Interview with a former phone sex worker: “All of a sudden, I became the daddy-daughter girl. And I couldn’t take calls unless I was drunk.”

In 1998, then 18-year-old Sara (name changed to protect her identity) had an older male friend who got her a job making 18 to 22 cents a minute at a Vancouver phone sex hotline. She did this for approximately six months, until she developed an addiction to alcohol. She told me how she drank on the job to cope with the trauma of the work. After leaving, Sara became an escort and started taking heroin.

Full disclosure: Sara is one of my dearest friends. This is a shortened version of our conversation. In addition to shortening it, I’ve cut some of our personal banter.

Sara’s story is dark. But she is now a happily partnered mother of four daughters, owns her home in BC, and spends some of her spare time advocating for women’s sex-based rights. Basically, she’s one of the toughest bitches you could ever hope to meet.

We laughed a lot, and (as you will see) Sara makes light of what happened to her. I hope that you can also laugh despite the horror. Sara won’t mind.

One of the most fascinating (and tragic) parts of our conversation was the fact that Sara sees a parallel between the phone sex work she did as a teen and the OnlyFans pornography work done by so many young women in today’s culture; she sees both as a gateway into more dangerous and damaging types of “sex work,” i.e. prostitution. Same shit, different century.

As you read, try to keep it in mind that this was a teenager talking to these men:

Amy: I’ll just start with basic questions. Like when you did it, and for how long.

Sara: I would say it was less than six months. I started as soon as I turned 18 and was legally allowed to do it. That was because I knew the manager. Uh, I had a boyfriend that was eight years older than me. All my friends were eight years older than me including the manager of one of the three phone-sex offices in Vancouver at the time. So, this would've been 1998.

Amy: Right.

Sara: So, I only did it for six months and I was just like, not good at it. I mean, it’s like: “Do you give good phone?” And no, no—I don’t give good phone. I give bad phone.

Amy: What is “good” and what is “bad” phone?

Sara: What is good is a 78-year-old woman who has been around the block—to say the least—who probably hosted burlesque shows and worked the door at strip clubs, and maybe worked inside strip clubs, or at least went through a few husbands. And she smokes a lot. She smokes three packs a day and she is at least 75.

Amy: For the gravelly voice?

Sara: Yes. Those are the women who make the money. [The men] could request that certain girl, the 78 -year-old. [Laughs.] The ones that were falling in love, et cetera, would ask for your address. We were allowed to give out a PO box number. But only the really old broads got loot. They were forever having stuff brought to their little cubby, their little carrel desk [Laughs.] And it would be stuff like grandmother’s engagement rings.

Amy: Wow. Did they tell the men how old they were? The clients had no idea?

Sara: No. They would always say: “Hi, I’m 22.” And I got zero gifts, zero fan mail. It was embarrassing. Not one person could give a shit. And part of that was I was 18 and I sounded like it; I sounded like a cheerleader. [Laughs.]

Amy: Do you remember how much they were paying per minute?

Sara: It was $4.95 US a minute. And this was in ‘98. And we only got American calls even though the call center was in Canada. There were like 60 different phone numbers that would all lead to us. So sometimes they would tell you before you picked up: “Okay, you’re a redhead. You’re a college student. You’re in a hot tub.”

Amy: Wow.

Sara: And then you flip to the hot tub section of your book.

Amy: There was a book?

Sara: Yeah. It was a book of scripts. And it was thick. It was like a two-inch black binder full of scripts for every tiny thing that any sick creep could come up with to talk to you about. So that you don't get stumped.

Amy: Do you recall what was the most outrageous script?

Sara: Umm, I don't remember the script specifically. I do remember how the beginning of every call went exactly the same. I remember how I was supposed to lead the men into a script and then follow their lead as to which section of the binder you flip to. And then at that point you start talking very slowly. [Laughs.] That was the key; because it’s $4.95 a minute. Every second counts. And they’re already watching porn, reading magazines. They’re just sitting there whacking it away for however long. [Laughs.] And by the time they call you, they’re ready to go. You know? So you wanna slow ‘em down. Otherwise it's a one-minute call.

Amy: [Laughs.]

Sara: You wanna drag ‘em out for 10 minutes. That was always the goal: 10 minutes. And then at 10 minutes you hang up on him.

Amy: What? Really?

Sara: Yeah. And hopefully he calls back, hopefully he thinks he just got disconnected. It was a problem with the system, et cetera, et cetera. The guys who call all the time know; they know exactly what's going on. They're like: “I know you're gonna fucking hang up on me in 10 minutes.”

Amy: What is the advantage of hanging up after 10 minutes?

Sara: It’s all about the bill payment. Let’s say I get someone stuck on the phone for a couple hours. They can say that I manipulated them. People have won court cases over this—that they were basically manipulated or conned by the woman on the other end of the phone. Or they'll even say: “Oh, I thought I hung up and I didn't.” But if they have to call back, they’re making a conscious choice.

