This post has been a long time coming. As you can see, I haven’t written much lately, mostly because I’ve been dreading writing this. I don’t know what to say or how to say it eloquently, so I’ll just spit it out. (Heh.) After almost twelve years of doing phone sex full-time, I need a break. There, I said it. Whew.
If you are or have been a client of mine, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can’t begin to tell you what this job has meant to me, what you have meant to me…The amazing people I’ve “met” over the years, both callers and operators…The financial freedom it allowed me, which enabled my creative endeavors and tours…The countless orgasms shared with complete strangers to dear friends…The conversations, oh the conversations I have had, the things I have learned…I could never adequately express my appreciation…
But twelve years is a long time at any job these days, and I find I need a change. You probably already noticed I’ve been cutting back my phone sex hours drastically, and I’ve managed to tell many of you myself on calls, dispatch, or via email. I’m calling it a partial retirement, as I am still taking select calls by appointment. However, my availability is severely limited. I’ve been lucky enough to find another job I enjoy, with a small local company, and it’s even food-related, so I get to work with another medium I love. But it’s a M-F, 9-5 thing, and that means you get me on nights and weekends only.
I know this makes it difficult to arrange, especially when privacy is often impromptu, so I expect I’ll lose many of you. I hope you find a stellar replacement for me and only wish I had someone specific to refer you to. I fear phone sex is slowly going the way of the typewriter though, which is part of the reason I’m having to more or less close Bay City Blues. It’s just too hard to find other quality operators and keep them. Not sure what I’m going to do with the websites eventually, but I can’t bring myself to turn them off completely yet. Who knows? Maybe BCB 3.0 will rear its head someday.
But for now, I’m trying to adjust to life in the non-sex-work world. Did you know most people put pants on before they go to work? Lol! Seriously though, my new job is pretty great, and they’re even willing to let me do a few festivals a year, so I still get to fringe it up in the summers!
Speaking of which, it’s almost festival season again! I’m doing A Story of O’s in London (Ontario, not England) and Vancouver, and Threads in Ottawa and Indianapolis. This is my first time in Ottawa and Indy, and I’ve never done two different shows in one season, so there will be a steep learning curve I’m sure. But I’m looking forward to getting back on the road- after doing five festivals each year in 2012 and 2013, only doing Edmonton last year felt like I was missing something.
Anyway…So there you have it. My big news. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, maybe I’ll be able to post a little more frequently. This is not goodbye. It’s just hello to a new me that isn’t going to be at your beck and call quite as often as I have been for the last decade. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support and patronage over the years. You’ve changed my life in unimaginable ways and taught me so much about love, sex, and human connections. I am honored to have been your phone sex provider and proud to call many of you my friends.
(Wow. I just re-read this and I’m tearing up. Feels like a big deal. I think I need to go cry now.)
The amazing Eleanor O’Brien (aka, the person who introduced me to the fringe festival circuit thereby changing my life forever) and the good folks over at Sex-Positive Portland have put together the world’s very first theatre-festival dedicated to promoting sex-positivity, Come Inside: A Theatrical Orgy of Intimate Acts! And I am honored to be a part of it!
There are four shows in the festival, receptions, workshops, burlesque performances, play readings, and an open mic…Something for everyone! Individual show tickets are less than $14 including the service charge, plus you can get a two-show nightly pass for less than $22! And if you aren’t afraid to go all-in, a festival pass is under $53 and gets you into every performance and event in the entire festival (except for the intensive workshops)! That’s a pretty damn good deal, if I do say so myself…
A Story of O’s at Come Inside: A Theatrical Orgy of Intimate Acts
7:30p Friday 12 September
9:30p Saturday 13 September (Post-show talkback Q&A @ 10:45p)
7:30p Sunday 14 September
@ Milepost 5, Portland, OR
Single-show tickets $12 (+$1.41 service fee)
Two-show evening pass $20 (+$1.69 service fee)
Festival pass $50 (+$2.74 service fee)
Talking Dirty and Roleplay INTENSIVE
1:00p – 4:00p Saturday 13 September 2014
$40 (+$2.49 service fee)
I did a podcast with my friend, Liam. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to talk to me for an hour and not pay $3/minute, it’s kind of like this…
Yesterday I sacrificed an hour and a half of my life in service to The Cause. (The Cause being my never-ending quest to root out and expose phone sex fallacies wherever I may find them.) I had been dreading watching For a Good Time, Call… ever since I heard about it. In my take on the Castle phone sex episode, I mentioned why I bristle when phone sex appears in films and television: because the media just gets it so very wrong most of the time. I need a day or two of stewing on the movie before I write my actual review, which I will probably submit to TitsandSass.com, but I’m annoyed enough to write about something else.
There are a couple of egregiously overused sex-worker cliches in tv and film, most notably The Hooker (not to be confused with The Escort), The Stripper, and The Trafficked Sex Slave. Slightly less abused, but no less demeaning and dismissive, is The Phone Sex Operator. The PSO cliche used to be an apathetic 300-pound, white trashy mommy, but over the last decade it has morphed into an archetype I find even more insulting and insidious. Picture Anne Hathaway in Valentine’s Day, or Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller in For a Good Time, Call… The key components of the new PSO cliche are…
Beauty. Today’s PSO isn’t an ugly troll, she’s gorgeous. She is much more beautiful than any of the adult models whose stock photos she uses to represent her phone sex persona. And the character is often portrayed as just an average girl, in the same way a Victoria’s Secret model is just an average representation of how any woman might look in lingerie.
Shame. These PSO’s are not proud of what they do. They take calls on the sly and keep secrets from everyone around them, from roommates to family to spouses to friends. They think doing phone sex is beneath them and/or makes them a slut.
Ambition. Phone sex is not a career or “real job” to these women, it’s a crutch. They do it as long as they have to and can’t wait to toss it aside for something “better.”
Well pardon me, but I object. To be fair, much of the phone sex part of For a Good Time, Call… is fairly accurate, including the operators who decide they know enough to start their own company when they get tired of paying management to “do nothing.” That I think it’s a crappy movie has little to do with its treatment of phone sex, and will be further explored in my forthcoming review. But I am beginning to tire of seeing the job I treat with respect and conduct with professionalism used as a writers’ default naughty/daring/shocking/embarrassing plot catalyst.
I can totally believe that Miller, the writer/star of the movie, has probably had experience with phone sex at some point in her life, as parts of it do ring true. But that’s like saying a couple drunken girl-on-girl hook-ups in college qualifies one to write an advice column on lesbian dating. For the love of authentic storytelling, Hollywood, the next time you make a full-length motion picture about women who start a phone sex company, talk to a real woman who has started an actual existing phone sex business. Trust me, the women I know in the industry could tell you true stories that are infinitely more entertaining than For a Good Time, Call…