About six months ago I fell on some hard times, and couldn’t go to a physical job. I had hurt my knee really badly, and was subsequently laid off from my retail job. When stuck with the hard fact that I could lose my home and my car, I turned to an add I had seen on a porn website of all places. It was an add for a website that was looking for phone sex operators.

The add stated that it would pay phone sex operators ten dollars for 15 minutes, and 25 cents per text. I had always been pretty open about sex and thought it would be easy money, so I decided to apply.

I was hired on the day after I applied, and started the day after that. It was easy enough. Horny guys call, you get them off. Then you can go cash your check. It went fine for a while. I would talk to guys in chat rooms and get them to call. I felt terrible about being a catfish of sorts, but at least it was paying my bills.

It was all going fine until I received a new caller.

Let’s call him Jay. He told me his real name, but I would rather not even think about him too hard. Jay was an elder professional who was the most misogynistic man that I had ever spoken to.

As a feminist, I felt that doing this kind of work would be no big deal. I told myself I was “empowered” by doing it. When I started to talk to Jay I realized that I had lied to myself.

Jay scared me, and is the entire reason I quit the job as a phone sex operator. I spoke to Jay for three hours on this night. This man spent nearly $300 talking to me on the phone. That would have been all fine and dandy if Jay had not been a very creepy, misogynist.

Jay was very obsessed with the notions that men are better, and stronger than women. For three hours he made me say things along the lines of “Of course you could overpower me, I’m just a weak woman”, and “Oh I don’t know the answer to that question, I’m just a stupid woman”.

Usually, when working, I could put a lot of myself aside. I could just talk about sex, and be done with it. This was more than sex, and this was a problem.

This was the misogyny you hear about on blogs, and other news platforms. This wasn’t something I had seen everyday.

It scared me. It scared me to the point that I could no longer continue in this line of work, no matter how “empowered” I was at the beginning of the experience.

I really respect people who can do this on a daily basis. I simply cannot. If you do want to go into this line of work make sure you are comfortable with talking to all kinds of men.

I thought that since it was “phone sex”, that I would just be speaking about sex. If you are in this line of work, be prepared to be a certain amount of uncomfortable. Do not, however, let your job get in the way of your mental state. I let this job mess with my anxiety so much that I was constantly nervous to even sign in. It is not a profession to be taken lightly, and it takes a very special person to work in it.