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.

"As a female Sam, I'd rather take a few sex calls than have genuinely suicidal men feel unable to access the service simply because they'd prefer to talk to a woman rather than a man."
I expect the perverts depend on the volunteers having that rationale.

Someone mentioned upthread that these calls could be illegal. There must be away of logging when these calls happen and retroactively tracing the numbers, even if it's the police. There may still be some calls (heavy breathing for example) that couldn't be 100% certain what's going on (could be asthma, someone crying) but the others could be. When a certain number appears persistently tallying with volunteer reports of sex calls, then that person could be prosecuted.

Well, this was unknown to me. How bloody awful.

Yes, Nightline was clogged with pervs when I volunteered. Some repeats, some I didn't get again, or recognise.
I also ran an actual sex line for a little while and it used to piss me off that I was spending just as much time taking sex calls at Nightline as I was on that.

I expect the perverts depend on the volunteers having that rationale.

Well yes, plus yet another example of women having to tolerate and rationalise these male perversions as "part of life" - and having to tolerate this for the good of others. And it's incredible how far reaching that tolerance really is. By society, by everyone.

Everyone seems to tolerate these sexual perversions - or paint them up as "part of life" - so much so that the concept of "kink-shaming" is now a thing.

Well, a kink is kink, and it's fine until it wilfully involves another non-consenting person. When the kink relies on a non-consenting person - like these calls, like flashing, etc - then it becomes a matter for police IMO. Only it's so widespread, I'm not even sure the police would be able to act in any significant way - so we're back to this stuff - these crimes - they are crimes - against women - being tolerated.

Another ex-Sam here, and I've posted before about it on this board. Sorry, longish post coming up again - regular thread killer!

I took a break from Sams just about the same time I started becoming more aware of some of the issues on this board. In particular, the wider implication of the calls for self-ID.

I left, not because I couldn't 'cope' with the sex calls (of which I had many of the 'I'm trying on underwear' sort on my shift, on a very regular basis, because of the timing of my shifts).

I left because those calls made me very aware of some of the sort of men who will see the rainbow Stonewall wagon as an opportunity.

And I knew I couldn't talk about that in great detail, because of my role - even though my time as a Sam made me very aware of who that Stonewall wagon was really enabling, in reality.

Once you've been a female Sam, your radar is raised.

As a result, I recognise many of those 'transgirls' on social media who fawn at 'trans rights' posts by respected politicians, who thank respected celebrities for supporting trans rights.

Two minutes scrolling down some of their feeds, I recognise them.

Not all of them, of course.

But I wished I could say to them, each and every one, you're not shocking us. We're not 'clutching our pearls' at the other end of the telephone line.

You had no idea what sadness, life circumstances, issues we heard each shift.

Most of the volunteers I worked with had resilience, life experience, and to do that role you needed to be 'unshockable'.

You weren't shocking us. We were hoping you'd be ashamed at the thought that Samaritans was a line to use to wank to.

But your narcissistic viewpoint wouldn't allow you to do that, would it?

But know this. Know that 99.9% of your calls didn't have the affect you probably thought it was having.

And that we would still have been there for you if you felt suicidal and needed to call Samaritans at some time. That's the reason we were polite when we left the call.

Yes, the sex call may put some women off doing the job, but man you cope with it very well and are well supported with it. They are volunteers choosing to do a good thing, where the positive far outweighs the negative. No one forces women to risk getting these types of calls, we make an informed choice for the greater good.

How about calling them what they are - the sexually violating criminal calls? This idea that it's OK for women being the subject of male sex crimes on an ongoing basis as those women are being "supported" is frankly sick. Men's sexual crimes towards women need zero tolerance. There's a viewpoint (unsupported) that men who do this kind of thing aren't dangerous. The thing is they get off on sexually violating behaviour of someone more vulnerable than them. There is no way of knowing they aren't taking opportunities where they can, not just over the phone but physically to women and children in their vicinity. How would you feel if you found out that the men you are catering to are paedophiles or rapists? It's hardly a stretch to know that some of them will be. How do you think sexually criminal men behave in other spheres? The phone would be an ideal easy outlet for them.

It doesn't serve women as a group to have some women designated to cater to men's sexual perversions and men's sexual crimes. Women in prostitution are one such group and it appears that Samaritan women are another. The Samaritans could start calling the police and prosecuting these men immediately to protect their women volunteers and women as a whole, but they don't do it. Why?

Yes they could arm women with a "Doris", or transfer the phonecall to the local police station.

Tbh situations like this are why I’ve become a bit of a Thatcherite - as I get older it’s me and mine and my own financial future and the rest of the world can fuck off.

I don’t go to community centres or help centres or anywhere which is a bit “peripheral” socially as I’m sick of fucking weirdos or people with problems (who somehow manage to avoid all professional help and home in on women to meet their needs ).

every meet-up I’ve signed up to recently I’ve got a weird message from a guy I don’t know asking to chat.

Likewise with doing serious online courses - I had to change my name to something neutral because strange fucking men were stalking my every post and trying to engage me in personal chat (normally I was posting about stuff on the course like programming?????!)

How about calling them what they are - the sexually violating criminal calls? This idea that it's OK for women being the subject of male sex crimes on an ongoing basis as those women are being "supported" is frankly sick.

YY

And

The Samaritans could start calling the police and prosecuting these men immediately to protect their women volunteers and women as a whole, but they don't do it. Why?

Indeed why???? Is it just deemed the remit of women to deal with?

