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.