I am certainly no expert on this subject, but I know a couple of things which may be of interest to those who like to peer under rocks.

Types of Lines:

Toll Numbers: 900 numbers and so on, these lines are set up to charge anyone who dials them. They ought to show up on your phone bill with some relatively innocuous telecom-sounding name attached, but who is really gonna be fooled by that?

Long-Distance Numbers: Frequently these point to somewhere in the Caribbean, and are configured to charge the caller just like a 900 number. These will show up on your phone bill as is, and if you aren't the only one in the household who looks at the bill, they may generate some disconcerting questions. (Like, "Who the hell's been calling Trinidad?")

Toll-Free Numbers: These have an introductory message welcoming you to the site and asking for your credit card number. The actual credit card part is handled by another agency, so if there is an issue with the card you will likely find yourself forwarded to them instead of the promised "hot vixens". The charges you incur will show up on the credit card bill, again as a bland, this-fools-no-one company name.

And here's a fun fact: if you lose track of time and the charges exceed the limit on the card, a bill went be sent for the remainder. But it won't be sent to the owner of the card; it will be sent to the person whose name is on the phone bill for the number you dialed from. Imagine if you will your roommate or parent getting a bill for two hundred dollars from a company they've never heard of. Bewildered, they call the company to find out what they're being charged for, and...well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Types of Services:

Recordings: A menu is provided of recorded messages in which different allegedly erotic scenarios are described. Each message lasts roughly ten minutes, presumably as that provides sufficient time to do yer business.

Party Lines: Like a chat room, with actual chat! There is almost always someone on the line who is an employee of the company, looking for someone she can keep on the line for a long time. They will invite this person into a private "room" and talk the night away with them while the meter runs on and on...

Operators: There tend to be two stereotypes of operators: "porn star" and "obese housewife in a muumuu". I've known three people who worked at phone sex lines and they were very lovely women. These are just ordinary folks for the most part, trying to pay the bills just like everyone else. They will stick to a prepared script if at all possible, and may not really be paying attention to what you're saying. If you're into the idea of sex with someone who picks up a magazine in the middle of your performance and starts reading, this may be for you. (See Confessions of a Former Phone Sex Operator for the other side of the looking glass...)

Classifieds: Phone mailboxes in which people who want phone sex leave their names, numbers, a time you can call, and a short message. You will of course have to pay by the minute to listen to this information.

This writeup is done under the auspices of PornQuest 2006.


You must have seen adverts for these knocking about, in print, on television (esp. in the less salubrious channels,) in phone boxes in London, and suchlike. Usually they're short and sweet, consisting of nothing more than a few words of copy, a phone number which begins with "0900," a picture of some kinky blonde or whoever you should expect to be taking your ridiculously overpriced call, along with the obligatory legal boilerplate about how calls cost £1.50 a minute and you must be over 18 and have the bill-payer's permission to call. These are, obviously, phone sex lines and I cannot even begin to discern excatly how much trade they do a day, though by all accounts it's pretty hefty - GlobalPRS, a prominent company in the premium-rate phone line industry, puts the annual revenue at £1 billion per year.

1. So what are they then?

Well, obviously, they're premium rate phone lines which you call and wank over, if that's your bag.

2. Care to elaborate?

The lines, at least in the UK, come in two main flavours. Firstly there are the live chat ones, in which you will be put through to a person chosen for the qualities of their voice, the requisite qualities of which will, of course, vary; if you call "Teenage Virgin's First Time" the operator won't affect the same voice as if you chose "Live Cunt Action with Dirty Old Slappers". They will groan and moan appreciatively and whisper lustful nothings down the phone to you and breathy descriptions of exactly how they're slowly sliding off their enticingly translucent G-string and tweaking their aching, taut, rosy-tipped femme-flesh while they assume you're beating your cock red raw to this. Often they have names which give some indication as to the theme of the chat involved, such as "Ride My Cunt And I Will Drain Your Balls," or "Strict Mistress - You will be forced to wear women's underwear, you PATHETIC MALE!!!!" These are the ones we associate most with phone sex lines and the ones which usually appear on your phone bill next to what appears to be another telephone number. Contrary to appearances, though, the people who operate these lines are NOT at home for you to ring them for a naughty chat, but in an office building somewhere belonging to a company with an abstract name like ADV Ltd. or PX Corp. alongside fellow sex line operators.

However, it seems that these lines are far outnumbered nowadays with the second main flavour, the recorded message or story. These tend to appear in a larger advert box in which whole reams of numbers, each of which goes to a different story, are advertised together for what appears to be every imaginable fetish. Headlines on these adverts are things like "Squalid Perverted Filth" or "30 Second Quick Relief," and subtitles of individual stories range from "Dildo'd by her new cleaner!" through "I liked his Porsche so I sucked him off!" to more select pleasures such as "Used like porcelain!" and "Soccer thug sex." These tales range in length and are becoming more and more commonplace due to what appears to be a rather intriguing licencing programme. A lot of the stories are generated and recorded by a few companies who then will licence them out to adult content providers under varying "brands" but with different taglines and phone numbers. There will then be a contract between the recordists and the licencees, which give the licencee a proportion of the revenues (they, the licencee, "own" the numbers in such an instance) in return for free advertising on their site. Sort of a XXX-rated franchise, if you will.

