This has been copied for a work in
process by Terrell Neuage for a
Ph.D on Conversation of Internet
Chatroom ‘speech’ at the University of
South Australia 
The original site for this article is
linked at
http://se.unisa.edu.au/vc~essays.html
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PHONE SEX
IS COOL: CHAT LINES AS SUPERCONDUCTORS
by Marcus Boon
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A beating heart, a running athlete, a dreaming baby, and a swimming
fish all generate electricity just as surely as a power station does. --
"What is Electricity?" The Random House Encyclopedia The telephone is a prosthetic phenomenon,
and when phone (or other forms of cyber) sex are critiqued, the arguments for
and against them invariably revolve around the problem of prosthesis. 1 For example, "real sex" (one argument runs) is
organic, because it requires direct physical contact. On the other hand,
phone or cyber sex is prosthetic, and reflects a technological compensation
for an organic lack, be it moral or physiological. Following this logic,
phone sex is either "bad" (because it's lazy, less than real,
impoverished, greedy, self-indulgent, excessive) or else, phone sex is
"good" (providing, as it can, "substitute activity" for
those who cannot manage "real sex" due to illness.) Bypassing this
false dichotomy entirely, I would like to move my inquiry away from judging
motivations of the human body at the end of a technology, and inquire instead
into the sexual preferences of machines themselves, bearing in mind
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's comment that a machine: …isn't
a simple artifact, as could be said of chairs, tables and of other more or
less symbolic objects, among which we live without realizing that they make
for our own portrait. Machines are something else. They go much further in
the direction of what we are in reality, further even than the people who
build them suspect....The machine embodies the most radical symbolic activity
of man. (75) While it is true, in a humanist sense, to
say that machines are built by humans, it is also possible to view the
organization of matter involved in the production of machines as a kind of
alliance, or to use the French philosophical duo Deleuze and Guattari's term,
an assemblage, involving various kinds of matter, each of which bring
their potentialities to bear upon the end product. 2 Thus
the particular qualities of metal, silicon, human beings, etc. each act as
components in the assemblage, according to their ability to form alliances
and make connections with each other's particular qualities. In fact, as
cyber-historian Manuel De Landa has suggested, it is possible to view the
development of machines, and associated phenomena such as virtual reality,
from the point of view of their non-human components, so that human beings
become prosthetic devices for machines. 3 In this essay, I will focus on the
technology involved in commercial chat-lines or "tele-personals
services." With names like "Telecompanions" and "The
Night Exchange," these services offer the most complex technical
mediation and modulation of the phone call achieved so far in the sex
industry. Instead of offering a sexual show or interaction performed by a
paid phone operator for a customer to consume, they provide a carefully
controlled performance space in which consumers present themselves to each
other--modulated, of course, through different perceptions of gender and
sexual preference roles. As such, I believe that chat-lines offer a model
social space that is as relevant to their era as Foucault's panopticon was
for the 19th and early 20th century. Chat-lines also offer an interesting case
study for examining future developments in what is called 'virtual reality'.
Because they take advantage of the relatively evolved level of aural
communication technology, rather than the currently primitive media for
interactive visual communication, chat-lines offer a level of presence that
cannot at present be achieved through other technologies of simulation such
as online bulletin board systems and other cyberspaces. 4
Because the technology they utilize (i.e. the phone) is ubiquitous, they
allow a glimpse of the kinds of ways in which mass-use is likely to influence
the development of VR media. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes
regarding virtual reality is the assumption that the desire for a prosthetic
sensory space will stop at the simulation of reality. Apart from the
likelihood that reality will turn out to be poorly simulateable, prosthetic
sensory spaces of radically different kinds are likely to proliferate. Who
can say how much a body or a machine can be plugged into? Is this not Sade's
argument in 120 Days of Sodom? And Ballard's in Crash? It is
not only human sexuality that needs to be carefully stripped of its
utilitarian garb: the queering of the machine means learning to describe
machines in terms of their actual activities rather than the purposes they
were built for or the products which they are said to produce. If there's a kind of banality to phone sex
in the mid-1990s, it should be remembered to what extent the study of
sexuality has been driven by an exclusionary humanism, so that to date there
hardly exists a single reference to technological aspects of sexuality in the
entire annals of sexology, sociology of sexual behavior and related
disciplines. There is 'fetishism' of course, but in fetishism, the line
between the human and the non-human is clearly drawn. Fetishes do not mediate
between human beings the way telecommunications technology does, nor are they
prosthetic in the same way. Fetishism is still a humanism. Technology, in its
prosthetic aspect, blurs the line between the human and the non-human. If we
are now confronted by problems or questions concerning this blurring, this is
more due to the extent to which technology is a part of our lives than to
some fundamental change that has occurred. The line between the human and the
technological has always been blurred, because mediation, as exchange with
