The Specificity of Desire

Suzanne Lea

Desire is such a curious thing, universal yet utterly subjective. The earliest teachings of Buddha instruct that the root of suffering is found in desire. If you want more than you presently have, then you will never be satisfied with what exists at your fingertips. This may be true but it is my belief that the root of success may also be located squarely at the center of desire. Desire instructs us. Propels us into motion. Why did the chicken cross the road? Desire. Why else?

I have always been curious about what makes other people tick. WHY they do WHAT they do? I can spend hours sitting quietly on a bench in the mall, watching people walk by. I wonder about what they are wearing, who they are with, what they may be buying. I am a bit of a voyeur, I suppose, but really, people are just so fascinating. Recently, I had an opportunity to explore the nature of desire. It was my intention to find something new and unique to say about it. Legitimate research using books, professional journals and citable sources. Instead, I stepped quite close to the subject and found myself considering desire on a more personal level. What I discovered was not at all what I had set out to find, but in the end, I believe it was exactly what I was looking for.

Note: Upon reflection, I am aware that this story may become a little unseemly. Still, if you continue reading, it is important that you try to consider exactly how these sorts of things develop. In hindsight, it is always easy to see the size and shape of choices, but life doesn’t happen in hindsight. Instead, each progression of events is a ripple, so natural and seamless, as to appear almost inconsequential. After the fact, everything is obvious. Fortunately, the things I gained from this experience turned out to be immeasurably valuable. (And the rest? Eh, the rest was easily discarded.)

Here’s how it happened:

I had been ruminating about an independent study project slotted for my summer break. I needed a way to make-up a few academic hours but I also needed a summer job. The subject of my proposed research project was Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Culture. A large canvas to cover indeed. I enjoy both pop-culture, and an academic examination of Gender and Sex, as much as the next person, maybe even a bit more than some. Still, no one, least of all my academic adviser, wanted to read a 50 page document in which I regurgitated statistics about television vixens or sexist food advertising strategies. Serendipitously, right before summer break began, someone suggested I try exploring the “specificity of desire” – the unique fingerprint of individual desires. This idea sounded as good as any I had considered. What follows is the evolution of that project. This is the (almost) completely true story of how I became a phone-sex operator.

NOTE: At this point in the story, I want to make a confession. I really want you to like me so I feel inclined to tell you what I think you want to hear, and I think you want to hear that I am not the kind of girl who would consider taking a job as a phone-sex operator. At the risk of disappointing you, dear reader, the truth is far less flattering. Taking the job was not a difficult decision to make. Almost as soon as the idea popped into my head, on some level I already knew that I was going to make it happen. That is just the way I operate. “Wow, that stove eye looks hot. I think I’ll touch it and find out.”

As it turned out, the real challenge was not deciding to take the job. The real challenge was explaining this plan in a way that did not make me (1) sound like a lunatic or (2) feel like a prostitute. Nevertheless, I did rationalize this peculiar decision, to my closest friends, to my academic advisor, and to myself. I explained that I only intended to be employed in this questionable profession for a short time and then I reminded everyone that it would be criminal to decline the chance to make money by earning class credits. Privately, the thought of doing something so naughty was absolutely irresistible. I was bored and I needed to be reminded that I was still capable of surprise. Besides, how hard was it really going to be, sitting in an air-conditioned house, talking on the telephone?

NOTE: In case you are thinking that I am very clever for coming up with this money-making / credit-earning scheme, please consider carefully. Nothing can prepare you for phone sex with strangers. Nothing, that is, except maybe previous phone sex with strangers.

In order to get approval for this unusual scheme, I performed a little song-and-dance routine for my academic advisor and eventually got a (reluctant) thumbs-up. I poked around the internet for a while, called a few friends, peeked into a few cyber-windows, and eventually found an agency. Within two weeks of submitting an online application to a national chat line service, I was hired, trained, and given an access number. The training consisted of some dirty Instant Messaging with a professional operator. She typed something dirty and I typed an equally dirty response, then she analyzed my banter. After only about an hour or so, she suggested I say ‘cock’ more often and then she pronounced me ready-for-service.

NOTE: This leads me to a frequently ignored fact about phone sex: Only men call. It does not matter who answers, the caller is almost always male. The reasons for this gender anomaly are perhaps better left for another day, but I thought it was worth mentioning – men make almost all of the dirty calls. But really, is that surprising to anyone?