3. Who operates them then?

People who are trying to pay their bills like you and I (well, maybe not I, but you get the idea.) The recordings are all, of course, automated, but the live lines are operated by people behind a desk who play along with it. They are not, as the stereotype goes, fifty-year-old bunny boilers who put on a husky voice while they tell you exactly how they're tweaking their collective clitorides and silently chaining Lambert & Butlers; conversely, though, they're not going to be the supermodels or other preternaturally photoshopped individuals. Sometimes employees of phone sex companies are selected for the qualities of their voices - those individuals employed to do the recordings most likely, since they are, as you will recall, often made centrally and sent out to franchisees.

A correspondent in the Idler's book "Crap Jobs" put operating a phone sex line as number one in their countdown from 100. The correspondent mentioned that she was sat in a particularly grubby office which was partitioned into area such as "Anal Sex," "BDSM," and "Lesbian." She was also given a number of scripts which contained company-approved lines for commonplace lines of sex chat, including the unbelievably sexy and thoroughly erotic phrase, "I'm now separating my arse cheeks." Still, I suppose it's better than being too florid about it, and saying something like "My tight little copper-coloured ring is gaping like a lustful fish for your throbbing, tumescent manhood... wanna slide it in?"

The premium rate phone sex line industry in the UK are regulated by ICSTIS, or "Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of the Telephone Information Services" to give it its full name, which sets out various obligations on premium-rate content providers, such as that they give a recorded message which makes quite clear the charge on this line and that it's an adult service and as such callers must be over 18. ICSTIS are reportedly very strict on transgressions of their standards, which do include restrictions on where premium-rate sex lines may be advertised - specifically, only with other adult content in a publication or on a website which is marked as such and has an "entry page" in the case of websites which explains that adult content is within. It only takes one substantiated complaint to ICSTIS to result in heavy fines or even having your premium rate service shut down. Also, sometimes content providers of the recorded-message side of things will impose further regulations on their franchisees just to provide an extra layer of protection between them an ICSTIS.

4. And people really ring this stuff?

Absolutely. As mentioned earlier, it's a billion-pound-a-year business, and it's not just repressed, sweaty old men in dirty macs who call either, or people who can't get a shag by normal means. Some individuals do sometimes have strange requests; in the same segment of "Crap Jobs" she mentioned how she would get one regular punter who would simply ask that she breathe heavily down the line to him, and he'd get off on this. Well it must have done something for him, after all, people don't usually spend £1.50 or thereabout a minute on stuff that doesn't do it for them. At least I hope not.

Another reason why people might ring a sex line is due to the absolutely mammoth array of fetishes on offer there. In a country where urolagnia in film is prohibited outright by the BBFC, and importation of such titles as "Liquid Love" and "Porcelain Pussy Fest #5" and suchlike is controlled somewhat, watersports enthusiasts may desire some sort of indulgence and such services may be able to oblige them, as there are next to no controls in the UK on the content of such services other than that they begin with a message indicating that this is a premium rate service and callers must be over 18. Indeed, the range of kinks you can find in the world of 0900 sex numbers is quite astonishing. Aside from the standard-issue BDSM, watersports, transvestitism, and scat, you can find numbers themed on dogging, grannies, deflowering, cottaging, and even chavs (these are endorsed by Julie Burchill and include tales with names like "Pushed me hard cock up me mate Wez's tight bumhole," "Let DSS bloke shag me for a crisis loan" and "Orgy in the park wiv the Cosby estate lads.")

5. So that's about it then?

Pretty much, yes.

Oh. One other thing. The story about the bloke who rang up the line called "Hear Me Moan" only to be confronted by a housewife complaining about how her husband never did anything useful round the house is just that, a story. Unless there's a whole marital-discord fetish scene I'm missing out on...


(Footnote: All sex line titles quoted in this node are genuine, in case you're wondering.)

Sources:
GlobalPRS - www.globalprs.net
Crap Jobs, Dan Kieran, 2005
ICSTIS - www.icstis.org.uk
Various issues of
Bizarre Magazine and the Daily Sport from the past few months.

This is about a bad experience.

The advertisement I saw said to call the number listed in order to "Talk to a hot blonde now." So, having some time and feeling lonely and not knowing what else to do I decided to call the number, which began with a 1-900 series of numbers and spelled some words I won't put down here because after my experience I cannot endorse this service or product.

A very irritable man with a gruff voice answered the ringing phone that I dialed and he just said "WHAT?" into the phone at me. So, I paused for a moment and then asked him if I had called the right number to talk to a hot blonde now. He did not say anything and it sounded like he put down the phone. I was filled with some degree of hope thinking that maybe the hot blonde would pick up the phone and begin talking to me, perhaps about current events, or about how I put my dogs down when I moved to Wichita briefly or maybe about snack foods. My hopes were dashed when the gruff man picked up the phone again and said, "She's taking a crap."