Pombear how sad that you left because of this. Chilling that these men are now being nurtured and emboldened by the likes of Stonewall.

I was a Samaritan for many years and Saturday overnights I'd get often get more sex calls than anything else. A significant proportion of these came from men who claimed they "felt they'd been born in the wrong body". Go figure.

I would imagine these calls aren't prosecuted because all callers should feel their call is confidential. No experience / actual knowledge in this arena though.

Managing inappropriate use of service calls is part of what a Sam volunteer does, you’re well trained and well supported with it. Without sounding judgemental of those who leave for this reason, not everyone is able to be a listening volunteer. People leave for all sorts of reasons, not everyone makes it through the training, not everyone who applies is accepted.

I think this sort of attitude is one of the reasons there is so much abuse of women, and why women are currently having to fight for our rights. People still think women should put up with abuse 'for the greater good.' What's wrong with hanging up on abusive callers and reporting them? There should be a no tolerance approach, not expecting women to put up with it and shaming them if they don't want to.

There is a no tolerance approach, these callers are hung up on, the nature of the calls are recorded, have you read what those of us who have done/currently do this have written? No one is being shamed - it is an incredibly difficult thing to do, I reached the point where I couldn’t do it any more at that point in my life (for other reasons - like I’ve said, the sex calls for me were a minor annoyance at best), there is no shame in not being able to do it for whatever reason.

I think it’s very easy if you haven’t been a Sam volunteer to suggest things like blowing whistles down phones at callers, sex segregating callers etc - that would be totally against the ethos of what Sams does. No judgement, 100% confidential, whomever you are, whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve been through, if you’re in distress Sams are there for you.

This is really really interesting. I used to volunteer at Samaritans and left precisely because on most shifts over 60% off the calls taken were sex calls, many from trans men discussing sex, and loads of paedos calling. It was actually very distressing and can take you a good 5-10 minutes before you realise what is happening. The absolute worst of it was paedos discussing their urges. Ours the reason i left and would never go back. The policy at the time was to hang up but only if you were absolutely sure it was a predatory call. The onus was on us talking the call and sometimes by the time you realised the pervert would have achieved what he wanted. Disgusting.

I am shocked and saddened that Samaritans have yet yo address this issue properly and tbh at that time they expected us women volunteers to just deal with it.

This thread has really brought out a lot of distressing memories. I volunteered at Samaritans years ago. Three application and training process was rigourous. I was so excited to finally start on the phones. The vast vast majority of calls in every shift were perverts. It was relentless. I'd say over 70% were sex calls. And it takes a long time to realise what is happening. The valleys are very very clever. I left a shift one night in tears after I'd spent 20 mins in a call with a 'suicidal' caller only for him to say can I come in your mouth now and laugh. I felt really violated.

What made me leave in the end was the paedo calls. I just could not bear them any longer. One trick they always used when caught out, just before you hang up, was to insinuate that if you didn't let them finish they'd have to go upstairs and abuse their daughter/ son/ sibling... It was truly sickening.

Also the trans men were 99% interested in discussing how sexual they felt in their wives tight knickers. Very rarely would there be a genuine trans caller calling about dealing with gender issues. The calls were usually sexual and sexuality exploitative.

Funny that in those days we used to label these callers perverts. Now of course we have to treat them with so much respect.

I would also say that on some shifts the sex call rate was about 70%. I used to do a Saturday morning and there were more then than on a night shift.

I don't understand. If the overwhelming number of calls are sex calls, and the biggest common denominator is that they are male callers, then men should have to speak to men.

Statistically, the number of men who are genuinely distressed and will be further distress by speaking to a man must be far lower than the men who are getting their rocks off exploiting women?

‘Paedo calls.’

This is absolutely terrible. I am feeling quite upset that all the women samaritans on this thread have had to deal with this. It is completely wrong. Some of these men who have called will have raped children and they are being protected and given another pool of victims.

These aren’t phone calls, they’re crimes.

The Samaritans is fucked up if it thinks these men deserve confidentiality and no judgement. The fact they had a ‘Brenda Line’ shows exactly the level of contempt they hold women in. Contempt they don’t feel for the perverts doing this to women.

There seems to be some misplaced pride amongst women Samaritans that they can tolerate this.

I also felt that the door knockers situation was frightening. I remember the purple who came to the door were always men, who cake late at night, and it was always felt frightening. We were trained about where to sit and to ensure that we were near the door if we had to flee. The few times I dealt with someone personally it always felt like an abusive situation where the male visitor was directing the route of the conversation. One of the men I opened the door to was wearing women's clothes and proceeded to keep asking me if he looked beautiful.

I always felt, and still feel, sams should get rid of the policy of people coming to the door because at some point some poor volunteer is going to be attacked. It's too risky.

I am now extremely suspiscious of those running Sam's abd there r motives here.

Do they not know about safeguarding or just not give a shit

I think it's unfair to say you are suspicious of the motives of the people running the Samaritans, Truth. They are doing good work and it goes beyond the phone line.
However, I do think they need to do more to protect their volunteers and put off these men.

When I took the wanking transvestite calls I was much, much younger and I naively felt sorry for them that they did have this problem as well as knowing full well they were getting an enormous thrill from it. Now I know much better than to have any sympathy whatsoever.

I remember from my sex chat line days that many of the cross dressing callers came across as particularly pathetic. Now with the benefit of hindsight and the wisdom of age and the comments on this thread I’m wondering if that was some kind of manipulation technique?