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My Phone Sex Secrets

53 replies

allthegoodnamesweretaken · 12/03/2012 22:25

Anyone watching this?
Can't help but think these women are slightly deluded. To me it seems like the show is trying to show them as empowered women because they are taking advantage of men's weaknesses for financial gain, when to me phone sex work is still sex work. You're still degraded for a man who you have no emotional connection with's sexual gratification.
Agree? Disagree?

OP posts:
Archemedes · 12/03/2012 22:33

I think its more about boosting their self esteem for wrong/right reasons.

carernotasaint · 12/03/2012 22:34

I did this for a living between 2001 and 2003. I was on New Deal at the time. They had ALREADY made me work 3 months for my JSA. One month in a charity shop. Two months at local council.
There was no job at the end so i was referred back to the Job Centre,signed on normally for one month and then those bastard providers at Reed/Pelcombe wanted me to work for ANOTHER 3 months at Campbells soup factory for my JSA.
Theres your back story.
I saw a job in a sex chatline office advertised in local classifieds. It paid £12.000 a year and it was night work but it was a choice between that or workfare. Ive done workfare and ive done chatline work and guess what. Out of those two choices which were the ONLY two choices i had at that time,it wasnt the chatline that i found degrading.

Helenfellows33 · 12/03/2012 22:36

if men are stupid enough to pay for dirty chat let them. its not like these women are putting themselves at risk in anyway. apart from maybe losing your voice.

MardyBra · 12/03/2012 23:40

I was watching it while pottering around. What was sad was how the women's attitudes seemed to be so jaded. The woman in her 20s had to choose between career and relationships and ultimately gave it up. The older woman had had relationships break down because partners couldn't cope with what she did and was quite lonely. And I felt sorry for the rookie student who probably didn't really know what she was letting herself in for.

The only one who seemed truly sorted was a rural Hampshire couple, mainly because she wasn't working the lines any more and just exploiting employing other women instead.

attheendoftheday · 12/03/2012 23:43

I don't think it's as simple as that. I think that anything that contributes to the idea that sex workers are happy empowered women comfortably profitting from the situation is harmful to the majority of sex workers in abusive, dangerous and desperate situations.

mycatsaysach · 12/03/2012 23:47

hmmmmmmm i know someone who does this in rl and has tried to recruit me (never in a million million years)
i think the programme is far too light and jokey in tone - the makers obv made it this way for a reason
the reality i suspect is different for many - £10 a time to demean yourself - no thanks and

if you don't see it that way then you are demeaning the men who call which is a weird concept tbh - that must affect your view of the male sex?
they could have made a very different programme

mycatsaysach · 12/03/2012 23:48

yy atthendoftheday - its sexworkers-lite innit?

rubyrubyruby · 13/03/2012 16:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

inoutshakeitallabout · 13/03/2012 16:52

as someone who works in the industry, the show was not realistic, the women would not have lasted other than to work for themselves (mummy breast WTF! going round tesco and having ur mates laughing behind- so not ok)

and the money quoted, two words, bull shit

all are on a site that is more for escorts/prostitutes, that the men then rate after it, like ebay

now that is degrading!

solidgoldbrass · 14/03/2012 01:06

I have done a lot of phone sex work but haven't seen this TV programme.
I don't find phone sex work 'degrading' in the least. Most of my callers have been pleasant people, in many cases simply lonely. And yes, lonely for sex as well as company. It is more difficult for an older man to find a sexual partner than for a younger one -well its difficult for an older person to find a sexual partner, end of (and when I say older I mean over-60s, I'm 47 myself). Some of the callers I have had have been ill, disabled or housebound.

Of course, some of them have been rude dickheads, but every job that involves dealing with the public is going to lead to some exposure to rude dickheads. I am not arguing that phone sex work is a job that everyone should do; if you find the idea revolting you will be crap at it. But it is risk-free work, and something you can do at home while the DC are sleeping, and if the money isn't enormous it's better than a lot of the work-from-home con jobs.

Nyac · 14/03/2012 09:28

It's basically paying women to accept abusive dirty phone calls from men.

It would be damaging to most women's psyches.

Did they show the men involved and the kind of things they say to women?

solidgoldbrass · 14/03/2012 09:55

Nyac i have actually done this work so I think in this case I have a better idea than you do about what the phone calls consist of. Talking about sex to someone who has agreed to engage in the conversation is not abusive.

