Portraits of Phone Sex Operators by Phillip Toledano
Feb 28, 2010
“I am a straight male who speaks to women. They want me. They want me to talk to them, and to take them to another world. I’m good at it. I’m a pro. A ladies man. I speak to younger women. I speak to older women. I speak both Spanish and English. I have been thrown offers left and right. They want me to meet up and have my way with them, but I keep it only to phone conversations.”
“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. It’s just your customers leave with more than a smile.”
“My first night was on a Saturday at midnight. It was a gentleman who I believe called himself Bob. He told me about his first experience with a glory hole. He explained that he had no one he felt comfortable telling this to, and I felt a strange intimacy between us, though it was rooted in a fantasy. I think it’s easier to release repressed desires to a non-judgmental, fictional person, because there are no consequences in the outside world.”
“Gary was watching a ‘World’s Strongest Women’ show and saw a woman pick up a motorcycle.
‘Oh I could do that,’ I offered.
‘Could you?’ he responded, breathless.
‘Yes. How much do you weigh?’
‘160.’
‘Oh. I could bench-press two of you.’
‘Oh my god… I’d like to see you lift up my girlfriend’s car.’
‘What kind of car does she have?’
‘A Mazda Miata.’
‘Oh yes, I could pick up a Miata. In fact, I would love to.’
‘Really?!?!??! Oh my god! What if my girlfriend was inside?’
‘I would just pick it up, lift it to my shoulder level, and then hoist it up over my head, with your girlfriend inside. I’d slowly turn around in a circle with it held up in the air, with your girlfriend screaming in the front seat.’”
A part of me may miss getting paid for this when I move on.
“One of my most memorable calls was also one of the grossest. It was a fetish cat. A scat fetish. Most times I would aggravate the caller into hanging up by refusing to talk ‘shit’ with him, but this night I was feeling frisky. So I indulged in his request and gave him the shittiest call ever. I started out by telling him I was a vegan. After several minutes of conversation he gently asked if I could ‘go’ while we were on the phone, and I told him I could. He wanted to hear it coming out, farts and all. (So gross.) Then he wanted to eat it and clean me. While describing how soft and colorful it was, I told him there was a piece of asparagus that I apparently did not chew too well. Naturally, I asked him to get it for me. I cracked him up. He was laughing so hard, he had to hang up, because he couldn’t get back into our fantasy.”
“I’m 60 years old, have a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University, and married for 25 years. I have a son in his last years of college who lives at home. He’s a 4.0 with a double major in English Literature and Religion. Men call me for an infinity of reasons. Of course, they call to masturbate. I call it “Executive Stress Relief.” It’s not sex; it’s a cocktail of testosterone, fueled by addiction to pornography, loneliness, and the need to hear a woman’s voice. 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 Scheherezade: If I don’t tell stories that fascinate the Pasha, he will kill me in the morning.”
“To the caller, when I first answer, I am the inanimate Barbie. They do not know what I look like, who I am or how I feel. They can only imagine. It is my job to indulge their fantasies, to convince them that I am not a doll. I am their dream turned real. I view every question the caller asks me as a command for me to transform. If they ask if I am blonde, I become a blonde. If they ask how wet I am, I tell them that my panties are drenched. I respond to every sound the caller makes with an affirmation, I encourage them, I breathe life into their 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.”
