole Sessions jumps in asking for clarification on whether a vaginal orgasm is the same as a G-spot orgasm in her slightly raspy valley girl voice, her long blonde hair swishing around to look at Bridgett as her eyebrows scrunch together and crinkle the skin on her ivory forehead. As Bridgett responds, Sapphire jumps in with a dirty comment, her signature move on the show. “I like a good thrust every now and then.” It’s business as usual for Erotic City Radio.
Bowers educates and entertains her listeners every Friday night on Erotic City Radio on San Francisco State University’s KSFS with Bridgett and Sessions - but not for much longer. Bowers graduates May 18 and she’s taking the show with her to the next level. Erotic City Radio had its first appearance on Playboy’s Spice XM, a satellite radio channel known for its steamy and raunchy shows, in March and its second appearance is scheduled for May 25. Bowers aims to sign a contract with the station to fulfill her real dream of finding a home in adult entertainment radio, a lofty but achievable goal.

THE SHOW OF TODAY
Bowers’ lovechild, an SF State-based radio show through the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Department streamed exclusively online, is the culmination of her insatiable interest in human sexuality fused with her love of show business. Now in its third season on the station, Erotic City Radio is the incarnation of Bowers’ dream of edutainment.
“The mission of Erotic City is basically entertain as well as educate our listeners on the world of sexuality. I call it sexual edutainment because that’s what it is; we like to educate you in the world of sexuality, but also we like to entertain you while doing it,” she says, smirking at the term she’s personally coined as her show’s genre.

“Cherry is the most popular flavor for edible underwear. Chocolate, the least,” Sapphire says.
“I’m shocked, I really thought it would be chocolate first,” Bridgett says.
“You know what, I think chocolate for other things; cherry I can understand for edible underwear. Like, can you imagine if you had cherry syrup? You know how they have those edible syrups or those edible paints? Chocolate is more popular in that, but edible underwear in cherry,” Sapphire responds. “I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with skid marks?”
- Trickz n’ Treatz, 10/28/11

            The majority of the show follows this format: Sapphire presents a piece of information and then the threesome discusses the topic, from the fascinating to the absurd. It reliably begins with Sextistics or other facts on topic for the night; branches into Dirty Laundry where the three either praise or make fun of celebrity sexploits; eventually finds its way to Bridgett’s Hot Tip, a health-based informational section relating to the night’s topic; and ends with a rap or song from Loren Risley, an assistant turned part-time host of the show. All the while, the women share intimate and raunchy details about their personal sex lives to give the public assurance that they know what they’re talking about, with roughly six Sexy Breaks featuring topically relevant, raunchy music interspersed throughout.
            The people seem to love it, especially those who download. Although only roughly 30 people listen live each week, Bowers boasts a wide and international fan base with listeners anywhere from college students to medical doctors covering the globe. The show is most popular in Canada, England and Brazil with a good amount of listeners in China, Australia and Russia as well, she says. At the start of the third season, Bowers says Erotic City Radio had roughly 15,000 downloads on PodOmatic and iTunes each week. Since the appearance on Playboy’s Spice XM satellite radio channel, the women can proudly say they get more than 80,000, according to Bowers, not including those who listen live on KSFS and TuneIn Radio. Yet, the show has only 63 fans on Facebook and 67 followers on Twitter, demonstrating the people’s reluctance to the admit to the world that they love the explicitly sexy show.

THE LAW AND KSFS
            Somehow, in the midst of all the explicit language and dirty details, Erotic City Radio continues to have a home on the air. According to media and Internet law expert Miriam Smith, Erotic City Radio is in a kind of legal middle ground. Because it is only available online, the show is not subject to the strict rules and guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission, which only applies to broadcast media. That means the women of Erotic City Radio have a much wider range of content than if the show were broadcast through traditional airwaves. However, the instructors of both the the beginning and advanced radio classes at SF State, Gina Baleria and Jeff Jacoby, respectively, note that KSFS does have an important policy that all shows adhere to FCC rules and regulations.
            “The primary requirement is that FCC rules are followed, and students are trained in this area to ensure they are familiar with the FCC rules on indecency, profanity and obscenity, and that they do not cross those lines. I do not judge or censor any of my students’ ideas, as long as they meet FCC regulations,” Baleria says.
            According to the FCC, indecency is defined as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” It’s an area of the regulations that Bowers and her crew seem to have skirted entirely, along with rules against profanity, meaning any language that is highly offensive to members of the general public. Radio shows with this amount of leeway legally have to come on after 10 p.m., according to Smith, an “after-hours” time slot that Erotic City Radio has never occupied.
            “KSFS management and staff have made the decision to follow FCC guidelines for the good professional practice and reasonable expectations of our audience,” Jacoby says.
            The station has had these regulations since Erotic City Radio started on KSFS back in Fall 2010. Bowers, a part of KSFS management due to her status as Radio Promotion Manager for the Spring 2012 semester, is fully aware of the rules of the station. There has never been a complaint against the show.
            Should Bowers successfully make a permanent move to satellite radio - a safe haven for all content - these few restrictions imposed by KSFS and Internet media law would no longer apply to the show.

