Samaritans and sex calls

[ahumanfemale]

Not a TAAT but I saw elsewhere multiple mentions of the abundance of sex calls that The Samaritans receives.

I used to volunteer for a similar helpline. It was abroad and for English-speaking people. We too had regular sex callers. All - ALL - would only talk to female volunteers. I thought it was because we were a small-scale charity and it was cheaper to call us than any 0800 equivalent. It wasn't until just now that I realised our helpline wasn't unique in this. And the majority of ours were either wearing women's clothes - or fantasising about it. The underwear of underage teens was also a feature. Some clearly got off on trying to make us uncomfortable. They didn't realise we weren't uncomfortable, just bored.

And honestly, I'm fucking angry. This needs to be publicised. There are LITERALLY men out think their wank is more important than people in severe distress getting help. They LITERALLY put having a wank above someone not committing suicide. There are enough of them that The Samaritans includes their calls in its training, as our training did too.

And people - women - think these men won't go into mixed sex changing rooms and won't get thrills from making women uncomfortable and won't use their conversations to wank to either in situ or later?

The policy at my helpline changed and we were able to put the phone down on them after confirming they weren't in distress (as in they kept wanking and talking out their fantasy or whatever, rather than respond to us). This was done because someone pointed out it was abusive to expect female volunteers to be wank-fodder. I've no idea what their policy is now or what The Samaritans' policy is.

I'm disgusted that this is so common. And fwiw, we never had female sex callers.

*It’s not a Christian/religious organisation at all btw8

No, but it was founded by a member of the clergy, wasn't it?

Yes, it was founded by a CofE clergyman, Rev Chad Varah. But it's not a Christian charity. I think they'd rebrand if they could, but everyone knows Samaritans are the suicide people, so...

Having read through this thread this morning - and been taken by surprise at the number of ex volunteers, and others, recounting just how much of a problem these sexually motivated calls are, I asked one of my sons, who has worked on a help line for a major housing association, if he, or more specifically any of the women on his team had ever experienced this , he said " Yes"!. It is/was the women who reported this.

He says they receive calls from people who have been "banned" from Samaritan lines.

Back in the 70s I worked at a television station. Every year in January the holiday ads would start and I would dread it, because I had the job of going through the answerphone hotline each morning to take numbers of people wanting holiday brochures.

Of course a huge number of messages were from men obviously wanking while relating their fantasies. It sickened me that as a 19 year old I had to listen to this vile stuff every morning. My boss was horrified when I told him what I had to listen to, and arranged for the calls to go direct to the companies concerned.

I used to get a surprising number of these when I worked for a vehicle hire firm (yes, really !)

One particular caller became very persistent. He always asked for a quote for a particular type of car, and asked very detailed questions about the excess, insurance etc. while wanking

Management took it very seriously and after speaking to the police asked us to keep a log of the dates and times of the calls, and he was eventually found and prosecuted.

I remember swapping tips with a colleague on the best ways to spoil his fun, which included putting him on hold, or passing the phone to a male colleague. My favourite one was to pretend that the type of vehicle he wanted was not available and start to enthusiastically describe our available range of large vans; that used to actually make him angry because it didn't fit his script

We later found out that he had been targeting our competitors in the same way.

At least he wasn't wasting volunteers' t time, but as much as I tried to not let it affect me, and try and take the power back by killing his mood, it did make me feel used and I was relieved when he was arrested.

*Sams do not advise or give their opinions or own ideas, at all. The technique is called ‘active listening’ - asking questions, reacting/empathising, reflecting back what the caller has said, etc. Done well it makes a very natural conversation giving the caller the space to express all their thoughts and feelings, explore their options and come to their own conclusions about what to do next8

I've had training in counselling and psychotherapy and recognise what you are saying - but I would also have thought that on being confronted with a suicidal person my instinct would be not just to listen to their death wish/urge/pain/appeal, but also, at some point, to provide some life affirming suggestion or possibility of hope?

Springfern.

