Phillip Toledano lives and works in New York City. All photos © Phillip Toledano, courtesy of the artist, all rights reserved.

Phillip Toledano’s new book Phone Sex (July 2008, Twin Palms) takes us into the boudoirs of nearly 30 phone-sex operators so we see their faces and also hear their stories—each operator gives his or her take on the business.

So much of commerce now is blind: online shopping, tech support in Bangalore. We hope there is a person at the other end of the transaction, but it could be a machine; often the machine doesn’t seem very well programmed. The phone-sex industry, though, thrives on being faceless and intensely personal at the same time.

“To the caller, when I first answer, I am the inanimate Barbie. They do not know what I look like, who I am or how I feel. They can only imagine. It is my job to indulge their fantasies, to convince them that I am not a doll. I am their dream turned real. I view every question the caller asks me as a command for me to transform. If they ask if I am blonde, I become a blonde. If they ask how wet I am, I tell them that my panties are drenched. I respond to every sound the caller makes with an affirmation, I encourage them, I breathe life into their fantasy, I carve the doll out of flesh. I do not view myself as this doll, as the commodity. I am the manufacturer who creates her from the blueprint that the caller provides me. When the caller comes, it is positive feedback. Like an architect patting his contractor on the back.”

“I’m 60 years old, have a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University, and married for 25 years. I have a son in his last years of college who lives at home. He’s a 4.0 with a double major in English Literature and Religion. Men call me for an infinity of reasons. Of course, they call to masturbate. I call it “Executive Stress Relief.” It’s not sex; it’s a cocktail of testosterone, fueled by addiction to pornography, loneliness, and the need to hear a woman’s voice. I make twice the money I made in the corporate world. I work from home, the money transfers into my bank account daily. I’m Scheherezade: If I don’t tell stories that fascinate the Pasha, he will kill me in the morning.”

“One of my most memorable calls was also one of the grossest. It was a fetish cat. A scat fetish. Most times I would aggravate the caller into hanging up by refusing to talk ‘shit’ with him, but this night I was feeling frisky. So I indulged in his request and gave him the shittiest call ever. I started out by telling him I was a vegan. After several minutes of conversation he gently asked if I could ‘go’ while we were on the phone, and I told him I could. He wanted to hear it coming out, farts and all. (So gross.) Then he wanted to eat it and clean me. While describing how soft and colorful it was, I told him there was a piece of asparagus that I apparently did not chew too well. Naturally, I asked him to get it for me. I cracked him up. He was laughing so hard, he had to hang up, because he couldn’t get back into our fantasy.”

“Gary was watching a ‘World’s Strongest Women’ show and saw a woman pick up a motorcycle. ‘Oh I could do that,’ I offered. ‘Could you?’ he responded, breathless. ‘Yes. How much do you weigh?’ ‘160.’ ‘Oh. I could bench-press two of you.’ ‘Oh my god… I’d like to see you lift up my girlfriend’s car.’ ‘What kind of car does she have?’ ‘A Mazda Miata.’ ‘Oh yes, I could pick up a Miata. In fact, I would love to.’ ‘Really?!?!??! Oh my god! What if my girlfriend was inside?’ ‘I would just pick it up, lift it to my shoulder level, and then hoist it up over my head, with your girlfriend inside. I’d slowly turn around in a circle with it held up in the air, with your girlfriend screaming in the front seat.’” A part of me may miss getting paid for this when I move on.

“I got into phone sex because I thought: ‘Why not get paid for talking dirty, instead of doing it for free?’ It brings up my self-esteem so much, knowing guys are looking at my pics and wanting to talk with me. Wanting me to take them to a whole other place, filling their fantasies… painting that picture in their mind for them.”

“My first night was on a Saturday at midnight. It was a gentleman who I believe called himself Bob. He told me about his first experience with a glory hole. He explained that he had no one he felt comfortable telling this to, and I felt a strange intimacy between us, though it was rooted in a fantasy. I think it’s easier to release repressed desires to a non-judgmental, fictional person, because there are no consequences in the outside world.”

“I never thought I would work in the phone sex industry. All those years doing customer service, my customers would comment on my sexy voice. I thought I was being professional, not sexy. This work is customer service. It’s just your customers leave with more than a smile.”

So how did the series begin?

I’d been thinking about the things in society that are in plain sight, but still remain hidden.

What surprises appeared?

How many [of these] people really loved what they did, and for so many reasons: because they felt they were helping people; because they had discovered things about themselves, sexually or otherwise; because it was often a two-way street. Also, how much imagination you need to be a good operator, and how good you have to be at figuring out what someone wants. And finally, how it’s a job that reaches across the entire socio-economic strata.

How did the operators respond to you coming into their workspaces (which, presumably, are fairly intimate zones)?

They were fine with it. We’d spent several weeks emailing beforehand, so I wasn’t a completely unknown quantity. Plus, I always mentioned that if they wanted to have someone there, that was completely OK.

Any desire to make portraits of those who call phone-sex lines?

No, that’s it for phone sex for me.

What are you working on now?

Two projects. One is an installation project that has nothing to do with photography. It’s called “America the Gift Shop” and the premise is: If American foreign policy had a gift shop, what would it sell?

The other is a personal photo project about my father and me. My mum died a year ago, and he’s 98, so I’m trying to memorize as much as possible.