What even is phone sex!?

Illustration of two different hands using their phones. The hand on the left has some finger differences and the phone is emitting an eggplant emoji. The phone on the right is held by two hands with finger splints with 2 eyes emojis.

Written by Taylor Troeth

Illustration by Maartje Reggin

 

When I was younger, and the taboo subject of ‘phone sex’ ever came up, in my mind it was one of two things: the phone numbers you’d find in the back of the yellow pages book that you’d call for a joke whenever your family friends were over after monopoly got a bit tiresome – or:  a guy you didn’t really know sending an unprecedented, unwelcome ‘dick pic’.  Either way, neither sounded very satisfying on my end. Just as well, my experience over the years with phone sex has been nothing of the kind.

Recently this whole idea of ‘phone sex’ came up in a conversation with my best friend-turned-housemate. Any time I even mention the concept of speaking to a cute boy online his first response is to ask if I’ve received a dick pic yet (he’s cheeky, I know), forever disappointed in me when I tell him ‘no’. I explain that unlike perhaps in the gay world, if I received a dick-pic from a guy I’d shared but two sentences with, I wouldn’t be that impressed and certainly wouldn’t be talking to him for much longer. We got talking though, and had a really great open conversation about phone sex in all of its glory. I quickly realised that it’s still a ‘not-very-talked-about’ thing. It kind of shocked me that we had never really discussed it before, but thinking about it, it wasn’t really something that I’d ever really talked about even with any of my best girlfriends. Thus, I pondered -  what even is phone sex now, and why aren’t we talking about it more? In a day and age where our hands and eyes are glued to our phones 98% of the time, surely everyone’s doing it, right? So WHY are we not talking about it?

As our phones have developed, so has phone sex along with it. Now it’s so much more then deep-breathing-dirty-talk down the end of a landline. Phone sex can entail an array of exciting, enticing and fun aspects that you and your chosen partner(s) can enjoy. It can range anywhere from sending seductive text messages, nude photos, erotic videos, voice memos, facetime – the list is endless. Pretty much anything you can do with your phone and turn it sexy – you’ve got yourself some hot, heated phone sex.

For me, phone sex isn’t such a far-off concept. In my most recent relationship I was living in a different city to my significant other for parts of the time we were together. It became a big part of how we kept things interesting and current, so even if we weren’t seeing each other for sometimes weeks or months at a time, it still felt like we had a great sex life that didn’t just happen when we were physically together. 

But despite long distance relationships, surely everyone’s been doing it this year right?! I mean HELLO! We’ve been in a bloody pandemic locked in our houses! Come on… all that pent up sexual energy… all that time alone… at home. So why haven’t any of my friends been talking about it?! We will literally talk about everything else: dating, bowel movements, periods, crusty eyes in the morning (I don’t know I’m clutching at straws here, but you get the picture right?) yet this conversation of phone sex had rarely come up.

I live in Sydney, and in the height of Melbourne’s second lock-down I had been flirting with and messaging a guy back home in Melbourne, one thing led to another and we’d had… well, you guessed it– phone sex. It seems crazy to admit, but I’d had a really fun, consensual and enjoyable sexual experience, yet with a guy who wasn’t even in my bed next to me. We talked about it after and I said how I hadn’t really done this with someone I didn’t know that well before. It felt easy and care-free, he always checked if I was okay with things and it was easy for me to say yes or no because ultimately... I was behind a phone. I could use my imagination, use videos and photos he’d sent and do what I wanted to myself, often with the help of my trusty vibrator and well - voile! It I felt like it was the kind of experience I’d want to tell my friends or housemates, just like I would if I’d bought a guy home from a night out, yet I hadn’t and didn’t really know how to say I’d had this whole great experience yet all in the comfort of my room, by myself, on my phone. But the main thing was - it was fun, consensual and sexy as hell.

A lot of negative connotations come with phone sex in our current day and age, mainly from a place of fear. 

 

I think a lot of negative connotations come with phone sex in our current day and age, mainly from a place of fear, especially unfortunately, in my personal experience for straight women – revenge porn is a (messed up) thing. What if an ex shared your nudes? Or that time you filmed yourselves getting freaky? What if they screen shot or screen record and post it on social media? It truthfully is a bit of a scary thought that has definitely crossed my mind, and I’m sure anyone who has ever found themselves entailed in any online affair has thought the same. To be honest, I don’t have a solution to combat those fears. But what I do know now, is that if someone is going to publicly shame you for sending them a video or a photo or a seductive text, that they themselves enjoyed - then that says a whole lot more about their confidence, self-esteem and them as a person then it does you. Phone sex is not something to be ashamed of, because let’s be real, especially in 2020 everyone is doing it and it’s a fun, sexy, easy way to have a great time! Let’s talk about it more and normalise it! And just because a lot of us aren’t locked in our houses anymore, that doesn’t mean you can’t keep having and enjoying these experiences on your phone whenever you damn well please. So, with that all in mind, I encourage you to explore it a little, or baby steps, start chatting about it.  Go and tell your sister, housemate, cousin and Nan about the hot guy you’ve been sexting! Maybe not your Nan, I mean, I don’t know, my nan’s pretty hip.

 

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Taylor is a singer, dancer, actor hailing from Melbourne currently based in Sydney, Australia. Taylor loves reading, writing and through Covid-19 lockdown has started composing her own music. On her days off she likes to go to the beach, pat strangers dogs and eat copious amounts of chocolate and ice-cream 

Maartje Reggin (@littlemaart) is a disabled designer and activist from The Netherlands who loves doing research and making everyone feel included. She is a friend to all animals (especially her two house bunnies and her cat) and can’t live without tea

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