JaneMare · 14/03/2012 09:59

i didn't watch the whole programme, but i felt really sad for the woman who was shopping for fruit and veg and 'wholesome' food to eat to cleanse herself from the work she was doing

really saddened that she felt deep down it was wrong, but still felt it was her only option for work

solidgoldbrass · 14/03/2012 10:04

Bear in mind that, as with any programme about 'real' people, those who appear will have been carefully selected by the programme makers to match the 'story' they already have in their heads. The footage will also have been carefully edited as well (yes, more voice of bitter experience here).

It's not a job that would suit everyone, of course, but it can be a bit of fun and a source of extra income. And it's totally safe, you are not 'yourself', you are being some fantasy persona you've created, it's more of a game than anything.

Nyac · 14/03/2012 10:05

Tell us what the phone calls consist of then SGB.

You're not talking about sex are you as if it was an abstract conversation. Isn't the guy normally saying what he'd like to to do to your body, or what he's pretending to do to your body, and you play along with the fantasy.

I know the contents of dirty phone calls and I don't think these are much different. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.

Nyac · 14/03/2012 10:05

Also I have had dirty phone calls with men wanking on the other end of the line and they are disgusting. Who wants to listen to a stranger doing that. It's not like any other service job.

solidgoldbrass · 14/03/2012 10:11

Yup, that's a fairly common type of call. But there's nothing wrong with that. If a man was ringing up random women and telling them what he would like to do to them, that would be abusive, but engaging in a fantasy chat with a consenting professional is totally harmless. By 'dirty' phone calls, do you mean calls made to random numbers in the hope that a woman will answer? Men who make that sort of call don't expect or want the random woman who answers the phone to play out their fantasy about having sex in a lift or whatever, the intention in that situation is to cause her distress, so it's a different thing altogether.
I also write erotic fiction and regard phone sex as pretty similar - telling a paying customer a story, playing a part.
Some callers want to hear about the operator's best sexual experiences, for instance - up to me whether I decide to tell them a story about something I actually did, or just something I might like to do. Some want advice. Some really just want someone to talk to, because they are lonely.

colditz · 14/03/2012 10:12

i'D DO IT. i DON'T THINK MY BOYFRIEND WOULD BE COMFORTABLE WITH ME DOING IT, WHICH IS WHY i SHAN'T, BUT CERTAINLY IT'S NO MORE DEGRADING THAT CLEANING UP HUMAN SHIT FOR £4.20 AN HOUR, WHICH IS WHATi WAS DOING IN 2004.

colditz · 14/03/2012 10:14

But Nyac, the bloke's never seen, nor will ever see, your body. He's not talking about your body, because it's not YOUR body he's picturing. You're basically a voice over for whatever is going on in his head. I could think of many worse ways to earn money.

solidgoldbrass · 14/03/2012 10:19

Nyac: If you have had abusive calls from men wanking down the phone at you (ie when you had not undertaken to recieve such calls as your job) then it's understandable that you find the idea horrific. But the man who rings a phone sex line knows he is getting a willing participant on the other end of the line, and that's what he wants, not a furious, frightened and disgusted stranger.

JuliaScurr · 14/03/2012 10:27

I notice someone's justified this shit by reference to the 'needs' of disabled men. Again.
I'm a disabled woman with a 12yr old dd. What about our needs? Mine - to not be desexualised by views ofdisability that range from 'triumph over tragedy' to 'benefit scrounger', hers to develop her sexuality free from the constraints of a commercial industry pandering to male ego.

JaneMare · 14/03/2012 10:30

how does it make it ok if it's not your body the caller is wanking over?

to take your 'explaination' to the extreme, you are enabling him to objectify his 'perfect' woman even more then, surely?

one that will never exist, he knows this, you know this, but carry on taking his money while he 'searches his mind' for 'her'?

Nyac · 14/03/2012 10:32

You're still a real person with real ears having to hear the sexual abuse a real brain processing what's said and a real voice having to respond.

Promoting dissociation to deal with male sexual abuse of women is not a good thing.

Calls like this from a stranger if you're not being paid for it are illegal. Just because he's got a wallet doens't make what he's doing OK.

Nyac · 14/03/2012 10:33

P.S. They deserve to be lonely SGB. But more likely there's a wife or girlfriend in the background who has no idea what they are up to.

CardgamesFTW · 14/03/2012 10:52

I don't get this. So any sort of gross man can call you and you have to pretend liking it and getting aroused by whatever crap he is saying? How can anyone bring themselves to do that instead of making fun of the guy or start swearing at him.
Can you "say no" to a man who is being too disturbing?