Ask the ex phone sex operator
 

In this thread, I mentioned my years as a phone sex operator (post 87) because I thought it somewhat relevant to the discussion. In post 94, jsgoddess requested that I host a thread on the subject, so here it is.

I worked as a phone sex operator from roughly '94-'97. The most commonly asked question is: what's a nice girl like you doing in a profession like that? The two answers, that actually go hand-in-hand are: the money was better than anything else I was qualified to do (or at least anything else that was legal), and, hey, as far as I was concerned, it was an acting job. Anyone who had actually seen me playing solitaire on my computer, sipping coffee and wearing a cotton nightshirt with little duckies all over it when I worked would never have doubted that. My FIL always held the opinion that what I was doing was actually more legitimate than the psychic hotlines, 'cuz at least with me, the customer was actually getting something for their money.

Note to mods: the company I worked for shouldn't be named, I think; but they were a perfectly legitimate company, in compliance with all Federal laws, taking taxes out of our paychecks, etc.

So, any questions? Shoot (heh).

These will be really basic questions, because I'm totally ignorant of the workings of the phone sex industry (although I'm not sure that that's a bad thing). The closest thing I have any real knowledge of is crisis hotlines . . . not quite the same thing, I suppose.

Were you working off a script, improvising within some specific guidelines, just totally making it up as you went along? How much training was there, if any? How much variety was there in the kinds of callers you got? Ever have a call that didn't go at all the way you expected?

What was the strangest call you ever had?

There was no script, it was all improv. We did have some general idea, though, because the call always went to an operator first, who found out what kind of woman the guy was looking for, and if he was interested in anything specific; then the operator would call me and say something like "I have a guy who wants a blonde with big tits; he likes it rough" or whatever. Then, when she patched the guy through, I already had an idea of what he was looking for. The rest, I was pretty good at drawing out.

There was a pretty good variety. Probably about 75% of my calls were what I abbreviated on my notes as S&F. The S stood for suck, and the F stood for a rhyming word we're not supposed to use outside of the pit. Just standard stuff, with a sexy girl, albeit over the phone. But the other 25%, wow. I had guys who would call with their girlfriends; I'd have women who may have been gay, or may have just been investigating aspects of sexuality; I had guys who were into animals, bodily functions, married women who cheat on their husbands, whatever. Yup. Lots of variety.

A call that didn't go the way I expected? Well, probably the closest would be that, a couple of times, the guy didn't so much want to talk about sex as he just wanted to talk. I was pretty good at that, too.

Well, there were a few that had the potential to be really strange, but broke Federal laws, so I couldn't do them (not that I wanted to), but outside of that, I had one regular customer who wanted me to tell him about having sex with dogs; not so strange, you say? Well, yeah, until you consider that he wasn't talking about Great Danes and German Shepherds. He was more into chihuauas and Shar Peis :rolleyes: .

Then there was the one guy who wanted to talk to an overweight, 30ish housewife. And I thought to myself, "Boy is he in luck! ;) ).

There might have been stranger (all my notes are in storage right now), but these are the two that come to mind.

Without going into too much detail that would obviously be unacceptable on the 'Dope and/or legally, what kinds of things would be against federal law?

I was wondering that too. All I could think of was conspiring to commit a crime, which seems like a bit of an odd thing to do with a phone sex operator.

Can I ask how you got hired? I mean, how did you hear about the job, and was there an interview? A resume?

TIA for any answers, and my apologies if I sound naive.

Regards,
Shodan

Did you ever actually get into it, or did you always fake your enthusiasm?

Please, the first question here should be....What are you wearing?

Not true.

Here
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. See?

My questions. Did you have set hours? A separate phone line? Did you ever get into it, like, you know, get into it? Give an example of a 'wtf?' comment or request from a customer. Ever get pissed off?