Once training was complete, my next task was to design a character that would entice potential callers into pulling out their credit cards and picking up the telephone. I was instructed to try to sound sexy but remain accessible. I was warned to avoid cliché stripper names, which meant I had to abandon my hopes of calling myself Hunny Potter. “Choose a name that won’t make you giggle when introducing yourself” my trainer suggested “Choose something feminine and familiar.” I decided to choose a name that was enough like my own that I would not forget who I was supposed to be. With my name chosen and my identity outlined, it was time to set up my first audio profile.

Hi, I’m Jenny. I’m 5’8”, 27 years old, long dark hair with an athletic build. I have a boring day-job so at night I really want to get WILD. There’s no need to keep listening to these recordings. Go ahead and choose me, at extension blah, blah, blah. We’re gonna have so much fun.

(Wait for it, wait for it… my purring tagline)

Come on, you know you want to.

And although NOTHING in this description was even remotely true, they did want to. They wanted to call and they wanted to talk to Jenny. They began calling within twenty minutes of signing-on and they called regularly until I finally deleted my listing. Suffice it to say that at a minimum of twenty calls per week, it doesn’t take long to decide if professional telephone sex operator is the right occupation for any reasonable person.

The calls ranged in length from thirty second calls to thirty minute ‘pre-paid’ calls. Every call was different. Some callers wanted to tell me things, some wanted me to tell them things. Some calls were lewd and disturbing while others were ordinary and tame. No matter the call, my objective was the same: be good at the job, but not TOO good. Keep them engaged for a minimum of six minutes. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how to earn maximum dollars as a phone sex operator. Long calls equal more money.

The pay scale for most agencies breaks down about the same: under six minutes and the operator earns .10 cents per minute; over six minutes and s/he earns up to .40 cents per minute. It is easy to see that a few minutes can make a substantial difference over a week’s time. Unfortunately, anyone who has ever tried to slow down sex, without stopping it completely, knows how tricky that can be. When it comes to sex, there is a kind-of ‘point-of-no-return’ and that point is not always easy to recognize, especially with a total stranger who is panting obscenities into the telephone receiver. Add a price tag of $1.99 per minute and you can see why this is a skill that must be cultivated in order to be a successful operator.

Once I had secured my employment, it occurred to me that I might actually be bad at phone sex. Admittedly, I have been kissed before but I do not have much experience talking about it. I wondered if my imagination would hold up under close inspection. My trainer’s only advice, “In for a penny, in for a pound.”  (Sadly, her advice was far less valuable once I realized she was a phone sex operator who billed herself as a “telephone actress” without an ounce of irony.)

In addition to my concern about my own sexual imagination, I had worried about a couple of other things. Firstly, I was afraid that phone-sex might be too weird or terrible or disturbing. Although I am not a complete innocent, I really did not know what to expect. Secondly, and maybe worse, I was afraid that the illicit nature of the job might actually turn out to be something I enjoyed. I knew that it would be understandable, possibly even redeeming, if I was a terrible phone sex operator. If, on the other hand, I sat around all day with my hand shoved down the front of my pants, waiting for the telephone to ring…well, that would be very unfortunate.

As it turns out, although I wasn’t a “natural”,  I adjusted far more quickly than I had expected. By the end of the first week, I was quietly doing house work or eating dinner while engaging in some pretty salty conversations. Luckily, when an operator purrs “Mmmm” into the telephone, it is almost impossible to discern whether it is sexual ecstasy or simply that she has a mouth full of red beans and rice. During most of the calls, I was either totally disinterested or mildly repulsed. There were a lot of times when I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing, and a couple of times when I wanted to hang-up and take a shower. Still, hidden amongst the sometimes silly, frequently vile, interactions were a couple of times when I was genuinely engaged and even once or twice when I was a little turned-on. Not many times, of course, but to be completely honest, there were a few.

I remained an awkward operator, embarrassed most of the time, and that NEVER got any easier for me. Each time I said hello, my hands trembled a little and my stomach flipped. I stumbled through the initial greetings and struggled to make small talk. It was difficult not to ask personal questions to ease the awkwardness. “Where do you live?” “What do you do for a living?” After a while I realized that if I could make it through the first few minutes, I usually picked up a kind-of rhythm. I never got very good at it but after a while, I also was not completely terrible. Turns out, when it comes to phone sex, not being terrible is pretty much all that is required. These men are not calling for subtlety or nuance; they are calling for telephone sex. I did not have to be talented; I just had to be willing.