and extension into environment, is a fundamental fact of organic life. 5 Most urban "alternative"
newspapers have an "adult" section, in which phone chat services
are advertised. In stark contrast to the smaller, endless advertisements of
writhing women and buff men promoting 900 services (presumably for gay and
straight men), advertisements for phone-chat services are large half- to
full-page ads, aimed towards heterosexual men and women. Generally, the ads
show clothed white male/female couples smiling at each other. One Night
Encounters ad counsels: You
may still believe it's possible that you're going to meet the one you're
looking for at the office; at the supermarket; in a traffic accident; on an
elevator; at a club while singing karaoke; at your mother's house; through
your oldest, best, best friend (who isn't really meeting anybody either). We
believe that anything's possible, but it never hurts to improve your odds. There are no traffic accidents in virtual
reality. There are no mothers either, if that's your preference--but if you
do want mothers, Telepersonals' advertisement presents a picture of a mother
who suggests to her daughter that she should give the line a try. There are
no limits: "one phone call. Infinite possibilities" (The Night
Exchange); "the possibilities are endless" (Night Encounters);
"1,000's of ads" (Telepersonals). Perfect for those "allergic
to singles bars" (Telepersonals), for those who want to "safely
connect" (Night Exchange). The hotline provides a prosthetic immune
system for those who need one to guard against real life-borne infections.
Some lines present themselves as an alternative method of getting a date,
presumably competing with classified personal ads; others such as the Night
Exchange present an alternative to having a date: "just pick up
the phone and merge right in for an unimaginable experience". Merge with
a crowd of other callers; compete with a crowd of other callers "all
looking for the same thing as you are. Or maybe something you've never tried
before" (Night Exchange). Careful modulation of safety and
experimentation, of anonymity and self-expression. Alternatively, merge with
the telephone and computer system; remain anonymous while taking your
pleasure, let the machine guide you. Let the machine take it's own pleasure:
take it to the point where it's just you and the machine, hitting you with
its little shocks and repetitions. The choice is yours. The actual technology that facilitates
multi-user chat systems consists of variations on a private branch exchange
(PBX) or 'switch', which digitally routes and distributes incoming (and
outgoing) calls. The switch includes T1 circuit boards which allow the PBX to
handle large numbers of phone calls simultaneously. Voice response units
convert analog voice signals into digital code and allow the buttons on a
telephone to be used for communication with the phone line's software
program. A computer interfaces with the switch and provides significant hard
drive space for storing voice recordings accessible during the course of a
phone call (descriptions of participants on chat-lines, recorded stories and
so on.) Software for running the program organizes interactions on the phone
sex line, and accounting software records and makes available data on origin
and duration of calls. To access the system, women and men call
different numbers. Use of the system is usually "absolutely free"
for women, who have to verify their age and gender. For men, access requires
installation in a billing system. The Night Exchange, for example, costs
$29.95 per hour for men, with reductions for bulk use after the first free
hour. Payment can be by check or through "discreet" billing on the
phone bill or credit card, usually as "interactive" or
"information" services. If a credit card is used, the credit card
company is called to check its validity and, in some cases, to match the
phone number of the card user as recorded by the credit card company with the
phone number given by the caller. This in turn requires giving a social security
number to the chat-line operators, allowing them access to credit card
records. Callers are then given a user-ID number and a pass code with which
they can access the system. Callers dial in to an automated attendant system,
featuring a vivacious woman's voice backed by house music, that talks callers
through the registration and selection process. After gaining access to the
system, men are told how many minutes of time they have left on the system;
women proceed. Let me talk you through a system, which is
a composite of several services available in the New York area at the time of
this writing. First you choose an identity by speaking after the tone: three
seconds for a name, a minute for a description, a minute to describe what
you're wearing. You also choose your preference of meet in person/intimate
talk/non sexual talk/all kinds of talk. It is not true to say that you are
asked to have an identity, but if you are looking for a sexual partner, it is
strongly suggested that you have an identity. You are of course advised to
"be yourself," but the Night Exchange can certainly be used as a
Darwinian laboratory for natural selection of pick-up lines, sexy identities
and so on, with a speed rarely encountered in "real life" -- although
unless something goes wrong with the machine or there are intruders (which
happens), you only hear the descriptions of people of the (supposedly)
opposite sex. If you choose not to have an identity, it's no problem. There
are people who give no name, no description. Some want to "cut the crap
and get right down to it", some are shy, some want to say things like
"you're all sick!" and some won't say why they won't have an
identity. I think identities are sexy -- but anonymity is, too. Then it's on to the main switchboard where
billing starts. You are advised as to the number of male and female callers
online, allowing you to calculate, in a naive way, your chances of meeting
someone. By pressing a button, you can hear descriptions of those on the
opposite gender directory to the one in which you are presenting yourself.