TAKING IT TO THE TOP
            It’s January 2012 and Bowers is in bed with a back injury, frustrated at weeks filled with failure. She just can’t find a way to get on Playboy’s satellite radio channel. She’s alone in her apartment in San Francisco and, with all her roommates gone away for the holidays, she’s up to nothing but surfing the web and checking her email, killing time while trying to brainstorm a new plan of attack. Suddenly, an email saying Playboy wants Erotic City Radio pops up. She thinks it’s a scam playing on her desperation to take her show to a professional level, but as she reads and checks names, she discovers the email is, in fact, legitimate. Bowers immediately calls her parents and, overjoyed and crying, tells them she’s going to be on Playboy’s Spice channel. She realizes fairly quickly that she’s overlooked the two most important people involved in her excitement: Bridgett and Sessions. Bidding her parents a quick goodbye, Bowers gets her co-hosts on the phone and they celebrate together long distance, the culmination of a winter break spent searching in want of a greater dream: an invitation to be on the “MoFo Podcast Series.”
            “They have a certain vibe that is rare to find in podcast form. I think their education in radio has helped them create an unprofessional professionalism, if that makes any sense,” says Barry Funkhouser, executive producer of the podcast, who found Erotic City Radio while scouring the Internet for adult-themed content to fill up his Playboy podcast’s time slot.
            The night of March 23, Sapphire and Sessions stroll into the Playboy studios in Los Angeles to do Erotic City Radio with no censors for the first time. Nervous but confident, the threesome do what they do best: educate and entertain the masses in the world of sexuality, this time about the joys, dangers and realities of having sex in a nightclub. An absent Bridgett joins them via Skype and the three do their first ever show for Spice XM - one of their shortest shows to date, and one of the most downloaded and most popular.

“You zoom in and you pick one and you go for it,” Nicole explains her methods for finding someone in the club to hook up with.
“Sapphire’s talking about doubles and triples and quadruples. We’re supposed to be on one, just one. I have my pursuit on one or he has his pursuit on one,” Bridgett agrees.
“But that’s so boring!” Sapphire shoots back.
“No, you have fun the whole night. You do anybody, everybody you want, but at the end of the night you pick one, you zoom in on them, and you suck their nuts, OK? Go in on it,” Nicole says.
- All Up In Me… In the VIP 3/23/12

            The show came off as sexy as ever on air, but the women of Erotic City Radio were frantic behind the scenes in the middle of their first real experience with professional radio. Material was slashed and cut to the bare bones to make sure they would have enough time to talk in their hour segment, which included commercials and a little music, a drastic change to the luxurious two hours or more they have consistently enjoyed at KSFS. Rushed and under pressure, Bowers, Bridgett and Sessions had to be charming and deliciously dirty with the difficult twist of brevity, especially when callers flooded the second half of the show, already hooked on Erotic City Radio.
            “It kind of felt like they were starting the show from scratch all over again. They just seemed so excited and just happy to be there. Of course - you’re in the Playboy studio! How many people can actually say ‘Hey, I was on Playboy?’ That is amazing!” remarks Erotic City Radio production assistant Leesa Askins, who heard the show back home in San Francisco.

