Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (28 page)

The great thing about this particular job is that our boss is very understanding, unlike what I’ve heard about other places. She doesn’t make us do any calls if we have a good reason that we don’t want to do a call. . . . With this job, I think a lot of people want to be here because it’s a pretty positive environment. So, even though it’s the money that keeps me working here, it’s a supportive, wonderful environment—like a sisterhood.

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Several positive experiences were noted by the workers, including making a decent income, plus perks, gifts, and camaraderie. Several workers also stated that their attitudes towards sexuality—theirs and others—became more liberated as a result of the work.

Positive experiences with callers, however, were mentioned less frequently than negative experiences. Many workers reported that they lost respect for men as a result of the job. While workers reported with pride that doctors and lawyers call the line, they labeled a lot of callers “pathetic” and “losers.” Spice said there were a lot of “pussy boys” and “whiners” who were passive and complainers. At the same time, she reported that many callers were “nice, sweet, sensitive guys who were lonely, desperate, or shy.” Elle believed that men who turn to the sex industry for sexual gratification are usually “looking at porno magazines, looking at videos. It’s amazing to me how much time and money and effort these guys spend on their penises.”36

Challenging Heteronormativity

Women rarely called the agency, and when they did, workers’ reactions differed significantly from their reactions to male callers. Generally, the work took place in a heteronormative environment, although a worker’s own sexual orientation influenced whether she was comfortable taking calls from female callers. For example, Debbi said: “I’m not bisexual, so I tend to shy away from those. . . . And I did have a woman the first time the other day and I talked to her. It was a bit freaky. That’s not my orientation.” Annette said that when women call the agency as customers, most of the heterosexual operators do not want to take the call. She said: “We’ve gotten three or four calls from women.

Another [operator] said, ‘Oh my gosh, you have to do this call. It’s a woman.

No one else wants to do it.’ I said, ‘Whoa, a woman!’”

Annette’s reactions toward female callers indicate a sense of ethics not always directed toward male callers. She said:

They’re very sweet calls—I like those calls. But if I had to have women calls all the time, then it’d be an upsetting job because these women are lonely, or I’m lying to this woman and I wouldn’t want to do that.

In contrast to Annette, Olga said her female callers act “just like men,”

though Olga conceded that with calls from women she was “uncomfortable at first” but generally they are “nicer than your average guy calls.”

In terms of phone sex calls from couples, which were as rare as the calls from women, respondents’ reactions ranged from “funny” and “satisfying” to
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“usually a disaster.” Several operators said they would solicit the other woman’s consent to the fantasy before embarking on the call. Similar to the operators’

reactions to women as sole callers, the operators expressed concern for a woman’s wellbeing during couples’ calls as well.

D E A L I N G W ITH D A N G E R: SYM B O L I C V I O L E N C E

Sex workers experience some combination of real and symbolic violence in their work; and the disembodied nature of phone sex work does not prevent workers from experiencing psychological violence.37 As in Flowers’ study, callers with interests in rape fantasies, other violent sex, bestiality, and incest were common. The operators at this agency are provided a list of the types of call they can refuse, and they had much latitude in accepting or refusing them.

Most of the respondents had negative feelings about these calls; however, there was variability in how workers responded to callers’ requests for sexual violence.38 Olga attempts to discourage callers from requesting distasteful fantasies, while Hannah simply refuses calls involving torture, mutilation, or children. Chrissy said:

We don’t have to do rape calls, incest calls, or animal calls. Rape calls bother me immensely. I cannot do them anymore. . . . I’ve had guys say, “I’m going to fuck your ass and you’re a fucking whore and I’m gonna make your ass bleed.” I don’t do those calls.

In contrast, Gretchen said she rarely refuses callers, except those who request mutilation, torture, and murder, which she labeled “pathological.” She does, however, accept rape calls and does not consider them to be pathological.

Gretchen said she will also embellish the rape fantasies: “I’m very good at those. I give them what they want. I also throw in those extra details they might not have thought about.” Regarding a particular caller who had been requesting dismemberment fantasies from several of the operators, Spice said: I hate “Mr. Mutilation.” Wants to cut my head off. He’s big into kidnapping, dungeons. He says it’s not real and that he is just curious. I don’t know. I hate it, but at least I figure if he is talking to me he is not out there really doing it.

Debbi also indulged a caller who regularly requests mutilation fantasies.

She gave an off-tape description of a 1-hour long call during which she instructed him to use magazine photos of women and a pair of scissors—his
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arousal came from cutting off one body part at a time. She explained that she took his call because “no one else wanted him.” Debbi also said she accepts these calls despite not really wanting to do them. She said: I do a lot of little girl calls because I have a certain voice that I can get into. And I have many callers who call and request that from me. Usually I try to steer away from it because I do not want to do the child molestation calls. . . . Usually they start off pretty normal, but then they’ll say, “Call me daddy.” . . . And they try to justify it by saying, “Oh she’s just starting to become a woman and I like that.” They do their best to justify it so they don’t feel like perverts.

Additionally, several of the operators expressed concern that taking calls involving sexual fantasies with children might influence callers to continue requesting more of these types of call or to actually carry out their fantasies.

A few of the operators said there were times when during a phone sex call they could hear children in the background, or the caller puts someone who sounds like a child on the phone. The operators usually respond by hanging up on the caller, or telling the caller that they refuse to do a phone sex call with children nearby.

