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.
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?
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.
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.
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 .
).