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By Nicki J. Monti
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I’m foggy about what initiated the idea, but starting a phone sex business immediately felt like a natural fit for me. I’m imaginative. Not squeamish when it comes to sex talk. Nonjudgmental. I'd never have to see or interact with the guys physically. I could work whenever I wanted from the comfort of my apartment. I’d be my own boss, and I’d have the freedom to keep auditioning for those "fame-making" acting jobs I so badly wanted. The only thing to figure out was how to get started. I trotted off to a nearby newsstand to buy the most tolerable sex-oriented men’s magazines available. As I expected, each magazine provided contact information.
The first publisher I met was Ray, a paunchy, unshaven, messy-looking fellow sitting behind a maybe-it’s-wood-maybe-it’s-not desk layered with scattered papers. What surprised me was how “regular” and kindly informative Ray was, letting me know that I’d need to set up a credit card service, as I’d be talking to clients all over the U.S., and that I’d need to tell the card company that I was running a mail-order business: “Phone sex isn’t mainstream.” He smiled like we were pals.
Everything worked like a charm, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, my Dial-A-Friend Fantasy Phone Sex business was born.
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My close friends knew what I was doing, but I certainly didn’t go out of my way to tell most people. I suppose both the need for secrecy and the murky legality should have raised some red flags, but by then, I knew well how to duck and weave to hide my shame, especially from myself.
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In certain ways, phone sex clients were as expected. Some were in it purely for the thrill of it all, loving the auditory fantasy component and anonymity. In general, though, what I imagined phone sex to be and what it turned out to be were quite different. In fact, it didn’t take long for Dial-A-Friend to surprise me in a dozen ways. The most stunning revelation of all was how sex turned out to be the least important part of the fantasy sex business. Let me repeat: The least important part of the sex talk was the sex talk. As often, I’d made assumptions that underestimated men.
Surprisingly, the most important element of the calls was their therapeutic quality. After all, I’d been to enough therapy in my life to recognize the sound and feel of therapeutic communication. Providing clients a safe space to share their secrets, express their feelings and clarify their needs was the ideal solution to self-conscious fear and shame.
I learned a great deal about men’s inner thoughts and fantasy styles. The whole adventure humanized men for me, made them seem less like enemies and more like wounded creatures who needed to be understood. Just like me.
One day, I was telling a friend about how revelatory my phone-sex work was. “What’s the big surprise in the phone sex business?” she asked.
“Most of the time, sex is barely the point,” I said. “It’s much more about connection and intimacy.”
“Really?” she said with wide-eyed interest.
“Yes. After our sexual interactions, we talk and talk about their lives, fears and shame, and about how their fantasies reflect that fear and shame.” She looked impressed and moved. I continued. “Whadya think about me making therapy available over the phone!? I mean, it would be a way for those who are too hesitant, embarrassed or afraid of in-person therapy to get some help.”
In 1982, the idea was radical.
“I think that’s brilliant!” she said. “Maybe you should consider going back to school to get a therapy license. I bet that would lend the whole phone therapy business idea some legitimacy and make it easier to attract investors.”
I immediately took her advice and enrolled in a master’s program in clinical psychology. To obtain a marriage and family therapist license, I needed to accumulate 3,000 supervised therapy hours, which required clinical training. I jumped all-in as usual and was luckily accepted at the Southern California Counseling Center. It turned out to be the learning of a lifetime.
I could see the value in giving people an anonymous outlet for sharing their secrets, loneliness and shame.
As I leaned into my therapy work, I realized I needed to shift my phone-sex business strategy. I rented an open-plan office on the second floor of a Santa Monica Boulevard building and hired, plus personally trained, eight phone sex operators and a manager. I was all set.
For the next few years, I went a thousand miles an hour, checking on my new staff, working 40 hours a week at the clinic, while at the same time continuing to dip into the phone sex work myself. The stark difference between my pre-clinic and post-clinic phone sex work powerfully reinforced the phone counseling idea. I could see the value in giving people an anonymous outlet for sharing their secrets, loneliness and shame. In the final analysis, I dropped the phone therapy idea and decided to follow my heart by opening a private psychotherapy practice.
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Still, I continued to find men’s sexual fantasies so fascinating that the topic became the basis of my doctoral thesis several years later. By then, it wasn’t only men’s sexual fantasies that grabbed my attention, but all fantasies, including daydreams, hope dreams, and creative fantasies. I investigated compensatory fantasies, wish-fulfillment fantasies and revenge fantasies. All of them primarily aimed to compensate for a perceived life imbalance, a sense of powerlessness and a specific life deficiency.
In my thesis, where I used real client scenarios, I explored the role fantasies played in stabilizing life, though I also concluded that in some cases, fantasies that involved deep dives into the darkness could be unhealthy.
My most profound overarching discovery was that fantasy engagements, like every other choice we make, can lead to delight or despair, enlightenment or endarkenment, satisfaction or frustration, and love or power. And all my understanding began with Dial-A-Friend.
Nicki J. Monti is a psychotherapist, thought healer, speaker, group leader and author. This excerpt is adapted from her latest book, "The Divine Traumedy of Nicki Joy: A True Grime Tale." Visit her website for more information.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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