To clock-in each day, I dialed an 800 number and typed in a code. After that, my telephone would only ring from the chatline switchboard, until I called again and retyped the code to clock-out. When working, I would pick up the receiver after the first ring and immediately hear a ‘whisper message’, the switchboard operator preparing me for the caller. The best whisper messages announced ‘prepaid’ calls. A 15 to 30 minute call prepaid with a credit card. These calls offered just enough time to relax and get acquainted, but not so long as to fall in love. 15 minutes may not sound like a lot of time, I know, but once the call has been made and the caller is sitting with his cock in his hand, I imagine it can feel like an eternity if done properly.

Bad calls were known as ‘hard-core’ or ‘cum’ calls. The whisper message before one of these calls was hissed into the phone like an air-raid siren announcing incoming fire. “John wants a blowjob. HARD CORE, HARD CORE!” Sexline operators translate “hard core” to mean a battle of wills. A battle to postpone orgasm by any means necessary. Sometimes I would try a sneaky-distraction: “Tell me where you’re sitting so I can imagine you. Sofa, recliner? Mmmm, I love a big old recliner.” Inside, I would be thinking, “Really, Jenny? Really? A recliner. Is that what does it for you?” With other callers, I would use the subtle shame approach, “God, I love a man who knows what he wants but waits on me. You don’t want to finish TOO fast and leave me all hot and bothered. That wouldn’t be very nice.” Again, I’d have to wonder if nice was a real concern to this man whose only instruction thus far had been, “Suck it good, slut.”

Note: I am sure if given a few minutes and a frosty mug or two, most of you could come-up with almost every scenario. A dude in lacy panties, a guy who wants to be called names because his penis is tiny and (my personal favorite) the man who wants you to put your feet on his ‘junk.’ Simply try to imagine all the things no self-respecting person would admit to enjoying and that is what phone sex involves.

The biggest surprise during my experience was the nature of the hang-up. The closing of every call was exactly the same. Click, THE END. It never varied, not one bit. No matter the call type or the caller’s disposition, every call ended with, “Pant, pant… click…” No one ever said “Thanks Jenny, that was great.” Or even a simple “Good-bye.” Nope, all I got was a grunt and a dial tone, every single time. EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! The embarrassing part is that sometimes I would still be talking, right in the middle of saying something filthy, and they’d finish and hang-up. It might be a minute or two before I realized I was whispering into a dead line. Look, I was not expecting a love song or a gift card to Target, but for heaven’s sake, an acknowledgement might have been nice.

After one very strange summer, I decided that I had probably learned everything I could from phone sex. I did not hate the men who had called but I disliked most of them a little. I was not irreparably damaged by the experience but I was altered in some fundamental way. I had come into the project with a fairly broad sense of sexual ethics, believing healthy sex to be any informed and consensual act of shared pleasure by two (or more) consenting adults. As long as there was no coercion, no children, and no animals, whatever grown people wanted to do together was just fine. It could be tender and loving, but it did not have to be. I was comfortable knowing that some couples would caress each other gently while others would make use of a brass-handled hair brush and a couple of little wooden clothespins. What I mean to say is—  I knew from the start that pleasure for one might not be pleasure for another and that made perfect sense to me. These men, however, managed to reduce sex to a bodily function, like having a shit or blowing your nose, and that, though not surprising, was a little disappointing.

On the day I told my best friend that I had finally decided to resign my position as a “telephone actress” and begin the process of piecing together my research, his only question was, “Did you learn anything from the experience?” I did not know the answer to that question then, but after taking some time to process, I believe I do now. The answer is both yes, and no. Yes, I did learn a bit about professional phone sex (say cock a lot) and about kink culture (say cock a lot), but I did not have any startling revelations about the nature of desire. Working as a phone sex operator simply confirmed many of the things I had already come to believe over the years:

(1) People usually desire most things which are forbidden to them.

(2) No one is ever as normal as they seem.

(3) Sex without context is no more significant than a finger in another person’s ear.

(4) Pushed far enough, every open-minded, sexually-evolved person will eventually furrow their brow and say, “Well now, THAT is just plain weird!”

I am still not sure whether desire is located at the heart of suffering or the center of success but perhaps these two locations are not mutually exclusive. As Lawrence Block famously said, “Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.” If desire is wanting, then perhaps happiness is seeking and that, dear reader, makes perfect sense to me.

BIO:

Suzanne Lea is a coffee drinking, bleeding-heart liberal, book-worm with an affinity for dark chocolate and swear words. She has been published in numerous ‘zines and journals, as well as the print anthology Crooked Letter i: Coming Out in the South, with a foreword by Dorothy Allison, published by New South Books.