Every Monday, The CSPH takes a look at a book or film focusing on an aspect of sexuality. This week we are featuring Phone Sex: Aural Thrills and Oral Skills by Miranda Austin.
Austin’s book is a very amusing, if messy, account of being a phone sex operator. She tended to receive male-identifying customers: some innocent, some experienced, some kinky, and some vanilla. While working, Austin herself used three different personas: a young redhead, a ditsy Asian woman, and a blond Dominatrix. In a blatantly honest manner, Austin describes the calls she received: by letting the reader know how she reacted to various fantasies she heard and participated in, and whether she was enjoying herself, trying not to chuckle, or extremely uncomfortable. The reader gets to learn about her turn-ons, and how she tries to find her own kink in others’. More taboo kinks are also discussed, like age-play, snuff, incest, and some lesser-known practices like holding one’s breath or shrinking someone so they might fit in the palm of your hand. Her experience comes off as positive as a whole, with a few unfortunate moments such as having a person on the line start choking themselves during a snuff fantasy.
Though most of the book is directly about the customers, Austin also includes some resources, tips for enjoying phone sex, and being a more efficient phone sex customer. In a particularly interesting passage, Austin points out that though people might take phone sex and their boundaries for it rather lightly, phone sex is still sex. It is also, as Austin notes, very safe sex.
As a memoir, I found this a fun and interesting text; however, as a guidebook, it’s not well organized and would probably not be thorough enough for someone looking how to become a phone sex operator. All in all I found this an intriguing and amusing read, one that I would recommend to anyone curious about the world of phone sex for pay. This book also may be especially interesting to anyone who engages in phone sex, and is curious about what the operator on the other side might be thinking.
