So… there’s this little play that I’m doing this summer and fall. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Phone Whore. Really. It’s little. It’s just got me in it. I have a director and a tech director and a set builder, but on stage it’s just me in my pajamas. The set pieces can all fit in my 1991 Toyota Corolla, plus two suitcases, a duffle bag, an office-in-a-box, and a pantry-in-a-box.

(Oooh, an office-in-a-box? Sounds snazzy! What is it? Ummm… office and merch supplies thrown in a box. Same thing for pantry-in-a-box: rice, granola, sofrito, tuna fish, peanuts, and a good chef’s knife. In a box. As simple as dick in a box, but easier to explain to customs.)

ANYWAY.

A lot of my life is wrapped up in getting this show on the road, getting it booked into places, getting homestay, making a fantastic poster, and, well, packing my life in a box for five months and putting it on wheels. That in itself is fairly traumatic. But add on top of it, I’m basically committing to saying the same vulnerable, sexy, scary things (one audience member at the Boston opening weekend called it “intense”) for 50 or 60 shows over the next five months.

How can I tell that I’m scared? I find myself second-guessing my decisions, even with the positive feedback, even with the plans in place, even with the Montreal postcards done and sent to print, the first of thousands of cards I’ll be handing out to people this year with my face on them (layered over a fierce pegging narrative, a very readable wall of smut in 20% grayscale).

I keep bugging my director. It’s not too much? I ask. NO, she says, shut up.

I look at posts like this, about how coming out and sharing one’s story as a sex worker is a privilege, and I think, god, what I’m doing is so fucking self-centered and privileged.

And then I feel the weight of the responsibility, because I know that people are going to take me and my play as some kind of representation of the whole, and it’s not, it really isn’t, but that doesn’t matter, because in the larger scheme of things, that’s just the way it’s going to be interpreted. And then I try to sort out unnecessary guilt from necessary good intent, and that’s a bitch, let me tell you.

And then I think, what if people really like it and come out to it? I’m going to have to file taxes in Canada next year, jeezus, I still owe $7000 in back taxes here in my own goddamn country! Or what if people start stalking me because of it? And then I start to get an anxiety attack.

And then inevitably the phone rings. (Warm pork chops or an anxiety attack, the calls always interrupt something good.) (And actually another call came in just now, a 15-minute hand-job. Five bucks for me, yay!) But you know what? As busy as I am, making lists or trying to reach kinksters in Calgary or nailing down a venue in DC–even while on tour, because I’m sticking as close to my required shifts as possible–I need the calls to keep coming in.

For starters I need to keep making money. I don’t know how the tour is going to do. But beyond that, doing the calls calms me right the fuck down. It reminds me where the hell this all comes from, this play, my comedy stuff, the tour. A fifteen-minute titty fuck grounds me in the straightforward (which is not always to say simple) act of getting a stranger off. Audiences and reviewers and the public and, hell, community standards can be prickly little bastards, fickle and treacherous. But my callers only want one thing, and by god, I know beyond doubt that I am good at giving it.

Thanks, guys!

No Comments | In: Cameryn 101, Phone Whore on the road | tags: I'm an Artiste Dammit, Phone Sex, Phone Whore 2010 Tour, Social Issues and Damp Tissues. | #

There is a certain type of caller I get—I need to come up with a good label for them—where maybe they’re calling the first time to just get a good wham-bam session in, and then I hook them with my wordsmithing.

I don’t do it on purpose, and I’m not saying that other PSOs aren’t capable of it, AND when pressed (up against a urinal, ba-dump-bump), I can and do deliver the brutal, sound-symphony-type fuck session as well as anyone. But I default to description. Lots of it. Big steaming loads of juicy, melt-in-your-mouth, caress-your-ears description. It’s my training as a writer. And in phone sex it’s a double-edged sword, which I learned very quickly to keep in its sheath.

My company mostly sells blocks of time, and I sure as shit don’t get paid for going over. In fact, I get ripped a new one for going over, so, you know, negative reinforcement and all that. Even for the rare “open” calls, where I keep the timer running and call in when I’m done—the ones like what people think when they think phone sex—most callers are bargain-minded, and they don’t have any patience if they aren’t getting directly to the point. What I feel is an important element of the scene—the furniture in the basement, the color of my panties, giving equal stage time to all 12 members of the basketball time currently raping his ass—may not be of the essence, and they’ll let me know somehow to move on.

But there are the ones who thrill to the details, who ask me to repeat a certain line. I make sure to mentally set aside that much time to get their gears grinding and set the scene. I mean, I get that it’s part of their fetish thing, getting that kind of detail, but I still love it when it meshes with my chronic motormouth and becomes this joint creative collaboration. I thrive off the caller who wants to hear me spin out the negligee he needs to put on, or describe in-depth how my sweaty ass crack smells, or explicate how his wife will feel when she falls in love with another man with a bigger cock. One of my callers said once, “listening to you is like reading a novel, it’s so rich!”