The prison I work in has trained by Samitarians trusted prisoners who other prisoners can request a cell visit 24/7 .
Prisoners can only telephone people (usually family, close friends ) that have been veted. They do not have access to be allowed to telephone anyone not on their permitted list.
From my prison perspective , I'm wondering if the ones that phoned you just said made up they were prisoners to get an extra thrill .

justhadathought, the SAMS borrow a lot from Carl Roger's Person-Centred theory, but without the challenge that Rogers would have been comfortable with.

I went for an interview with SAMS last year, and we were forewarned about the sex calls. Ultimately, both that and a few other factors led to me turning down the position, but it did lead me to wondering if other - more specialist - services would be targeted by those kinds of calls.

justhadathought, the SAMS borrow a lot from Carl Roger's Person-Centred theory, but without the challenge that Rogers would have been comfortable with.

That's interesting. Didn't know that.

A suicide hotline in another English speaking country also uses the Rogers Person Centred theory which includes active listening.

This can make the service particularly attractive to people who want to talk about themselves. Unfortunately, some of them become ‘familiar’ with the guidelines and will attempt to use them to control the call. It is an implied threat.

Aye, and this is the problem with picking and choosing parts to follow. Rogers was also a proponent of congruence (being open and honest about the listener's own experiencing, but without taking the focus off from the speaker), immediacy, and for counsellors/therapists, we have the backing of the BACP/supervision to work out how to handle issues that may arise.

There's a lot less consideration for the protection of phone line operators, and it leaves them vulnerable to abuse.

TruthonTrial, I don't see how you get to the view that not reporting to the police is obstruction? As a bare minimum, you'd need female volunteers who'd both actually taken a sexually motivated call (as opposed to heading it off and having the caller hang up in disgust) and were willing to give evidence. The call log records misuses of the service, but not details of the call. It would be obstruction if the volunteer wanted to report it to the police and Sams wouldn't provide evidence. As far as I know that's never happened, though I wouldn't necessarily know. I see on this thread there are people from branches that are clearly less good and less supportive than mine.

I'm with Rocaille, Samaritans could expend an enormous amount of time and energy on reporting these calls, and put off a lot of callers who would be scared off by the breach of confidentiality, and then the police would say "meh, what do you want us to do about it?". So that would be a really successful exercise.

VictoriaBun, all prisons provide prisoners with access to a Samaritans line. Not all prisoners want to talk to a fellow-prisoner in person, so they can call us. You can usually tell when a caller's in prison because of the background noises.

Sams aren't counsellors or psychotherapists, we know our limits. And the point is rather enabling callers to talk about themselves and explore whatever it is that's causing them distress - a lot of them don't have anyone who will listen or is interested, and that's why they call. Some people misuse that.

Samaritans are aware of criminal activity at high levels on their lines.

Many staff are affected by it, to the point of leaving or not taking up posts.

So, the lines are targetted by criminals with, well what sounds like, zero convictions for these high volumes of crimes over, well, for ever!

Interesting case (know it's a shit paper but didn't see it elsewhere and interesting details).

'Rhys Pilott, 28, made calls that were 'easily distinguished' because he was 'audibly belching down the phone line' - taking up call operators' time meaning genuine calls could not be taken.
Pilott, of Peterborough, admitted at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance on September 24. He also admitted persistently making use of a public communication network to cause annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety on September 27."

"Prosecutor Anthea Harris said Pilott made 13 nuisance calls on the first occasion and 19 on the second... She added: 'While he's on the phone, other genuine calls can't be taken.'"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7686379/Prank-caller-jailed-ringing-999-belching-line-32-times.html

How hard would it be to set up a voice recognition filter, sending male callers to men volunteers and female to women?

As well as the fact that most of the volunteers are women, it would also be complicated by trans volunteers.

Trans volunteers?

So, women might be told they are speaking to a woman, yet hear a male voice?

A woman who is contemplating suicide gets headfucked to boot

That men want to jerk off at the expense of people in serious pain is something and women volunteers have been dealing with this for years is abhorrent.

This abusiveness is abhorrent indeed. I cannot get over the numbers people are talking about. . I never realised how prolific men have been in using telephone helplines of all sorts to sexually abuse women.