You hear them one after the other. After a description, press 1 to request a
live connection, press 2 to send a message, press 3 to skip to the next
caller, 4 to repeat the message, 6 to hear further information. From time to
time you are interrupted to choose whether or not you want the option of
having other callers listen to your conversations. As is the case with cable
TV, 25 cent porn video booths, teletext or the Internet, you can browse
forever, so long as you can afford it. In my experience, the directory of
women online usually contains a smattering of self-professed men looking for
action, the occasional self-professed transgendered person and a few non
self-professed people of questionable gender (for those whose preference is
to question). When you find someone you're interested in,
you can send them a message. Then you wait. There's a lot of waiting on these
lines, as messages are received, considered, responded to, rejected; as
callers go on and off line; as they become unavailable because they are
talking to other callers. Sometimes this waiting is filled with canned music,
sometimes not. Messages from other callers arrive with the announcement
"You have received a message from ___." The automated voice fills
the "___" with whatever 3 seconds of name the caller has recorded
for the system to use. You can hear the splice; it's not important. If you
and another caller reach an agreement via messages that you wish to speak to
each other live, then you can connect. You are told not to share your phone
number with anyone, but people do. You are advised that if you hear a metallic
bell sound, it means someone else wants to go live with you, and you are
given instruction how to access the call. You are also instructed to press
the pound sign if you wish to terminate the connection and go back to the
main switchboard. It feels a little rough to be terminated by someone else,
but it's very easy to push the terminate button, too. As for the connections
themselves, they're highly variable. A few years ago there was a chat-line
run by Private Connections (since upgraded) that consisted of a simple
switchboard that hooked up women who called one number to men who called
another. There were no descriptions or introductions, just an instantaneous
hook-up. To know that you're going to be connected to "a woman" or
"a man" is to know nothing. This is both very exciting and very
frustrating. Behind all the paraphernalia of
descriptions, which might well be more erotic for the describer than for
those who listen to descriptions, there is a silence, a void-like emptiness
which can be felt in phone connections. Identities become flexible, or, from
another point of view, they are eroded by the chat-line--behind them and
their mask-like apparition, there may be a human being (and what does that
really mean?), or there may be a cold circuit of metal and silicon. A dead
connection. No one is sure who they're talking to. The uncertainty or fear
this produces is negotiated through the well-worn pleasures of inevitably repetitive
scripts (breasts...cocks...what do you look like? what do you do? are you
wet?...are you hard?...fuck me...I'm coming), the immense charm of the grain
in human voices, and the delights of eccentricity and coincidence. All of
which could from a certain point of view become a kind of curse. There are
people who say nothing, who just make noises, who want to fight, who want to
talk about books. There are all kinds of people. Should you run out of money at a crucial
moment, just as you are about to be connected for example, a voice interrupts
to give you the phone number to call to purchase more time. Alternatively,
you can purchase more time automatically by using the automated billing
apparatus in the system, so long as you have pre-approval on your credit
card. The advantage of such a billing format is that a machine will keep
taking money from you; machines don't really need to talk to humans, they're
happy to talk to credit card lines or automated billing machinery. Human
beings remain a necessary switch in the system, their libidos connecting
different parts of the network. If you don't find anyone, you can listen to
the messages again, wait for new callers, who are announced as such, or
disconnect from the system, which will tell you how many minutes of time you
have left. Perhaps you might decide to adjust your identity, or listen in to
other people's calls. And there are more options. Unexpected events do occur.