Phone Sex Operators as Educators and Therapists

There is the belief that women in sex industry are providing some positive, educational service to men, including preventing men from committing violent sexual acts against other women and children.39 Many of our respondents engage in what could be considered subversive “acts of resistance”

against objectionable callers. Chrissy, for example, uses a “good touch–bad touch” response during her “little girl” calls to demonstrate the wrongfulness of adult sexual contact with children. When a caller says to her, “You know I’m going to touch you,” she responds with a high-pitched voice, “My mommy taught me about good touch and bad touch. That’s bad touch, and I’m going to tell my mommy.”

Other workers viewed this aspect of their work as “community service,”

meaning that they hoped to send a message to callers that certain sexual fantasies and practices were unacceptable or immoral. Olga explained how she responds to these callers:

I won’t go any younger than 15. . . . So anytime anybody wants to fuck a child, I always try to say, “It’s just a fantasy and you’d never actually do anything like
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that, right?” . . . And I’ll make them explain to me why they would never really do something like that.

Another type of community service involves instructing callers that a real phone sex operator does not match the stereotype of a brainless, sex-crazed woman masturbating during the call. Some of the respondents believed they are educating men about women’s sexuality. This “education” resembles the “therapy” some sex workers also say they provide to male consumers.40

Annette wanted men to care about women’s bodies and women’s pleasure: If the guy doesn’t care about female orgasm, if the guy says he doesn’t like to eat pussy . . . that probably gets me more than anything does. I go on with these guys, “Do you know that the clitoris is like the sexual counterpart of the male blah blah blah?” So many callers could[n’t] care less about female orgasms.

Clearly, phone sex workers felt that the callers influenced their lives—not just financially but also in terms of how they viewed their own real-life relationships and how they viewed men in general. Workers tended to report an improvement in their own sexual lives (although they noted obstacles to forming new, or long-lasting romantic relationships due to the stigmatized nature of the job). But they also expressed distaste for the men’s regular interest in rape, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality. Operators also viewed as

“idiotic” callers who phone when children, a spouse, or an employer is nearby.41 Finally, workers felt that the men were “putty in [their] hands,” and for some this perception bolstered their self-esteem and sense of empowerment. As Pepper said: “I used to get trampled over by men. Now I know they’re just stupid.”

C O N C L U S I O N

This analysis of the world of phone sex points to several important findings.

First, phone sex workers have developed sophisticated methods of impression management. Being in a stigmatized profession, the workers have learned techniques to conceal or misrepresent the nature of their employment to family, friends, and new employers who may disapprove of the nature of the work. These methods include lying, maintaining friendships with others in deviant subcultures (who might aid in corroborating cover stories), and maintaining clear boundaries between home and work.

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Second, this study notes the particular ways in which workers are able to maintain self-esteem while working in a deviant job. One way in which phone sex operators reconcile their work with their identity is to view the job in exclusively economic terms. Thus the women may note that though the job may be at times distasteful, the pay is excellent, the hours are flexible, and there are other benefits, such as gifts. Another way self-esteem is maintained is for the worker to distance herself from other types of sex worker, who have physical contact with customers and who risk AIDS, beatings, and arrest. The phone sex operator frequently notes that no “real” sex ever occurs.

Third, this research sheds light on workers’ perceptions of the callers and the callers’ treatment of the workers. A number of women were disturbed by the violence and degradation in some of the men’s calls—fantasies that include rape, dismemberment or mutilation, sex with animals, and child molestation.

As in other forms of sex work, even longtime workers report days in which a particular man has said or done something troubling to the worker. The workers report having learned much about the nature of male sexuality, in terms of fantasies and insecurities. These types of call are frequently noted as a negative aspect of the workplace and are often a challenge to the worker’s willingness to do the job. Callers are often perceived as “idiotic,” “silly,”

“typically male,” or as completely enslaved to their sexual desires. While most callers are viewed negatively, occasionally a worker will experience a caller who has had a positive effect on her. Being called by doctors, lawyers, business executives, and professors can help to reinforce a worker’s identity as a skilled, talented employee, as well as a person who is valued by powerful, educated, and wealthy people.

Finally, the fact that at this agency all the workers and the boss are women had a powerful effect on the employees. In an occupation in which employees are frequently subjected to degrading male comments, the opportunity to work in an all-female environment was viewed positively. The workers benefit from the bonding and support they receive from their coworkers at the agency, and they view the company owner as a role model—a strong, intelligent woman who has created a successful business in a male-dominated world.

Several workers reported they have learned more about the ways a business works, and that they aspire to run their own business someday. Still others said they are treated with respect by the owner and could never again work for a male boss.

These working conditions, coupled with the financial rewards of the job, present a challenge to theorists who argue that sex work is inherently oppressive and demeaning to the workers.

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N OTE S

1. The abundance of phone sex advertisements on the Internet indicates that this type of sexual commerce has not decreased in recent years.

Commercial phone sex ads in print and on the Internet are primarily of young, white women who are nude or semi-nude, and sometimes shown engaging in sex with men or other women. These photographs are designed to entice callers and to communicate the types of phone sex calls available. These ads also assist the callers in visually constructing their conversational partner. Kira Hall, “Lip Service on the Fantasy Lines,” in Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz, eds.,
Gender Articulated: Language and the
Socially Constructed Self
, New York: Routledge, 1995, p. 188.

2. “Heavy Breathing,”
The Economist
332 (1994): 64. According to Lane, annual revenues generated by commercial telephone sex can reach up to $1 billion, with up to half of that amount going to long-distance carriers.

Frederick S. Lane,
Obscene Profits
, New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 151.