I asked if maybe I could call back at another time and considered telling him that the information he had given me was more than I needed or wanted to know as it made the hot blonde less hot when I had to make an image in my mind of her going to the toilet. He said I could not hang up or the hot blonde would be angry at me and with him because she was having her period and that made her have dramatic mood swings. So, in order to pass the time I tried to start a conversation with the man.

"Do you think Michael Jackson is guilty?" I asked him. This question is very topical.

"Are you wearing any pants, asshole?" he replied in a gruff voice (which I am saying even though I have already established in this true story that he has a gruff voice just so that I can emphasize what I was going through).

"Yes. I'm wearing khakis. I bought them at Wal-Mart."

"Loser."

"Should I take them off?"

"Not while you're on the phone with me but you better have them completely off when she gets done wiping her ass or she'll be pissed off beyond belief."

"Maybe I could call back at another time?" I was unwilling to tell him that I did not really want to ever call again and wished I had not placed the first call which I was currently involved in and not enjoying.

"She's almost done."

"Okay."

"Just so you know, she's very bitchy when she's having her period. She might tear your head off if you say the wrong thing."

"What is the wrong thing?"

"Nevermind that. Just make sure you tell her she makes you hard."

"Okay."

"Here she is. Get ready."

There was a pause and then the man came back on the phone and he was now pretending to be a woman by talking in a badly impersonated feminine voice. I was appalled and frightened.

"Tee hee. Hello, sweetie." This did not cause me to have any featured arousal of the kind intended.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"This is the hot blonde that just took a shit."

"Are you sure this isn't the man who answered the phone?" My question was pertinent.

"Fuck you, creep." She hung up the phone. This type of language was upsetting.

The call cost me $86 and appeared on my next telephone bill. Once again, I DO NOT endorse this product or service.

This is about misrepresentation of a business. My business. I run a 1-900 number which offers people an opportunity to chat with a very hot blonde. Me. The statements made in civilwaractionfigure's daylog above are incorrect and contain libel.

My 1-900 number is designed to charge good people $4.95 per minute to talk to me. Time is not cheap, especially for a hot blonde who looks absolutely stunning in a bikini (hooray for summer!). My boyfriend Dan answers the number when you call. It is his job to determine whether the caller is a nice person or a lonely pervert. The latter tend to call way too often and it sickens me. So, Dan screens the calls. He is very sensitive and jealous of me. Frankly, who wouldn't be with these perfect breasts and long, tanned legs. Boys drool when they look at me. Old men have heart attacks. I'm scrumptuous.

So, this creep calls and Dan answers. The creep asks Dan if he called the right number because he wants to talk to a woman. Dan flips out because he considers this insulting. If you just called to find friendship, what does it matter whether you talk to a girl or a guy. Dan asks the creep why he doesn't want to talk to him because he is nice and worth knowing. The creep tells him, and I quote, "I've got a stiffy right now and I want to start jerking it." This is how you talk to a man before asking to talk to his extremely hot girlfriend? Creep.

Dan tries to explain to the creep that this number is for friendship, not for filthy perversions. He tells the creep he can only talk to me if he promises to be polite and not mention vulgar things like his erection to me. So, the creep then tells Dan, "Where's the hot blonde? Is she taking a crap or something?"

Oh, that is so inappropriate. I want guys who call me to act like shy teenage boys calling a girl they have a crush on for the first time. I expect them to be cute and sincere and basically to worship me, but in a very wholesome way. I don't want to hear stuff like "I have a hard-on" or "Are you taking a crap?" Anyway, Dan reprimanded the creep and then the creep says, "Tell her to wipe her ass and come to the phone. I'm really horny."

There was no way I was coming the the phone after that and the creep would not hang up, so Dan pretended he was me. He's very masculine with washboard abs and an incredible apple-shaped tush, so it isn't easy for Dan to pretend to be a woman. He tried and the creep didn't buy it. He accused Dan of being a pervert and told him there probably wasn't any hot blonde there at all. He asked Dan if he eats cat food and if he lives in the woods and a whole lot of other really, really creepy questions. Then he starts telling Dan that a couple years ago he moved to Wichita, Kansas and his dogs didn't like going in the car so he took them behind his house and shot them all in the head. Dan is an animal lover, so he started shaking and crying and I had to take the phone from him.

I told the creep off over the phone and after I did, the creep tells me that I got him "really horny" by yelling at him. He then asks if I'm bitchy because I'm "on the rag." So, I started screaming at him and telling him I'm a nice girl and he has no right to talk to me that way. I then told him he wasn't worthy of my friendship and that I have a lot of friends already and they treat me with respect.

So then he asks me a whole bunch of questions about Michael Jackson and then stops and says, "Do you do anal?"

That was the point at which I hung up on him. He should have been charged more. I am way too hot to deal with that kind of nonsense.

As far as the endorsement, we don't need his endorsement. He's lucky we don't take him to court. We run a good business and average sixteen calls per day, most of which last between twenty minutes and a half hour. We make about $1,500 per week. Dan also works in construction. We enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle.

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