Amy: How often do they call back?

Sara: I would say maybe a quarter of the time. And usually they'll want someone else, at least with me—because I was so bad at it. [Laughs.] I might be like: “Oh, I’m all dressed again. Is that three minutes since I last talked to you? I got fully dressed.” [Laughs.]

Amy: What was the office like?

Sara: It was big. Your average office, with that thin, crappy carpet. A big room with tons of fans everywhere. Probably because we were allowed to smoke. And it was those carrel desks like they’d stick you in if you were the bad kid in elementary school, so that you wouldn’t be distracted by the other kids. And you would graffiti it if you were me. [Laughs.] There were probably 30 to 50 of us grouped together. It [the call centre] was also a psychic line and a party line. We would listen in on each other’s calls and laugh.

Amy: Oh?

Sara: You would say to your friend next to you: “Oh my God, I got one that's a lunatic—you gotta get in on this call.” You could even [tell the client]: “My girlfriend just showed up and she wants to get in the hot tub too. And we'd just be laughing our asses off—mute, mute, mute, laugh, laugh, laugh. And smoking the whole time. It’s really bizarre when I think about it. That was 1998.

Amy: Do you feel like the women were being taken advantage of?

Sara: No. [Laughs.] We really weren't. There are creeps, right? I got into it because I basically was just like an OnlyFans girl. It was like this: I am lazy [laughs], I don’t wanna work really hard—so I'll take advantage of a bunch of creeps, who cares? I'm paying my rent. And that's kind of how I felt about it. But then because I was 18, the men who called back for me were the men who were very specifically wanting an 18-year-old.

Amy: Yikes.

Sara: And all of a sudden I became the daddy daughter girl.

Amy: Oh.

Sara: And I couldn't take calls unless I was drunk. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Some of these guys had daughters that lived with them. I remember this one guy who wouldn't leave me alone. The name he used with me was Maverick, and he was from Texas. And I remember he had a 15-year-old daughter living with him. And her mom had taken off; she was some drug addict or something. So it's just him raising this 15-year-old daughter by himself while he's calling me on the sex lines every day looking for daddy daughter issues.

Amy: Gross. What kind of things did he want to talk about?

Sara: Like, pretend you're doing your homework at the desk. Pretend I come up behind you to help you with your homework. I'm reading over your shoulder and—yeah. You know what I mean? That kind of stuff. It would make me feel so disgusting. It really, really started to mess with my head.

I actually moved from the office to doing [the calls] at home. When you were in the office, you made 22 cents, I believe—it was either 22 cents or 18 cents—per minute. And when you moved home, you made a little bit less. But I wanted to move home because I thought, well, at least I'm in my safe zone. And if someone really creeps me out, my boyfriend was there and I'm in my house, and I can go for a walk with my dog or whatever. But then it was in my home.

Amy: Yeah.

Sara: And that it turns out it didn't make it any better. For a while there, my boyfriend even listened in on the other line. [Laughs.] He would laugh his ass off. A lot of it really was just funny—because I'd be lying to these guys about how I'm in the hot tub in a sorority.

Amy: Wow.

Sara: And doing things like sucking on oranges or my arms to make it sound like I’m doing different sex acts. This was a tip from my binder. [Laughs.]

Amy: So, there were no males working there, and no females calling to speak to males, right?

Sara: No. All the management was male though.

Amy: And no lesbians called, I take it?

Sara: None. Zero. Never even heard of that happening.

Amy: Do you think there’s a connection with the phone sex world and prostitution?

Sara: Absolutely. I mean, it’s “sex work.” It is the same world; it’s not just a connection. It’s just a different level. There’s being a stripper, working in porn, being an OnlyFans girl, working on the sex lines, being a cam girl. It’s all absolutely sex work.

Amy: Right. I think you said you didn’t feel personally taken advantage of.

Sara: I just felt generally disgusting. I knew that it was my choice. But, I noticed none of the guys I knew were making that choice.

Amy: There’s no market.

Sara: Part of me felt like, well, patriarchy is gonna screw me over. Maybe I could at least screw over the patriarchy. You know, get their money out of them? But it doesn't work that way. They win. Yeah. They suck your soul. They make it so that you’re afraid of the phone ringing—is it Maverick on the other end of that call, or is it a normal call?

Amy: What was the worst call you ever got?

Sara: I'll never, ever forget Maverick, who was always very, very nice to me. Nothing but polite. He felt bad. He felt bad about calling. Expressed guilt, like there was a human side to him. And it almost made him feel more dangerous to me.

Amy: Do you think he was doing something [sexually inappropriate] in real life?

Sara: I almost feel like I was grooming him to. Like I was a part of that. I don’t know. I know he sure as hell wanted to. And I know that me being involved didn’t help with that.