Wow. I've obviously made it sound like a much bigger deal than it is. The number one Fed law concerned child pornography. I could not, at any time, portray someone who was under 18 years of age; I couldn't talk about a time when I was under 18 and had sex (if a customer asked when I lost my virginity, the answer had to be 18 or over). Obviously, if a customer requested someone underage from the operator, they were told that we couldn't do that; but sometimes I'd be talking to them already when they'd mention it. I would try to steer them away from that, to something permissible, and if that failed, I was to hang up on them. I also was not required (by the company) to participate in rape or forced sex fantasies. Although that was up to me.

Did you keep notes for your own amusement, because you were afraid of stalkers, because you were required to? Because it made it feel more like a regular job? To reuse particularly effective lines? Have you talked to a literary agent? The idea of taking notes is the most (to me) surprising and endearing thing about the whole business.

Also, do you know anything about your co-workers? Were they kids without education, grandmothers supplementing their pensions, men using vocoders?

Did you get better with practice? Did you research and study? And if the point is to extend the calls as long as possible, what were your strategies for accomplishing that?

I read about the job in the Help Wante ads of my local newspaper; there was a group interview in a hotel conference room. In that interview, we were told about the job, given some tips (the one I remember most clearly was how to make "wet pussy" sounds), etc. Those of us that were still interested at the end of the interview were given applications to fill out, and then we did audition calls. After the audition call, a supervisor called us to tell us if we had passed, and we could begin working.

How much did it pay?

And to echo some of the other posters, tell us some of your weirdest!

How did you keep from just cracking up laughing?

I know you wrote in the OP that this was an acting job, and I hope that asking isn't crossing the line, but did you ever get turned on by a call?

Just courious.

Ironic moment - my babies are watching Elmo on Sesame Street as I'm reading this thread, and he's singing "Phone Phone Phone...Phone Phone Phone...Phone PHONE Phone Phone Phone".

Like just about everyone with a normal, healthy sexual appetites, there are certain things that turn me on, and I did have some regular customers that I developed a good rapport with. About 98% of the time, I faked it, but the other 2%, I sometimes thought, damn, I should be paying him.

Well, the coy answer would be "whatever the client wanted me to be wearing" ;) . The truthful answer would be: cotton nightgown or sleep shirt in the summer, sweats in the winter (my office was in the basement, and it got chilly down there).

Yep, a regular shift (mine was 9PM to 5AM, timed for the kids being in bed; hubby worked an evening shift, 3PM to 11PM, so was home shortly after my shift began). Because of my hours, no separate phone line was needed. But I did disable the call waiting while I was working.

A WTF moment: well, I had one regular who had lots of WTF moments. He was deluded that someone from a secret organization was messing with him, and would interrupt our calls to give "messages" to the "operatives". He also claimed to own an island.

Ever get pissed off? Not too much. Like I said, it was an acting job; if I put myself in the role of the part I was playing, there wasn't much to get pissed off about.

Oh, and thanks for clearing that fuckin' thing up for me ;) .

Does your hubby ever ask you to do stuff along these lines? If so, what's your response?

Also, what did you think of the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally?

How did the phone system work? You mentioned an operator, but you also mention using your home phone without any frills like call-waiting. Would you check in with the operator to let them know you were able to take another call, or did they come in randomly?

Ever have a guest to your house when a call came in?

Well, I kept two kinds of notes: I kept a written page (a pre-spreadsheet spreadsheet, if you will) that listed: time of call, guy's first name, what he had requested (in case I forgot during the call "who" I was supposed to be), whether he was a request, and how the call basically went. I also kept a file box, organized alphabetically by first name and state. I'd list things about the guys and what they liked; that way, if they called back and requested me, they were really flattered that I "remembered" them. No, I haven't talked to a literary agent; why, do you think I should? Every once in a while, someone would ask me if I kept notes, and I would "spin" it :"well, yeah; you see, I have a terrible memory, but I wouldn't want to forget a single thing about you because you're so sweet".

