Kayla L. Martin BFA Thesis Spring 2012

Telephone Sex: when are you coming? I hope you come soon...

My work as a phone sex operator has served as an observational study that informs my artwork through live performance and the writing and distribution of a closet drama. Phone sex is a telephone conversation between two anonymous people, a phone
sex operator and a paying client. This service is considered virtual sex, since there is no contact between the participants, other than the voice, used to create an intimate experience. My phone sex persona, HipsterArtGirl, is open to all conversations, attempting to create an environment where callers feel comfortable sharing their stories.

Phone sex is portrayed as a service for entertainment and sex in the mass media (a preconceived notion I believed for well over a year working within this service). But I soon realized that I was fulfilling basic human needs through this service. Phone sex is a social service in which callers and phone sex operators can feel comfortable fulfilling the need of a role-play, confession, and human contact since they are unable to do so in their everyday world. It is through the telephone and promised anonymity of phone sex that these needs can be fulfilled and an authentic self is free to exist.

99 albums

Spring 2012