Well, and not everyone likes to read novels. Some people are more than satisfied with headlines and cereal boxes, and that’s what I’ll do. But when the phone-sex equivalent of a novel-reader comes along, I am ready.

1 Comment | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: Phone Sex. | #

It’s been really, really slow on the phones lately. It’s not me, at least that’s what my boss tells me. It’s just that time of the year. Weather’s getting nice, baseball is back on, tax returns are due. Aahhhhh, yes. People are getting concerned about money, and saving up for tax payments.

And phone sex is a luxury item. I’m not going to say anything about sex in general being a luxury, but 20 minutes of time once a week to talk to a stranger about having your wife get fucked by a couple of black dudes? Well, it’s cheaper than therapy or actually hiring a couple of guys to do the deed, but not as cheap as just sitting at home in your dark bedroom and replaying last week’s phone call in your head.

I’m in reruns and I’m not getting a cent.

In good news, I’ve been getting a small wave of people who used to be regulars, or at least who requested me a few times in a row, A YEAR AGO, and then didn’t call back, until now. One of the dispatchers I asked about it last night, she said, “eh, they just like to try all the girls”. Me, I wonder if they liked what they heard back then, but I didn’t quite have the skills to hook them through and keep them on. Because it was A YEAR AGO.

There’s no knowing, I suppose, but it’s just fun to hear back from people who not only stuck in my mind, but apparently I stuck in theirs. Last night I heard back from my Gentleman Ass Pirate, after a 10-month absence. No recriminations, obviously, but I said, “well, we’ve spoken before, but I don’t know if you remember…”, and he interrupted and said in that sweet Southern accent, “Oh, no, honey, I remember your voice. You have a celebrity voice.” I was like, what? He was a little drunk, so he sounded a little flustered. “I mean, you have a voice that sounds like you should be a celebrity. Like you should be on radio or something. You have a beautiful voice. I remember your voice.”

Gentleman Ass Pirate, indeed. He proceeded to lay siege to my booty for 45 minutes, getting me to lick his dirty cock between bouts, and thanked me afterwards as graciously as a king.

Welcome back, pirate. Stay for a while this time. The wench is better than she was a year ago.

1 Comment | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: dirty talk, Phone Sex. | #

I’m not much for the winter holidays, to be honest. Since my primary partner and I shifted to a long-distance model–over three years ago, gah–the whole family/spouse/children/big dinner thing makes zero sense, so I tend to get pretty blasé, as in “blah”. This year on Thanksgiving I’m holding down the phone lines for my usual shift, stepping out for dinner at a friend’s house, where she is whipping up some Louisiana-style, duck-based deliciousness, and then coming back and… signing back on.

Sigh.

Well, I said all that Hallmark-induced shit doesn’t make sense. Didn’t say I’m impervious to societal pressure about what I’m supposed to be doing this Thursday. And again for Christmas. And again on New Year’s Day.

Instead of  wallowing, I’d rather take a moment and write down a few things that I’m feeling thankful for. I mean, that’s part of the tradition too, right? Since I can’t really say this stuff in front of my mom and dad, this is the perfect place…

• I’m thankful that I have paying work. Seven months ago I got notice that I was being let go from my straight job, and I was in a panic. But here I am, and the power is still on and I’m on time with a payment schedule for my student loans. A lot of people aren’t so lucky.
• I’m thankful for this work that I enjoy. For reals. I get a cheesy grin on my face when the dispatcher tells me that such-and-such a regular is requesting me, and I know it’s one of the ones that I can really play with.
• I’m thankful for such an abundant source of inspiration and material for new artistic work. Phone Whore excites the crap out of me (where are my toilet slaves when I need them, ha ha), and the stand-up stuff is scary hard, but good.
• I’m thankful for a circle of friends and chosen family who support me in this work, who don’t bat an eye when I dash off to pick up the phone and who listen with every appearance of interest when I have to debrief about my latest hard-core caller.
• I’m thankful for all of the other sex workers and allies who have labored before me, in trying to demystify, decriminalize, and even celebrate our work: SWOP, Annie Sprinkle, Scarlot Harlot at BAYSWAN, Audacia Ray, ISWFACE, Émilie at Stella, $pread (the magazine and bog), the other members of psosupport.com. You’ve answered my questions, pointed me to resources, and really helped me integrate sex work into my self-identity. I’m stepping out to join the fray, but believe me, I’m well aware of the work that has already been done.

That’s there’s my semi-regular Gratitude Report, folks. What do you got in yours?

1 Comment | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: gratitude, Phone Sex, sex work, sex work resources. | #

For some reason, I thought I was done with dramatic personal transformations or realizations that I’d need to tell my folks about. I mean, I haven’t lived under their roof for over 20 years, I see them maybe once every 2-3 years, and I talk with them over the phone every other month. They live completely on the other side of the country, they’re Mormons, and they’re still a little lost about the whole bisexual thing.