I'll ignore for a moment the fact that I don't know what "vocoders" are. We did have a couple of guys on staff (one on each shift, IIRC), because sometimes a customer would want to talk to a couple who was getting it on. There were a lot of women like me (certainly no one under 18) who couldn't have done as well financially doing anything else; the fact we got to work from home had a lot of appeal, as well. But there were quite a few older ladies, too, who had been out of the work force for so long that they were kind of landlocked. Once a year, there was a combination Christmas party/awards ceremony, so I got to meet my fellow workers. At one of these things, it came to my attention that one of my co-workers had dated my BIL for a time.

I absolutely got better with practice! I don't think I was very good in the first couple of months. As for research and study, I took to reading Variations for fresh ideas, etc. One of the things I liked about my company was that it sold blocks of time; a 15-minute call was $25.00 and a 30-minute call was $40.00. There was no incentive to keep them on the phone longer. If they went up to their time limit and still wanted to talk, I'd tell them to call me right back.

Well, when I started, it was $8.00/hr. plus bonus. Bonus was based on requests (guys who specifically asked for me). Up to ten requests per month, no bonus. After that, the more requests I got, the more I bonused. Most months I ended up averaging out about $15.00/hr. I also got a 1%, 2%, or 3% raise every six months.
Well, the guy who was into small dogs was pretty weird, plus frustrating, because every single freakin' thing I'd say, he'd respond with "huh?" and I'd have to repeat it. The guy with the island was strange. I had one customer liked me to tell him about jacking guys off into baby bottles and having to suck really hard to drink it all out; he was also into enemas. I loved him because he was quite intelligent, and he used to buy two hour blocks of my time, which counted as four requests. He had lots of money. I still talk to him sometimes.

I can see that sometime soon (maybe tomorrow morning), I'm going to have to go get some of my records out of the attic, and refresh my memory.

Boy, it was tough sometimes! In fact, every once in a blue moon, I'd lose it, and fake a coughing fit.

No offense taken. See my answer to trublmaker for more info.

Well, FWIW, I never talked to anyone who was into Muppets :D .

I can't pass up this tidbit. How do you make "wet pussy" sounds?

My husband thinks I am entirely sexy (thank Og), but never much saw the point in phone sex; he does work out of town a lot, and if he wanted it, I'd do it. But I'm afraid that he'd be flashing back to all the times he saw me talking to other guys and giving myself a manicure or something, and wonder where my hands really were when I was talking dirty to him ;) .

I thought she was very good. FWIW, my phone sex days are the only times I personally have ever faked it.

Okay, here's how the system worked: at the start of my shift, I'd call in and let the operators know I was ready. They'd clock me in. When a call came, they'd patch it through to me; when the call was over (even if it took the full time the guy had bought), I'd call the office and let them know I was free again; break times worked the same way. Also, if I needed to go to the bathroom or something. When my shift was over, I'd call to clock out.

As for visitors, because of the hours I worked, not too much. Sometimes my neice would come by (she was an adult, don't worry) to keep me company between calls. In fact, I often had a really hard time keeping a straight face when she was there, because I'd be on a call, and she'd be sitting on the sofa cracking up (quietly).

I knew someone was gonna ask; boy, you guys never disappoint! Okay, you work up a good bit of saliva in your mouth, part your lips, but keep your teeth together, and use your forefinger to move up and down rapidly across your teeth; voila, wet pussy.

Ok...I just tried that. It sounded more like fart noises! LOL!
Guess I'd better not quit my day job. :D

Bambi??? Is that you??

;)

Did you use a sexy fake name?
If so... what?

norinew -

Thanks for your response. Can I ask why you quit?

Regards,
Shodan

What did your kids think mom's job was? Or were they too young to notice?

Well, my phone name was Tonya. Don't know how "sexy" that is. For obvious reasons, we never used our real names, or really told folks what city we lived in.

