Happy Bi Visibility Day!

Until I became a phone sex operator, I rarely talked about my attraction to women.

I knew from a young age, but I didn’t say it out loud or even fully understand it until I was well into my 20s. Growing up, I had a habit of developing intense, confusing one-sided female friendships that offered no answers, but I didn’t seriously confront the idea until I was in college. And by “seriously confront,” I mean I read a lot of lesbian erotica and thought about the Kinsey Scale. I experimented not at all. Experimentation didn’t even seem like an option for me. There was a lot of denial and repression, and then guilt because I understood that all this denial and repression was rooted in societal homophobia, and I did not like the thought that I could possibly in any way be susceptible to that homophobia.

I should note that I was also anxious about admitting my sexual attraction to anyone of any gender, including cis men. I was still expecting at this time to get married, relatively young, to a cis man, that this man would be the beginning and the end of my sexual history, and I’d get around to meeting him….eventually. While I did grow up in a religious household where sex was rarely discussed, this late bloomage was not because I thought sex was dirty or shameful, or that my value would diminish with every new sexual partner, but because sex seemed intensely emotionally fraught. I have always been terrified of confrontation, and what is sex but the ultimate confrontation? The idea of exposing myself to that with one person felt potentially dangerous. Doing it with more than one person felt like something for which I would never be emotionally prepared. Factor in that I had a mostly-dormant sex drive in my teens and early 20s, and this emotional risk was easily avoided.

So naturally, I became a phone sex operator.

On the first line I worked for, “April” was a character I played. While based on myself, we were not the same age, we didn’t live in the same city, and we had entirely different sexual histories. “April” had many more sexual partners than I did, and unlike me, she had acted on her attraction to women. 

Surprisingly, this went over very well with clients.

In the past, I had always been annoyed by straight-identifying women who engaged in what I perceived as “performative lesbianism.” I.E. the old “make out with each other for male attention” routine. Now I was doing exactly that for work. I knew my clients enjoyed stories of Sapphic abandon, and I obliged. But they weren’t the only ones getting something out of it. For the first time, I had an outlet for this fraught thing I had always struggled to express.  

While the cultural pressure for women to perform sexually with each other when they wouldn’t otherwise for male enjoyment deserves an article in its own right—one I am not remotely prepared or qualified to author—I think criticizing erotic expression on the basis of being “performative” wrongly assumes that anything performative must be a lie.

My first sexual experience with a woman did have a performative aspect. It happened in semi-public. Men were watching, we knew the men were watching, and that made it hotter. It didn’t make our attraction to each other or the pleasure we felt any less real.

This entire post has a performative aspect. There’s a reason I’m writing about this here, on a blog with a readership consisting mainly of my (male) clients who might find it titillating, instead of somewhere my civilian friends would be likely to see. There’s very little at stake in my telling the truth about myself here, just as there’s very little at stake in my telling the truth about myself on the phone. I have to deal with the fact that I am playing into the fetishization of bisexual women, but that doesn’t mean I’m being false. If anything, it gives me an honest way to vent intense emotion that I might not know how to express otherwise.

People ask me a lot how my becoming a PSO has affected my “in person” sex life, and the thing I keep coming back to is, it’s made me chattier and arguably, more performative.

I’m a loud person. I talk loudly. I walk loudly. I laugh like a drugged-up dentist. I tend to be at least somewhat performative even in my everyday non-sexual actions. When I’m washing dishes or wandering around the grocery store, I have moments where I know the imaginary audience is watching me and behave accordingly.

My volume or vocabulary during in person-sex is not necessarily indicative of how close I am to orgasm. Sometimes I’m just really, really happy to be having sex, delighting in my partner, and the way our bodies feel together, and I enjoy expressing that as theatrically as I can. Because it’s fun. Just like it’s fun to talk about a side of myself I repressed for a long time, in the relative safety and anonymity of phone conversations with clients.

And I’m still more comfortable doing that on the phone than face to face. I’m still not out as bisexual to the world at large, not because I’m afraid my family and friends wouldn’t accept me (I am lucky to know they would), but because I still, in many ways, feel like a fraud. Even though I’ve dated and had sexual experiences with women, all of my major relationships have been with men. I go out with men far more than I do women. The brief period I spent as a woman-seeking-women on Tinder was like getting lost in a hellscape overrun with unicorn hunters. I am more romantically attracted to men than to women. And I’m a sex worker who caters primarily to cis male clients. All this looks pretty straight on the surface. Not to mention, I’m still struggling with the shame that it took me almost thirty years to be honest with myself about it, let alone anyone else.

