Your set up's a tad misleading. It makes it seem like the man pretends to be a woman, which he doesn't.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who used to knit while working as a phone-sex operator.

A friend of mine was in grad school getting a psychology degree and was at one point both working as a phone sex operator and volunteering at a suicide prevention crisis hotline, which was very surreal for her. She said that a lot of people who call phone sex lines are really just lonely and want someone to talk to, and she often found herself slipping into therapist mode with them. And then every once in a while someone would call the crisis line wanting to talk dirty.

By the way, for those who don't know and in case it's not clear from the photos, phone sex operators generally work at home -- the system is set up so that the calls are just routed to your own phone number, so you're not sitting in some sexy call center somewhere.

...screen shots from phone sex websites with his photographs of real sex phone operators

But interestingly, in the caption for one photo—the mostly-naked woman sitting in front of a window—the operator refers to "guys...looking at my pics and wanting to talk to me".

surprise surprise.. diversity and beauty in all shapes, sizes, and races in the sex industry.

go team.

I thought Whores and Other Feminists to anyone was a very good piece of work.

The chores and booking airline tickets stereotype annoys me as much as the wearing 80's hair and a teddy and having 30 orgasms a day stereotype. Good customer service means being engaged, unless of course the caller likes being ignored.

I'm a phone sex operator. Yes, that's me in the pictures. No, that's not the choice for everyone. I've seen girls who look like porn stars choose not to show their faces because of their families. I've seen porn stars get disbelieved when they do show their faces. And I've seen ladies such as Niteflirt's DominaNY (the smoking dominatrix pictured in this article, who is a very cool lady) proudly expand the narrow definition that so many people think of when they think of a phone sex operator.

We come from all races, all ages, all backgrounds, all walks of life. Some of us "play along at home," some of us knit on calls, some of us listen for your every breath, your every word, and try to get inside your head. And when we turn the phones off - we blend right in with all the rest of you, going about your lives.

I agree about the customer service. I used to a telephone psychic, much the same as phone sex operators, and my callers always had all of my attention.

I read the person holding the chihuahua as a transgender person presenting as male, who might happen to have a female-sounding voice. *shrug*

i do chatroom and text work. we are whoever they request: someone asks for a straight male? i'm a straight male. someone wants a lesbian? i'm a lesbian. a male could do it just as easily as a female.

It is in fact a stereotype, just as Sabrina said. Unlike her, I have no professional experience in the field, but I have seen several popular culture images of the "sex phone worker doing something mundane while talking dirty". The most prominent one I can think of is from Altman's 1993 "Short Cuts", where Jennifer Jason Leigh portrays a "stay at home mother" doing phone-sex while doing all kinds of house chores.

Family Guy, a series known for its pop-culture references, with sometimes these attributes overshadowing the actual plot, has this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNdgLIDTEv4

http://digitalarteye.blogspot.com/