A Look In The Lives Of Phone Sex Operators

A look at what phone sex operators look like as well as their desires, fears, motivations and most memorable calls from Philip Toledano Phone Sex project whose new book will be published in July 2008 by Twin Palms. The book interviews nearly 30 phone sex operators so that we can hear their stories during their work in the phone sex industry.

My first night, there was a gentleman who called himself Bob.

He explained that he had no one he felt comfortable telling his desires to, and

I felt a strange intimacy between us.

I think it’s easier to release repressed desires to a non-judgmental, fictional person, because there are no consequences in the outside world.

When I first started I was nervous.

But after a while, I guess you could say the kinkier the talk, the more I was like, wow!

Let’s just say I have found myself and my sexuality through this.

I got into phone sex because I thought:

‘Why not get paid for talking dirty, instead of doing it for free?’

It brings up my self-esteem up so much, knowing guys are looking at my pics and wanting to talk to me.

Wanting me to take them to a whole other place, fulfilling their fantasies. Painting that picture in their mind for them.

I got into working as a PSO about five years ago.

Before I did this I was working part-time in a doctor’s office and was very unhappy with my work, and my home life. I was in an abusive relationship and had no way in the foreseeable future of getting out.

Then a regular customer of mine sent me a very nice tip, and along with my income tax refund, I was able to relocate and terminate that abusive relationship.

If I didn’t work this job…I could have been killed by that man.

I struggle and I don’t make a huge income here.

But I survive, and I help my children when they need it.

I feel I’m doing a huge service, because any man can call and act out just about any fantasy with me, and not have to worry about repercussions. I think being able to do this is good for them, as well as me.

I’m 60 years old, I have a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University, and I’ve been married for 25 years.

I make twice the money I made in the corporate world.

I work from home; the money transfers into my bank account daily.

I’m Scheherazade: If I don’t tell stories that fascinate the pasha, he will kill me in the morning.

I never thought I would work in the phone sex industry.

All those years doing customer service, my customers would comment on my sexy voice.

I thought I was being professional, not sexy.

This work is customer service too.

But your customers leave with more than a smile.

I was young when I started in the phone sex world. I had no choice.

My grandmother had gotten sick and I needed to be able to help her, and still work and make good money.

I was reading the paper looking for a night job, and I saw a job as a train conductor. I thought to myself, ‘rats!’ Then I saw an ad saying ‘Make good money as a phone sex operator,’ and well, I’m scared of rats, so ding!

As a virgin, it was hard for me to talk about sex to horny men.

I had to read books and watch porno films with my friends—they’d point at something on the screen and say ‘Use that in your phone calls!’

To the caller, when I first answer, I am the inanimate Barbie.

I breathe life into the fantasy, I carve the doll out of flesh.

I do not view myself as this doll, as the commodity.

I am the manufacturer who creates her from the blueprint that the caller provides me.

When the caller comes, it is positive feedback.

Like an architect patting his contractor on the back.

One of my most memorable calls was also one of the grossest.

It was a fetish call. A scat fetish.

I started out by telling him I was a vegan.

I cracked him up. He was laughing so hard, he had to hang up because he couldn’t get back into our fantasy.

The people who touched my heart were the ones who stood out.

There was Jonny in Boston. He and his wife were trying to get pregnant.

He was calling from a fertility clinic because the magazines he was given weren’t working for him.

He ended up calling regularly even after his daughter was born.

Definitely the most amusing part about the job was when my partner would be in the room with me, usually reading while I worked.

She’d only hear my half of the conversation, so she’d either think it was absolutely hysterical or, sometimes, kind of sexy.

I’d usually try to avoid eye contact with her during a call, because I’d see her stifling a smirk and I’d start laughing uncontrollably.

Sometimes I could work that into the call; other times I really couldn’t.

Just last night I received possibly the most disturbing phone sex call I’d had in a long time.

A caller shot himself with me on the phone.

Things like this always scare me.

My current track record stands at one confession of incestuous sexual abuse, and two other suicides.