I've been told that it is possible to hack into the system, but the only
evidence of this was an interruption where a brusque man demanded my ID
number and passcode as verification of...what? There are sudden freeze-ups
where messages don't get through (these are more frequent on some systems
than others); moments where it seems like messages have been mysteriously
rerouted; and many, many moments of deja vu. It should be noted that sex-chat technology
is little more than a minor variation on commercially available corporate
teleconferencing and phone exchange systems. The various options that hot
chat-lines offer -- including the ability to listen in to other lines while
they're in use, the ability to respond to a recorded message either by
leaving another recorded message or requesting a live hook-up, or the ability
to switch between multiple mailboxes and extensions -- already exist in most
corporate phone systems. Indeed, there are a number of similarities between
hot chat-lines and corporate structure: most remarkable are the emphasis on
competition that the format provides and the ability to modulate competition
through pricing structures. Male and female experiences on straight hot
chat-lines apparently differ: men I have talked to complain that there is
always a deficit of women, while women say that they are often faced with a
surfeit of available men. Nevertheless, the structure in which the two groups
are presented to each other remains a competitive one. Even the actual male
to female ratio is open to direct regulation: one chat line claims in its
introduction that unlike other lines that add descriptions of women who do
not exist to beef up their numbers, all their women are real. And
indeed, excessive professional descriptions of highly desirable but oddly
uncontactable women on otherwise empty chat-lines are a feature of some (newcomer)
services. The first commercial phone sex lines, which
appeared around 1980, were relatively simple from a technological point of
view: a consumer called a number advertised in a magazine (the first
advertisements appeared in the back of the Village Voice in 1981, and
in the New York Native in the late '80s) and gave a credit card number
which would be verified; the caller would then be transferred by switchboard
to a phone sex operator (a.k.a. fantasy girl or boy) working in a cubicle of
some sort in an office space, or the caller would be called back by an
operator, working out of his or her home. Billing was for the call, which was
set within a broad timeframe (e.g. $30 for 30 minutes). The expansion of the phone sex industry in
the 1980s and 1990s is linked to the package of billing/telecommunications
usually known as the 900 number, but encompassing other numbers including
550, 970 and 976 exchanges, certain 800 numbers and a variety of
international long distance exchanges. From the consumer's point of view,
these numbers meant a proliferation of new services, including a variety of
menu-based options, selected by pressing the appropriate key on the
telephone. Callers are now offered choices of phone sex operators (dominant,
submissive, transvestite, blonde, leatherman, college girl and so on) or
recorded stories and scenarios for those who do not want to speak
"live"; "1-on-1" or "2-on-1" (often 970
numbers). Finally, the development of multiple-user chat-lines, allows groups
of people to connect to an ongoing conference call, sometimes facilitated by
operators, sometimes leaving the callers to talk to each other, unassisted
(often 550 numbers). Typically callers are charged by the minute, at rates
ranging from 10 cents a minute to $4.99 a minute and more, and are
automatically billed via the consumer's regular phone bill. The 900 number industry shows a number of
significant technical developments, and its growth may be related to the
broad effects of the divestiture of the Bell companies by AT&T in 1984 in
America, and a broader world trend towards the deregulation of the
telecommunications industry in the 1980s. The 900 industry has a three-tier
structure. At the top are long distance and local phone companies such as
AT&T and MCI, which lease large numbers of long distance lines to brokers
or (service bureaus). Brokers also lease lines from international exchanges
(numbers that begin with "011" and a long stream of digits)
including Moldova, Suriname, and the Atlantic/African islands of the Azores
and Sao Tome; these are countries with surpluses of unused phone exchanges,
with whom billing arrangements can be made, sometimes for regular long
distance rates, sometimes for large mark-ups. 6 Brokers then
package these lines in groups and at discount rates to retailers who market
the packages to consumers. Some of the packages offered by brokers to
retailers are known as "turnkey programs," which, for an upfront
fee between $200 and $2,500, provide hardware capable of handling a large
volume of calls, software for directing the calls, live operators or
recordings (known as "scripts"). The retailer's only work is to
advertise the lines, which he or she is encouraged to do with the aid of
manuals, camera-ready art, and much exhortation. I was puzzled as to why 900 services should
put such emphasis on advertising, and why the structure of broker with
machine plus software/live-operator package coupled with a retailer (who does
nothing but advertise) should be so pervasive: why don't brokers just
advertise themselves, the way everyone else does? And what does it say about
"sex" today that the sex industry no longer just sells services to
consumers, but instead sells them the means of starting up their own cottage
industry? Clearly, a major redistribution and redefinition of the components
of the economy (capital, labor, consumers, services) is going on. And the
issue goes to the "heart" of the machine's Wizard of Oz-like
problem: how to interface with humans. A machine on its own would indeed be a
lonely machine, whether connected to networks or not. It is only through
