Demi Moore Shares a Sneak Peek of the Next 'Dirty Diana' Podcast Episode
If you think work meetings can get awkward over Zoom, imagine what recording a sex scene is like. Demi Moore, producer and star of the new erotica podcast Dirty Diana, performed the titular character’s sensual moments, using only her voice, all while video chatting with her team and scene partners during quarantine. “When you're not in the same room, trying to figure out your timing [is uncomfortable],” she tells BAZAAR.com, chuckling. “My eyes were closed.”
But none of that discomfort or awkwardness is present in the finished product, a multi-episode audio series following the life and marriage of Diana, a corporate businesswoman secretly running an erotic website where women confess their sexual fantasies, from a train ride hookup to a handsy encounter in a haunted house. All this while she navigates her own crumbling marriage and anxiety. As the description suggests, this show isn’t purely porn: it includes Diana’s gab sessions with her friends, her therapy visits, experiences with medication, infidelity, and tense marital conversations, flanked by breathy, intimate exchanges conveyed through a female lens.
Though parts are fictionalized, writer and director Shana Feste (Country Strong, Endless Love) scripted the show after her own marriage, after she and her husband repaired their relationship through uncomfortable conversations and couple’s therapy. “I wrote this from a very personal space when I had no sex in my life with my husband,” she tells BAZAAR. “And that was one of the loneliest, hardest places that I’ve been in in my entire life.” Her husband, a producer on the podcast, encouraged her to share their story as a resource for other couples experiencing similar problems. “My husband and I found our way back to each other. We have three kids and that was the story that I really wanted to tell.”
After Dirty Diana launched on July 4, Moore and Feste say they received mostly positive feedback. They recall reviews like, “Now I need a few minutes alone,” and “This is the best sex I’ve had during quarantine.” But the most fulfilling messages are those saying “finally.” And that’s the point. As much as the podcast is intended for estranged couples or listeners seeking arousal, it’s also meant to challenge the taboo on women’s sexual desires.
“A big part of doing this is really removing the fear attached to [sex], sharing and opening up the discussion to normalize it,” Moore says. “I sat in on my daughter’s sex ed class when she was in fifth grade, even then the female orgasm was not even remotely part of the conversation.” That fear and silence not only apply to sex, but women’s bodies too. “I mean, we still whisper the word tampon,” Feste adds. “If we have shame around menstruation, how are we going to get rid of the shame around female pleasure?”
Moore denounces the stigma that women “shouldn’t want sex, that if we desire it, that makes us loose women or makes us sluts.” She explains, “We feel pleasure and that’s not a broken part of us. That’s a natural God-given part of us and how we work. It’s not a mistake, but we haven't had enough comfort to explore that.” Dirty Diana is part of that much-needed open exploration.
“Hopefully this can be the start of some of those conversations between mothers and daughters, between partners, between young girls listening to the podcast,” Feste adds, “Because I would much rather my daughter at 13 listen to this podcast than watch porn on YouTube.”
“This isn’t an anti-men thing” either, Moore adds, explaining that men and boys, who are presumed to know how sex works for women, are also at a disadvantage if female pleasure is barred from open, public discourse.
As for the future of the podcast, Moore teases the possibility of adapting Dirty Diana for TV. “I think that we are deep into conversations about that right now.” She and Feste aim to continue the audio series for another season, possibly exploring sex through generations of women. “Part of where this story is going for us is in exploring the kind of multigenerational aspects of this between the relationship with the mother and then with the daughter,” Moore says. “We're really hoping to go into those places where this will be able to open up … the relationship with sexuality as it is different for somebody in their 70s and 80s and somebody in their 50s to 20s and down into your teens.”
The duo are also hoping to gather the cast—whose guests include Melanie Griffith and Lena Dunham—in person one day. Goodbye, awkward Zoom encounters.
Above, listen to a sneak peek of Episode 4, which drops Monday, August 3, featuring Diana amid a surprise run-in. Dirty Diana, a QCODE podcast, is available on Apple Podcasts and most major podcast platforms.
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