Just when I think it’s not possible to make my life any more different from theirs, then I have to go and find my life’s work in getting guys off over the phone. That, plus the whole Phone Whore tour thing, makes life complicated. Because even the stuff that would normally be perfectly appropriate for idle chit chat, even that suddenly becomes treacherous territory.

So, how are you doing at that new job, where is it again?

Customer service at a call center.

Oh, and that’s pretty much any time of day, right?

Yes, customers need help any time. … (rushes in to fill awkward silence) Oh, and I’m, uh, working on a one-woman show, hoping to tour for four months next year!

Oh, that’s great, honey. What’s it about?

Uh. Oh. Just my life, you know.

Oh. … Good! Let us know if you make it through here with the show!

I doubt it, Mom. Because if I tell you that I’m coming through, you’re going to want to know about the show. And if I tell you about the show, you’re going to cry, because you’ll know for a fact that I’m beyond praying for, and you’re getting old and, as rootless and guiltless and shameless as I am, I am not sure that even my jaded nerves are up to the task.

*******

Check out what the Three Naked Ladies said this week about coming out to their people about their sex work. And let me know what you’ve told your people about yours. Seriously. Because I fear the conversation is coming, and as much experience as I have had coming out, I suddenly feel like a 19-year-old baby dyke all over again.

No Comments | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: family relationships, Phone Sex. | #

Confession: I’m not a top, I’m a switch. Those who know me may be a little surprised, because I come off pretty assertive. But them’s the facts, ma’am. I switch when I meet someone who can top me hard, and who doesn’t flinch about my predilection for being a little girl in the sheets. A stone daddy, if you will.

Well, most of my callers aren’t tops. Most probably don’t even know what that means. Most are sissy-girls and mommyfuckers, or guys who want me to be vicious and yank their pink satin thongs into a wedgie. The ones who call and want to get rough and/or nasty are staying in their own head, and throwing shit at me to get their rocks off. Whether that shit sticks to me or not is really irrelevant. In line with the 7-minute sub, I guess these guys would be the 10-minute tops.

Well, last week I got a caller who actually did a fucking intake interview: what I liked, what I thought I was good at, what I looked like when I was 12, what I fantasized about with my real-life partners, and what I’ve actually done and enjoyed in real life. Something about the way he did it, I let my guard down. And then he turned it around on me, and I was … floored.

He had paid attention, picking up all my details and weaving them into something else that I could tell was his turn-on, but with enough of my own real-life bits to make it very, very sticky. Not like syrup is sticky, or velcro, but like a cape made of barbed hooks is sticky: once it’s on you, it’s in you, and if someone pulls at it, you go wherever they take you.

It was unnerving to be on the other end of that treatment. He figured out some of what made me tick, made up the rest with a pretty good guess, and I was putty. He was good. He was merciless. He was a foul-mouthed bastard. He was … actually, he was to me as I am to the vast majority of my callers

It was an open-ended call, so the profit motive was strong to keep him going, at least in the beginning. But by the end of the call, I was sweating and panting and torn between wanting the story to keep going and needing it to stop because I was afraid I might faint. Afterwards, while I was trembling and rehydrating, it hit me that I had never felt more deserving of the phrase “sex worker”.

He called me the next night, too, and when the dispatcher gave me the call, she said, huh, that’s weird, he normally only calls the really young girls. And I laughed and said something blasé about my roleplaying skills. I didn’t say anything about the excited little girl jumping up and down inside me. She’s not a marketable skill. She’s just me, and doesn’t come out for anyone but a real daddy.

1 Comment | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: Definitions, Happy Happy Joy Joy, Kink-tastic. | #

This is not a phone-sex blog. You won’t find a number anywhere on this page that you can call up and buy a 10-minute block of time with Cameryn. (Nor will I sell my panties to you. I need them.)

This is a phone-sex blog. I am a professional phone sex operator (under a different name). Phone sex is what pays my bills, and not only that, it is something that I am fascinated by and enjoy.

There is a lot of down-time with the job, though, waiting for calls to come in (I work for a dispatch company). So I’m developing a line of creative and educational “by-products” of phone-sex work, and also am looking forward to getting out some of my thoughts right here about the issues that frequently come up through and around my work.

What else is in the works? I’ve been booked for a dirty-talk workshop in mid-November in the Boston area, and am working feverishly on the script and fundraising plans for a one-woman play, Phone Whore, with a target of getting it onto the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit in the summer of 2010 (I’m planning a benefit showcase for the latter half of August). This blog is also going to be expanding dramatically over the next couple of months, as I add an event calendar and audio components (both free and pay-to-download).

Long story short? Sexy + intelligent + straight-up + self-pimping = Cameryn Moore, Little Black Book Productions, and this blog. If you enjoy it even half as much as I do, your panties are going to be a little damp all day long.

First question to readers: what is something you’ve always wanted to know about phone sex work? (If you’re a fellow phone-sex operator, what is something you’ve always wanted to tell people about our work?)

2 Comments | In: Cameryn 101 | tags: Intro, Phone Sex, Pimpin'. | #