This has been a surprisingly difficult piece to write, both emotionally and in terms of figuring out my thoughts and how to put them into words. It was meant for June, for Pride Month, but true to form, I managed to drag it out all the way to September, to Bi Visibility Day. It’s not a complete or a perfect coming out story, especially since if you’re reading it, you’re probably a client who already knows, but it helps my reflection feel slightly more honest.

Burping in the Darkness – A Return to Blogging

Goddamnit, I am terrible at blogging.

Anyway. Don’t let that dissuade you.

This past year was among the most hectic of my life, in ways both good and bad. While I would heartily recommend becoming one’s own boss, it was…an adjustment. One to which I am still adjusting. Thanks to all you intrepid souls who stuck with me while I got the hang of this through moving and disorganization and burnout and upheaval. 

If you’ve been listening to my audios for a while, you probably know that when I started recording over two years ago, I did so in my bathroom, sometimes with a quilt over my head, sometimes not. Back then, I was still working my full-time office job, recording audios purely for fun. I had no idea what I was doing, which accounts for the distinctly porcelain echo that’s a trademark of so much of my early work. But it was the only room in my house that didn’t overlook a crowded, noisy street. The concept of not having to do every audio in one take and actually being able to edit, was but a dream. In December 2017, I switched to recording in my bedroom closet, right after I started getting serious about this freelancing jazz. I taught myself BASIC editing, the kind of thing they probably teach in elementary schools now, which I was never taught because I was too busy learning how to format a hand-written business letter.

Just like that, a new world opened up. Suddenly, if I burped during an audio, I didn’t have to start all over. I could just….edit it out.  

Naturally, I started burping a lot more.

Anyone who called me or listened to my audios regularly during this period probably remembers that I lived down the street from a hospital—the main reason why my street was so busy. This was obvious because every ten minutes, there would be a shrieking siren speeding past my building. I couldn’t really complain. After all, I wasn’t the one in the ambulance (and let me tell you, when you have an allergic reaction to a fruity mixed drink at 2 AM, it’s handy having a hospital within walking distance). I apologized to my clients again and again for these sirens, but they surprised me by expressing love and appreciation for them.  

“Hey, is that one of the sirens?!” A client would frequently exclaim during a call, often with sheer, unadulterated glee, no matter how intense the roleplay we were doing.

“Yup,” I’d respond.

“Cool! I’m so glad I got to hear one in person.”

Other clients enjoyed telling me when they heard a siren slip past in an audio, even though the perfectionist in me shuddered at the thought of having missed one. I apologize like I’m getting paid for it. If the ambulance had taken a wrong turn and crashed into my apartment, I most likely would have apologized to it. In other words, I often apologize just for existing. Call it a side effect of growing up socialized as female, but a lot of it is just my personality. I’m a placater. So, when the siren shredded in the middle of call, no matter how happy the client seemed, I’d do what I do—not best—but habitually. I’d apologize. A lot.

“I promise you,” one of my regulars finally assured me. “I don’t care. Nobody cares.” 

He was speaking on behalf of all my clients. Submissive that I am, I enjoyed the sense of carefree authority behind this statement. It encouraged me to believe him. I think about this now, every time I apologize for any phone related “mishap” entirely out of my control. I dare say it’s made apologizing a little more fun, though this constant contrition is still a habit I’m trying to break.   

Now I’m in a new apartment in a much quieter neighborhood. I have a small recording studio set up in my bedroom closet where I record gangbang audios all by my lonesome. Among other things. The three dresses I own are hanging up in this closet. The rest of my clothes are crammed into a too-small chest of drawers because there’s no room for them in there with all my equipment. Some things—many things—are strewn all over the floor, forming a multi-colored labyrinth I have to navigate every time the phone rings. I am not tidy.

Sometimes, standing in the dark privacy of my bedroom closet turned home studio, I’ll get swept along by the words I’m saying and the emotions they’re bringing out in me, and it’s the most incredible feeling. Powerful and proud. Other times, I’m sweaty, and tired, and every creak of a floorboard or gurgle in my stomach is a source of stress. Sometimes I feel like the sexiest creature alive, and sometimes as I’m building to a really great orgasm, I’ll burp, and then laugh. There are no perfect jobs.  

I still miss my old studio. I loved that apartment. I even, occasionally, loved the sirens. I’m still getting the hang of this freelancing thing, but I’m proud of everything I’ve learned and continue to learn, and excited to continue this new chapter. If you’re still here, thanks. If you’re new, stick around! Here’s hoping I can actually keep this blog alive for longer than a month.