endless marketing that the machine gets any attention, thus accounting for
the explosion of phone-sex matchbooks, cards, and other innovative items that
descended like a snowstorm on New York and other American urban centers in
the late '80s. The long-distance company bills the
consumer for a call and takes a per minute fee (three cents per minute and up
has been quoted); the broker distributes profit checks from the call to the
retailer (up to four months after the call), having deducted a percentage of
the money generated by the call, and a per minute fee (ten to twenty cents
per minute). If the consumer defaults on his or her bill, the long distance
company will charge the broker for the call, who will in turn charge the
retailer or the phone sex operator (the dreaded "charge-back"). As
an alternative to turnkey programs, brokers also offer custom packages, which
offer similar billing, but put the organization of the program that appears
on the phone-line in the hands of the retailer. 7 Whether
the chat-line networks are extended transnationally or locally, there is a
trend towards increased complexity of the kinds of services available, and a
multiplication of the number of human and non-human elements involved.
Although those running chat-lines claim that this increased complexity is in
response to the demand for a higher level and greater variety of services,
and those who detest the services argue that they merely find ever more
sophisticated ways of exploiting and enslaving human libido in order to make
a profit, the trend towards the expansion of the network is imminent in each
of its components and in their mutual interaction. What are called 'human interactions'
(masking a much more complex interaction with/through/by technology) take on
some of the qualities of the new types of matter involved -- namely, metals
and silicon, with their ability to distribute connections and conduct electricity
rapidly throughout a network. As the ability of human beings to develop these
properties of matter progresses, and as machines find different ways to
develop human libido, human sexuality finds expression away from bodies at
98.6 degrees in the colder regime of machines. The networks will grow larger
and larger, incorporating greater and greater numbers of bodies and machines,
exploiting the properties of matter further and further, until
superconductivity -- that Utopia of information technology--becomes
integrated into the network. In the relatively high temperatures
observed on earth, matter resists the flow of electrons through it, to
varying degrees. But at temperatures approaching absolute zero, this
resistance to the flow of electrons disappears completely in certain
materials, allowing an electrical current to run through the material for an
infinite period of time. Although in practice it is quite difficult to
achieve the temperatures necessary, superconductivity has important
implications for computer design, and for telecommunications networks, since
it allows vastly greater flows of information to occur. 8 In
his recently published conversations with mathematician Ralph Abraham and
biologist Rupert Sheldrake, ethnopharmacologist Terence McKenna notes that: it's
interesting that a phenomenon like superconductivity, which is fascinating to
solid state engineers as a way to preserve information from decay, occurs at
low temperatures. If you put information into a superconducting circuit
operating at around absolute zero, it's impossible to disrupt that circuit
without destroying it....We associate lower temperatures with death. We all
understand that if temperatures drop below a certain very narrow range,
that's it for us. The machines we are creating, however, are operating more
and more efficiently as temperature is dropped. In the realm of absolute
zero, almost miraculous things can be imagined in the way of technical
storage and retrieval of information. (39-40) Increasing mobility of electrons (and their
corresponding ability to store and retrieve large amounts of information)
extracts a high price: the stasis of very atoms of which a superconductor is
composed. The networking of human relationships seen in the chat-lines
develops along similar lines: individual human bodies grow increasingly
frozen in their apartments and offices, cooling to adapt to the properties of
the metals and semiconductors which comprise the telecommunications
infrastructure, while acts of communication proliferate in the chat-line
network. 9 It is these acts, of communication, performed by
a combination of human being and machine, which become the sexual acts. These
acts, modulations of the flow of electrons, pass through the PBXs and
computers of the phone system. In so far as they express part of the
machine's own need for connection with the world, we may speak of these acts
as expressions of machinic libido, reaching its apotheosis in
superconductor-like states. When a circuit composed of human beings and
machines runs uninterruptedly, for an infinite length of time, it may
encompass the whole earth and perhaps beyond. Interestingly, at the low temperatures
needed to produce a superconducting material, the electrons passing through
the material no longer move singly, but form "Cooper pairs,"
orbiting around each other as they move, though at a considerable distance
from each other. 10 The basic unit in an optimized
information network might be thought of therefore as two rather than one, an
interaction rather than an identity, a coupling rather than a discrete
object. Just as Cooper pairs are not observed in conventional electronic
circuitry, the unit of information on the chat-lines also has a curious
couple-nature: there are not two people chatting to each other as in RL, but
rather, multiple, rapid human-machine couplings, modulating the flow of
electrons through the telecommunications network. Whether Cooper pairs can be described as
sexual entities--or what becomes of human sexuality as it encounters or is
encountered by metal- and silicon-based communications networks--is unclear.