Thanks to those volunteers who replied to my question upthread, I was interested to get your thoughts. So my next question would be: if in theory the service vanished and were to be set up again from scratch tomorrow and we decided these sexually abusive calls were not going to be tolerated, what could the setup be? We can't keep throwing women volunteers to the wolves like this.

I still think the service should be sex-segregated (I get the ID problem but first things first. At least when you hear a male sounding voice claiming to be female you can be on high alert as to what might happen next). Men could set up their own Samaritans for Men. If there aren't enough volunteers well they need to address that, given that women are being sexually abused by some of their class in return for trying to help others.

Or what about an automated disclaimer at the beginning of the call? "X per cent of calls we receive are made deliberately to sexually harass our female volunteers. In light of this, such calls are not protected by our confidentiality policy and appropriate action will be taken." Volunteers don't have to report calls but the warning would be there to deter.

Surely on balance, clearing the lines of these nasty calls with a warning about the limit of confidentiality as it pertains to abuse of staff frees them up for genuine callers and would help with volunteer retention. The NHS now has a 'zero tolerance' policy to protect its staff even though they promise to care for all. Why can't the Samaritans have similar? If the current confidentiality policy enables such mind-boggling abuse of women (and clogging up of their lines), I'm not sure it's fit for purpose.

Use the EA sex based rights for r a women only helpline womanned by women only. That would be the cunty variety, for the cunty variety, would definitely be a start. It does need to be anonymous too,but have the facility to flick a switch to record and advsie the caller of.such recording for the purposes of passing to police should it be required as a warning to any wishing to abuse the volunteers, male or female, but at least it would see off the wankers.

Trans volunteers?
So, women might be told they are speaking to a woman, yet hear a male voice?
A woman who is contemplating suicide gets headfucked to boot

I was scared to phone Rape Crisis earlier this year for that exact reason.

Ever has it been the same evryone too scared to tackle the bullies

No consequences for bullies and wankers.

So so sorry to hear that bd

Trans volunteers?
So, women might be told they are speaking to a woman, yet hear a male voice?
A woman who is contemplating suicide gets headfucked to boot

I was scared to phone Rape Crisis earlier this year for that exact reason.
That's awful. So sorry @bd67th.

So, women might be told they are speaking to a woman, yet hear a male voice?

No. If you phone Samaritans it rings briefly and then the Samaritan will answer. At that point many callers hang up. They will hear the Samaritans voice before they speak to anyone.

The potential difficulty is perhaps if the Samaritan gives their name as a stereotypically female one in a stereotypically male voice.

Yes exactly so despite the male voice the volunteer would insist they are female. Which was my point precisely.

A caller who wants to speak to a volunteer of one sex will almost always hang up and try again when they hear an opposite-sex voice (as someone said upthread, men get more 'snap' calls because sex callers hang up when they hear a man). There aren't any trans volunteers in my branch, so I don't have any personal knowledge of how callers respond to trans volunteers.

People's practice varies about giving names - a lot of us don't use our own when talking to callers, and we're not allowed to provide other personal information apart from a first name: the focus is always on the caller. So it would be bad Sams practice for a trans volunteer to switch the focus to them (which doesn't mean it doesn't happen, of course). Personally I don't give my name at the beginning of a call: I tell callers if they ask my name, and sometimes I volunteer it later if it seems appropriate for the call.

I've found part of the Sams training very useful in dealing with certain trans callers, incidentally. Obviously a lot of our callers have quite serious delusions related to mental health difficulties. The training is to listen to what they say, and not to tell them that they're wrong, but to try to avoid reinforcing the delusions.

TruthonTrial, what you seem to be asking for is to close down Samaritans and set up a new women-only helpline. Isn't that a bit close to MRAs complaining about women's organisations focusing on women and insisting that they do stuff for men instead? Sams isn't a women's charity: it's a charity for people in distress or despair, particularly those with suicidal thoughts or plans. There is a real problem with sex callers, but we also have a lot of genuine callers, of both sexes, who appear to find the service helpful. If you don't like it, don't donate to it.

I do seriously wonder that exactly because of the amount of worrying pp comments and the levels of wankers calling Samaritans routinely.

I don't understand what you're saying about similarity with MRAs

Nothing wrong with having a womens service, but there's a lot wrong with whats happening at the moment.