Well, my oldest kids were getting old enough that I was no longer guaranteed privacy at night; plus we had a third kid; plus hubby got a job with good enough pay to support us all without me having to work.

As far as they were concerned, I worked for a 24-hour-phone answering service; not a lie, exactly; but certainly not the whole truth. ;)

You talked about salary. Did you receive any kind of benefits?

You still talk to former clients?

The only benefit we got was our birthday off with pay; hubby's job had health insurance.

Only one; once I left my compny, I wrangled to keep one specific client. I talk to him several times a year (sometimes as many as ten times a year). He calls my home, and sends me cash ($100.00 an hour). Sometimes, between calls, he calls just to see how I am. Once when he called to talk to me, hubby told him I was in the hospital, and he called me in the hospital from freakin' Spain and talked to me for 40 minutes. I've no idea how much a long-distance 40 minute call from Spain costs! I've known him for over 10 years.

How did they keep you from taking your best clients and going independent?

We signed a contract saying we wouldn't. But when I told the client in question I was leaving (let's call him Gary), he told me he wouldn't talk to anyone else. I told him there was nothing I could do about that; I did however, offer to send him a photograph (not really of me, of course), and when I sent him the photo, I sent him a number I could be reached at, too. I'm sure the company would have been very angry, and I'm not trying to justify my actions, but I really was going to be leaving anyway, and the fact that he was willing to pay me $100.00 an hour vs. paying them $85.00 and hour (price breaks for larger chunks of time) says something. He also calls me by my real name now, and I've seen him on TV.

norinew, thank you for starting this thread. I find people's stories of how they got involved in sexually-related professions so interesting.

A couple of questions more: Are you fairly outspoken sexually in your day-to-day life, or do you tend to me more demure?

What did your husband think of your initial foray into the biz?

I don't know anything about the Baha'i faith, so this is a question from total ignorance. Is your faith okay with this sort of employment?

Does he know that the picture was a fake? Has he seen a real picture of you? Does he know you're married? Has he ever talked about meeting in person? What does your husband think about your "relationship" with him?

My questions: Did you ever get hung up on what to say? Did you run out of ideas, especially in the beginning? I know I would.

Did you have a battery-operated "toy" handy in case your clients wanted make sure you weren't just playing solitaire or what have you? You know like, "Let me hear your vibrator..."

By the way, this is a great thread!

Did you ever get any phone calls that ended quickly? i.e. five minute Phils or two minute Tonys?

I always wondered how you began a call like this. It seems so awkward, like..

*ring* "Hi Tony, do you want to fuck me?" or do you start out with more of a general, "Hi there, how're YOU doing?" type greeting?

I'm very outspoken, and quite adventurous. My husband never has to guess if he's doing something right or wrong with me, cuz I'll just tell him.

He knew it for what it was, and was totally cool with it.

Well, again, looking at it from a viewpoint of being an actress, I personally don't see a problem with it. IMHO, God made us sexual creatures. I don't have a moral dilemma with it. Now that's not to say that every Baha'i you asked would agree; this particular situation is not addressed in our Holy Book. :D

Yeah, he knows the pics were a model; I've never sent him real pics of myself, but he does a lot of high security kind of work, and knows lots of folks. My guess is that if he really wanted to find out what I look like, he would. He's never talked about a real meeting in person (for now) because he knows I'm totally devoted to my husband and would never cheat on him (not only does he know I'm married, but recognizes my husband's voice and both of my older daughter's voices on the phone, and is very cordial to them). He has said, however, that if anything ever happens to my husband, he hopes I would consider him an option. Hey, the dude has a 9,000 sq. ft. house in Tampa and a yacht; a girl could do worse ;) . He's not bad looking, either.
MY husband is cool with the relationship because, for one thing, it pays well; for another thing, he trusts me 100%.

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I wasn't so good at first. That's why I started reading porno mags. In fact, I'd make notes of really good stuff sometimes.

