By far the saddest of the shots has to be of a wheelchair-bound
operator who makes the chilling admission that "just last night I
received possibly the most disturbing phone sex call I'd had in a long
time."
"A caller shot himself with me on the phone," she says.
You have to wonder at the emptiness of a person's life when they have to
dial a tug-number so someone can bear witness to the end of their life, but
it says something about the human need for companionship - it's with us to
the last.
What I found fascinating about the comments from the operators was the
ones that admitted the job had increased
their self-esteem or that they'd found their own sexual expression
through phone sex.
"When I first started I was nervous," says one
operator, "but after a while, I guess you could say the kinkier the
talk, the more I was like, wow! Let's just say I have found myself and my
sexuality through this."
Their admissions are also a reminder that when it comes to sex, the brain
and our imagination are the most powerful aphrodisiacs.
Says another operator: "I am the inanimate
Barbie. I breathe life into the fantasy, I carve the doll out of
flesh."
While another
takes us back to the days of radio plays where "to simulate a bed
rocking, you can use certain things to cause that sound, like knocking a
chair against the table."
"Tapping two fingers against the mouthpiece, sucking on a lollipop,
or eating a peach also make enjoyable sounds," he says.
Perhaps the most telling comment was from a suprisingly
sexy red-headed operator who emphasises the importance of listening to
men without the judgment so many of us attach to visuals.
"I learned to listen to men in a deeper way," she says,
"tuning into men's voices, instead of getting caught up on their looks,
was the same as a person suddenly going blind, only to find their other
senses enhanced."
"I think if all women did phone sex before they lost their
virginity, they would make much better choices," she says.
The inclusion of several male
operators who cater to female customers, also illustrates that women
benefit from this type of listening.
As I've written in previous
posts, really listening is one of the hardest acts we can commit to
because most of us do it without any integrity.
In the majority of conversations the average person simply waits for
their turn to speak, instead of concentrating on what's really being said to
them and, as such, misses the gold of human interaction.
As one young
male operator says: "We as people should learn to talk and listen
to our neighbors and share our inner light."
"I wish the world was run by phone sex operators," he says.