ROUGH BEGINNINGS
            But Erotic City Radio wasn’t anywhere near this refined two years ago when Bowers started speaking out about sexuality. Before taking her show to KSFS, she decided to put herself out into the world by doing a self-produced and live show called Sex & the College Teen on a video streaming website known as USTREAM. Bowers was committed to detailing weekly sexploits and encouraging safe sex to a live audience while answering their questions at least once a month. She says that her most popular night, she had 800 viewers watching live when one asked her how to put a condom on using her mouth. She pulled out her favorite flesh-colored 8 ½ inch dildo named Alfred, opened the condom and began to answer the question. At that precise moment, she says, her stream was disconnected and a box popped up on the screen saying that she had violated USTREAM’s terms of use by displaying nudity. She is still banned from the website under her original username for this violation.
            She dabbled with the show on Facebook for a handful of episodes and then brought it to her radio class at SF State to really turn up the dials with her friend and co-host Amanda McLendon. The original Erotic City was based on The Loveline Show, a nationally syndicated talk show about sex, but fell short of McLendon’s expectations in both humor and listeners. At the first season’s peak, Erotic City had only seven listeners live with no downloading available, a miniscule fraction of the audience that Erotic City Radio reaches internationally each week today. Disappointed and increasingly feeling overshadowed by Bowers, McLendon left the show to pursue her true love of audio production. And so Bowers continued on with her own love Erotic City Radio and her newfound co-host - the first piece of the sexy puzzle - Bridgett.
            “She’s building something,” Bridgett thought her first time as a guest host on the show in its first season. “This is the start of something really good. It just needs something else, I just personally didn’t know what that was.”
Exactly one season later through Bridgett, Bowers met Sessions and Erotic City Radio finally had the perfect mix of personalities to addict people, a threesome with a penchant for raunchy education that the public just can’t get enough of.

“Both parties should be buying the condoms. Everybody should be equally responsible. First of all, men, don’t stick them in a wallet, don’t stick them in your damn shoe,” Sapphire says.
“SHOE??” Sessions and Bridgett respond at the same time with a mixture of shock and disgust in their voices.
“I’ve seen a man stick it in his shoe,” Sapphire responds.
“I’ve never heard of that,” Sessions says.
“I’m not trying to get a fungus from a condom, I’m sorry,” Bridgett says, clearly grossed out.
“That’s all bad. That is a hot place,” Sessions remarks.
“That is just so gross,” Bridgett reiterates.
“I don’t want the condom to smell like funky ass moldy cheese and like feet, like raw feet. What if you got sweaty feet?” Sapphire adds.
- When n Splendor… Wrap Your Member, 2/24/12

AN UNFORGETTABLE THREESOME
            The sisterhood - passionate feminist Sessions, levelheaded educator Bridgett and sex-crazed Sapphire - combined with an intimate, sleepover feel has listeners hooked. The hosts bear their souls and libidos to the world, allowing each and every listener to feel comfortable about their own experiences while simultaneously creating a safe environment. The cavalier and confident attitude of the women of Erotic City Radio encourages listeners to relate to the hosts and the hosts relate back to them in a deeply personal way, creating a circle of trust within the radio waves. They welcome and include all.
            “It’s a safe haven. You don’t have to become stigmatized. It’s a place for two hours where you can express yourself and be secure about your sexuality,” says Lakiesha Thomas, a fan of the show and guest on the episode “Horny, Frustrated & Nowhere to Stick It.” She feels the show gives women a chance to truly be open about their experiences with other women, free of judgement, which is rare in American society today.
            Part of being comfortable involves neutrality, one of the most important qualities for Erotic City Radio and its peer sexual health educators, Sessions and Bridgett. They feel that neutrality is the best way to gather listeners and to help everyone learn about sex and sexuality. Sapphire, as the show’s queen of shock factor, has a much harder time with it. Instead, she leaves the job to Bridgett and Sessions and lets her mouth run.

“O cum all ye faceful, joyful and sperlicious. O cum ye, O cum ye on my bosom,” Sapphire sings in a rich, full-bodied voice as a parody of the Christmas tune.
- Oh Cum All Ye Faceful, 12/9/11