Absolutely!

Very few of the guys who called lasted the entire call; most of the time when the guy took the whole block of time, it was because it was someone I'd developed a rapport with, and we'd chat. Some of them were really extreme, though, like, under two minutes.

Well, generally I'd ask them their name, where they were from, etc. and then put the ball in their court by saying "Do you have any questions for me?" If their first question was "how big are your tits?" I knew they wanted to get right down to business. If it was something like "So, are you a student?" I knew they wanted to chat first.

Thanks for a very interesting thread. I've never understood the phone-sex thing (I had one girlfriend who used to want to do it, so I played along while doing other things; I can't understand wanting to pay for it), but y'know, whatever turns people's cranks, it's their business.

You say you got an indication of what the guy (or whoever) wanted to do from your dispatch operator when the call was transferred. Any miscommunications? Y'know, where you say, "Okay, I'm peeing on you now," and the guy says, "Wait, what? I don't want that!" and you say, "Oh, um, okay, never mind. Let me tell you about my tits again," or whatever.Were you actually listening to them finish? Would they stay on the line while they climaxed? Or was it a matter of getting them all worked up and then they'd say, "Okay thanks bye" so they could orgasm alone? I know there's probably a range; which was more common?I don't expect you to have an answer for this, but I wonder if the recent Supreme Court decisions about "virtual" child porn, where no actual child is involved, being protected by free speech might have caused this to change.

Well, I can't really recall anything like that. I was also never really that blunt about it; for instance, if the operator told me he was into water sports, I probably would have talked to him for a few minutes and then said something like "Boy, I've been drinking coffee all evening! I really have to pee" and gauge his reaction.

Not really a range. They pretty much stayed on the phone until they reached climax; some of them were very vocal about it, some would just hang up when they were finished, some were kind of like, "Okay, I'm done. Bye!"

You're right, I can't answer this. I will say that even if this rule changed, the company would probably still give the girls a choice whether to participate, like they did with rape fantasies.

This is fascinating.


Have you ever had someone call for dirty talk and find out you recognize his voice? Or he recognized yours?

Well, we got calls from all over the country, so you can see the odds of this happening would be miniscule; no, that never happened.

So, did you have a regular assigned shift, or did you just have to be available for calls a certain number of hours per week?

Where was the company located?

Did your employer ever monitor your calls? I would assume they would have some random monitoring so you never knew when you would be monitored? Or maybe they jsut didn't care that much?

Regular shift; 9PM to 5AM, five days a week; I wasn't on calls the whole eight hours, but I was available the whole eight hours ('cept for breaks) and got paid for the whole eight hours.

The office was located just north of Baltimore.

Calls were randomly monitored, for training (we did training calls with a trainer afterwards, where the trainer would give us advice on how to improve our performance) and to make sure we weren't breaking rules. And right, you never knew you were monitored until after the fact.

This *is* incredibly interesting. I'd met one person, very briefly, who did this in her spare time and I couldn't have ever imagined asking these type of things. So, thank you for dispelling some of my ignorance.

My question is (and please forgive me if this sounds silly or presumptious)....

But did any of it ever feel degrading or was the idea of 'acting' overriding any distasteful thoughts? I'm assuming, along with the rape fantasies, it would be up to your discrestion on what kinds of conversations to follow through. Along that thinking, was there ever desires to discuss necrophilia from your clients? Or other activities that would be illegal? Like climaxing during a murder or something.

And no, I promise my daydreams are a LOT more vanilla. With a bit of praline thrown in, of course. :) However, attitudes like the above would scare the crap out of me and make me hesitate to even try it, let alone continue if I encountered such. The flip side is though, I suppose if they were *just* talking about it, it perhaps could prevent the need for any action. I'd hope. What do you think?

~Thanks again!

Care to give us a breakdown of the topics of the 25% of calls that weren't straight S&F calls? Past those basics, what stuff did you encounter the most?