As for burping in the darkness, Soren Zer0, the producer and animator behind much of my Giantess VR work, suggested I make a supercut of all these magnificent burps. Somebody’s bound to be into that.

Like Telemarketing Backwards: A Porniversary

My first job out of college was as a telemarketer.

I worked for a small tech company, making calls to clients on behalf of the sales team. My job was to plant a seed in the client’s mind that our sales rep was going to call in the near future, so please be aware of the company name and look out for us soon. My co-worker in the next cube eavesdropped on my calls and occasionally popped over the partition to tell me what I could be doing better. The first phone sex line I worked for did this, too.  

My supervisor said I was “good on the phones.” This meant I sounded sweet and uncomplicated. I put strangers at ease quickly. Sometimes I even made them laugh. I got to work on my own writing while navigating company directories. I judged companies by their hold music. It was a dull job, but never a miserable one.

Sitting in my cube on the phones, I was frequently horny. That rarefied early-twenties kind of horny. Some of the clients flirted with me, and I was always happy to add their voices to my erotic Rolodex. (Surprisingly, I've always had a thing for voices.) When one client said he would enjoy getting to know me better, I had enough material to last a week--fuck, I still think about that guy. Then there was the afternoon I got held up at reception because I was mistaken for a mistress (“You were told never to call here again,” the receptionist hissed at me; it was my first time calling the company). 

Many of the men I spoke to seemed to be dealing with their own barely sublimated work-a-day lust. The stuff office audios are made of. Eventually, I thought how much more interesting my job would be if I could actually talk to these guys about sex instead of software sales.

Then I realized there was a job where you could do exactly that. 

Over the next few years, it became a joke I told myself. “Well, if all else fails, I bet I could be a good phone sex operator. I bet, but I can’t actually do that. Could I do that? Why does this suddenly seem more fun and more suited to my interests than any other job I’ve had? Could I actually do it?”

Finally, I went to my local hardware store and bought a landline phone, because most phone sex lines recommended I have one. I had not lived in a home with a landline in almost ten years. As soon as it was installed, I knew I was going to find a way to do it. Just to see if I actually could. And to justify this purchase.

I did not have to audition. The first line I worked required only that I prove I was over eighteen. That’s all. My employment commenced when I was assigned an extension and told to record a greeting. Welcome aboard, good luck, and that’s it. I took a shot of whiskey and waited for the phone to ring.

That first call was terrifying. Probably any call would have been, but looking back on it now, I can’t believe I started with that. The call itself was neither good nor bad, but it was….intense. I had to expand my graphic vocabulary tenfold on the spot. I had to dabble in violence. I’m no stranger to extreme content now, both on the phone and in audios, but that night, I thought dispatch was fucking with me, training me by pushing me in the deep end, first thing. This can’t be a real call, I thought. This is a trial by fire. Of course, it was a real call.

When I hung up, I was flabbergasted that I’d gotten through it without laughing or crying. I was also fucking elated. The job was mine and I could do it.  

That first caller went on to become a regular. Later on, he couldn’t believe it when I told him that was my first call.  

Because I’m good on the phones.  

At some point, during that first week as a PSO, I made a client laugh. He had just asked me the question many clients ask me. Essentially: “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” My voice has a “nice girl” quality, especially when I first answer, before the scene begins in earnest. If I’m not careful, I don’t sound like a PSO. I sound like a PSO’s younger sister who answered the phone by accident. Which is what some clients are looking for. Sweet and uncomplicated.

“Nice girl” in this business, as in life, is a relative term.

I told him I’d been a telemarketer, which was good experience because professional phone sex was "like telemarketing backwards.” The sale has already been made; now get ready for the pitch.

The guy found this funny, apparently, so he laughed. A good laugh, too. There was a pause--audible surprise--and then a true, full-bellied guffaw. The laugh of someone who was not expecting to laugh.

It probably happened because I was pleased that even though the “sexy” part of the chat was over, the client still wanted to talk. I felt loose and relaxed, and he seemed truly interested in my life and what had brought me here. Sharing a laugh with a stranger can be a quietly beautiful thing. And sharing a laugh with a stranger at work? On the phone? After one of you has come?

I thought of how an improv teacher of mine had said that the best laugh is the first one you get without trying. How it can stop you on stage, in the middle of your sentence, and all you can do is stare into the dark and blink at the audience.

If I wasn’t already in love with the job, that laugh tipped me over the edge. 

March 12, 2018 marks one year since I started talking dirty professionally. What a year it’s been.