THE ALTER EGO
            Throughout the dirty dialogue and endless mentions of lube and condoms, Sapphire still finds a way to take it to the next level: screaming orgasms. She begins with a few breathy moans that transition into intense, throaty groans and then ends with her screaming in pleasure all over the course of roughly 30 seconds. They are fake but her fellow co-hosts know that for sure. The orgasms clue the listeners that something really good is coming up in the show, she says - or to release any of Sapphire’s pent-up sexual energy - nearly every episode.
            “You come, girlfriend,” Sessions laughs, but only off the air. On air and behind the scenes, Sessions and Bridgett roll their eyes and groan in exasperation that she’s doing it again. Bowers insists she keeps the orgasms a regular part of the show because the fans go wild for them.
            Outside the studio, the crazy and reckless Lady Sapphire is firmly secured in her cage. The innocent bystander would never know that she spends hours each week discussing her own personal sexploits and extensive knowledge of the relationship between pleasure and the human body live to a largely anonymous audience. The two are like twins trapped occupying the same space; although they look alike, they far from the same.
            “You can take Mehgan to church, but don’t even think about taking Sapphire anywhere near a church,” Sessions emphasizes.
            Both Bowers and Sapphire are loud, obnoxious and gossip-obsessed. Both are hard working, committed and in love with sex. But Sapphire exudes a confidence so intense it that could knock an unsuspecting listener off his or her feet if not prepared. She constantly roars with laughter at her own jokes and impromptu raps during the show, and spouts her own opinions in everything from body hair to eye contact during sex.

“Time out: doesn’t this require looking somebody in the face?” Bridgett asks while she, Sessions and Sapphire discuss a particularly intimate sex position.
Sapphire responds with a booming laugh. “I could close my eyes!”
“They’re going to think something’s wrong with your ass,” Bridgett shoots back.
“Can I blindfold and make it sexy?” Sapphire asks.
“Uh…. that only works one out of 10 times,” Sessions says.
- Sexin’ in the Stars: Sexy Zodiac 4/30/12

            Although it is Sapphire’s personality that gives the show its outlandish and outrageously sexual quality that leaves listeners begging for more every single week, it is Bowers’ drive that truly keeps the show going.
            “There is no show without Mehgan. Absolutely not. She is everything and Deirdra and I are her little feet just helping her run around… She is the backbone. She is the driving force behind it,” Sessions says.
            And yet, at their core, Sapphire and Mehgan have exactly the same drives, ambitions and goals when it comes to Erotic City Radio.
            “Even Sapphire is dedicated to making sure that people are having healthy, safe, fun sex,” Bridgett says.

TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL
            Emily Morse of the popular sex podcast Sex with Emily is familiar with the challenges Bowers is going through trying to go professional and get paid for doing what she loves. Morse started out producing her show in her living room seven years ago on her own with nothing but background in documentary filmmaking and a passion for sex. Now, her show consistently sits in iTunes’ top 20 most downloaded online podcasts and is always toward the top of the list in the sex section. She’s a published author in her field with her book “Hot Sex: Over 200 Things You Can Try Tonight”released in October 2011, has her own show on Sirius XM and is now on Bravo’s show “Miss Advised” with two other relationship experts. Some would say she’s made it.
            Morse, like Bowers, wanted to create a show that would both entertain and educate the people in the world of human sexuality. She began talking to other people about their sex lives and relationships to create her shows. To build up her show, Morse exclusively used a grassroots approach to get her show out to the people with minor help from social media and consistent online updates for her fans. It’s been a lot of hard work and self-promotion that has gotten her to this point, but she sticks to some simple guidelines to produce her show. It’s the same advice she’ll give to anyone looking to reach her level of success.
            “Just follow your heart and cover topics that interest you because there are undoubtedly others who will be interested in the same topics you are. And also, just keep doing it! You have to be consistent and update your blog, website regularly,” Morse insists.
            Bowers considers Erotic City Radio and Sex with Emily to be rivals, consistently battling in the ratings to gain the top spots in their genre, which means that gaining a professional stance in adult entertainment radio might give Erotic City Radio the boost it needs to take it to the top. The one thing holding them back right now - the FCC regulations KSFS attempts to adhere to - would be shattered in a switch to satellite radio, giving the show a chance to truly explore anything.

THE END OF AN ERA
            No matter what the future holds, the show is slated to end on KSFS at SF State. Its last episode, set to air May 11, 2012, could be one of her last times on the air as Miss Lady Sapphire of Erotic City Radio.
            Bowers’ commanding voice gets softer and softer as she thinks about the impending end of the show on the station where it blossomed into the show she always wanted. She’s so close to reaching her dreams of success at only 23 years old.
            “It’s been a hell of a ride. That’s all I can say,” she says, softly choking back tears in an effort to stay focused on the few remaining episodes ahead.
            She’s determined to go out with a bang for her episode coming up on Playboy Radio May 25. Although she’s not willing to share the ideas she has floating around in her head, Bowers, surrounded by the full crew, is determined to make it a night to remember - an episode so raunchy and wet that it leaves each listener begging for more of Erotic City Radio.

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