Amy: That’s a scary thought.

Sara: [Talking to him] was just encouragement. Right? Now, I certainly never encouraged him in the sense of like: ”Yeah, go do that.” It's just the fact that I'm willing to go along with it, call him what he wants, and go through the scenarios in conversation. What's the step after that?

Amy: Did any of the women ever call the police on anyone?

Sara: No, I never heard of that happening.

Amy: What was the average caller like?

Sara: Your average perverted creep. Your average suburban dad. House husband, et cetera. That was mainly it: middle-aged married men, and a whole lot of husbands who had new kids at home.

Amy: Oh wow.

Sara: It’s amazing how many men feel discarded when they [have babies]. These dudes seem completely, unapologetically justified in their heads. They’re entitled. They’re entitled to their blowjob. They're entitled to their orgasm. Their wife better be providing it. And if she’s not, they're not gonna feel too bad about going elsewhere.

Amy: Do you think these men start with phone sex and then actually go out onto the streets?

Sara: Absolutely. I think that it's a gateway for men to seek out the real thing. To either go find someone on a street corner, cruise the wrong side of town, or get an escort.

Amy: In terms of the other women working there, do you think they were doing other forms of “sex work”? Or, is this a gateway into more harsh forms of “sex work”?

Sara: It was definitely a gateway for pretty much everyone—because it's crossing those lines, right? You put that line in the sand, then you allow it to be crossed. It's just boundaries. We keep wearing down boundaries and as soon as you have that one little toe dipped in, it’s easy to dip your foot. And it just goes from there until it doesn’t feel any different than the original toe dip. But now your whole body is involved.

Amy: Did it impact your personal trajectory?

Sara: Yeah. It taught me to self-medicate to get through stuff that I felt really uncomfortable with. It got to the point where the only way I could do the job was if I was drinking. And that, you know, set off the spiral of addiction. And then you need to pay for that addiction. And then the addiction needs more and more from you. Phone sex was the first step to making it okay.

Amy: Right.

Sara: And I would say that it’s the same thing with these “content creators.” Right? It starts off with “I cosplay.” And “This is me being Sailor Moon and—oh—here’s a little bit of my cleavage. And now here's a little bit of my this, and now here's my OnlyFans, and now I'm in porn!” And wow. It’s a game for young women. You're gonna quickly get chewed up and spat out once you're an old lady—at 25, you know. [Laughs.] Then you're escorting.

Amy: Right. And what about the old ladies that were there doing phone sex? Were they a different sort of women?

Sara: Definitely. They were of a different generation. These women were the ones that had already been chewed up and spat out by working at the burlesque clubs, the strip clubs. They're on their second or third boob job. There comes a time when no one wants your lap dances anymore.

Amy: The phone sex sounds almost like a service that gets women into prostitution and then it also gets them out at the end.

Sara: Yeah. It's the gateway and it's the exiting program at the same time. Where at the end of it they come in and laugh at everyone and make bank. But this isn’t a service that exists anymore. Now it's OnlyFans and it's cam girls. It's live and they can see you—so old ladies aren't able to pull in the tricks.

Amy: Can I ask why you quit doing phone sex?

Sara: Because it was causing me crazy amounts of anxiety and really upsetting me. It made me hit a major depression. So much of [the phone sex] was funny—probably 80 percent of it is just easy, basic and kind of amusing—and easy to make money. But I just couldn't deal with it. I went to therapy and then started using heavy drugs. [Laughs.] And then I needed to do “real” sex work. I needed to pay those bills.

Easy money is what I imagine a lot of OnlyFans girls think. You think: “I'm liberal minded; I'm super progressive; and I'm gonna sell what other people would take for free.” That's it. And that's kind of how I felt about it. I thought I was the woman in control.

Amy: Would you describe your 18-year-old self as a vulnerable youth?

Sara: Absolutely. I for sure would. If you asked me at the time, I'd have been like: “No. I'm the bitch in charge.” But of course I was stupid and clueless. I had no idea what was going on.

Amy: This isn’t the end of our conversation, just the article, and I want to end on a positive note. Because you're one of my best friends: I know that you're doing really well now.

Sara: I’m a very happy person today. As much as stuff scars you in life, if you're happy with the way things turn out then it’s hard to regret things, you know?

I'm a huge fan of WP Kinsella. I actually wrote him a few fan letters and he always wrote me back, which is amazing. He wrote that movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner. And there was a big thing about how “if you build it, he will come.” So, the Kevin Costner guy built a baseball field to make all these dead baseball players come and play baseball. That was his thing. But for me, I was just like, “I'm gonna build my own life. The way I want it to be.”

***

--Thank you for reading. If you haven’t already, I hope you will consider a paid subscription to my Substack, which helps support me to do the work I really love!

Amy