Nevertheless, the banality of hot-chat and the inordinately large amount of
time spent moving through distribution networks (while supposedly engaged in
seeking hot-chat) suggests that sexuality (neither in its traditional
embodied sense, nor in its simulation) is not the primary locus of
activity of the hot-chat line. 11 Behind the jocks with
their huge penises and the babes with their dripping wet vaginas, very broad
networks of human-machine communication come into play: billing and pricing
networks, the full expanse of the phone system, downloading Ôhuman data' into
an ever-expanding network of moving electrons, all coordinated by a
computer's ability to modulate data-flow. Gilles Deleuze has termed this
social system in which computers play the determinate role in the
architecture of the system, "the silicon regime" (1989:18-22). In Delirious New York, architect Rem
Koolhaas hypothesizes that the regularity of the grid system of New York's
streets fosters a counter-ecology of chaotic social formations. Likewise, the
coolness of the medium in phone sex (defined as the low level of sensory output
that the system provides) invites the chaotic polyglot of its users, and the
remarkably rapid and flexible shift from partner to partner, preference to
preference, identity to identity that can be observed on the chat-line. 12 Everywhere, 'switching' becomes apparent: movement from
connection to connection, installation of further connections, selection of
paths through the network, sudden explosions of communication (and profit) at
hot sites when a critical mass of participants is reached, strange moments
(hours? days?) of corporeal aphasia where the only action is the chatter
between mind and machine. Of course, these strange moments do not
last, and the resistances of both body and machine to the free flow of
electrons between them are all too apparent. We are not superconductors yet.
Nor, in our eagerness to describe the forms of the virtual produced by
chat-lines, should we ignore the ways in which human beings, bodies and
sexualities, as they are currently coded, as well as machines, at the current
temperatures and levels of technical development they function at, aim at
something other than a free flow of electrons. Nothing is more enraging than
a chat-line that is down when you are feeling hungry for a connection. Nothing
is more boring than a chat-line when you're not feeling horny. As for
machines, it is important to remember that the human being or human sexuality
is not necessarily the privileged partner of choice in machinic interaction
with the world. After all, there are weather, sports, data and psychic
hotlines, all of which express aspects of machinic libido with different
connections to the world: one chat-line broker explains in his promotional
package that in recessions, people feel the need to consult psychic hotlines;
in a snow-storm, weather bulletins are "hot." In this sense, we might ask: What is the
difference between a chat-line and a corporate telecommunications network?
The chat-line encounter is structured towards a strange parody of corporate
efficiency, with its methods of fast forwarding through caller descriptions,
blocking unwanted callers who might waste one's time, accessing pager systems
allowing instant communication to most favored parties should they be on the
system, and so on. Indeed, chat-lines are a kind of tele-marketing:
time is brief, make your pitch, make it punchy, wacky, startlingly original.
Be creative; be yourself. But, instead of showing how phone sex and
other kinds of virtual interaction produce a sexuality that is beyond Ôthe
human,' we can show how the global telecommunications-driven economy is more
voraciously libidinous than even the hottest chat-line. That archetypal 90s
character, the corporate drone, code-cruncher, scientist or humanities
scholar, stuffing down pizza in a night-time room illuminated only by a video
monitor, picking up the phone to complain to a distant friend about how
they're too busy to get laid, is not as lacking in libido as he or she might
think. Nor is it just a question of human libido: a human being is a
peculiarly foxy sex object for a machine. Mid-Atlantic cellular phone calls,
solar-powered laptops, jungle fax machines, 24 hour online stock prices:
there's an orgy going on out there. And in here. Acknowledgments Many thanks to Aaron Ilk (check out his
Phone Sex Pages at http://www.calweb.com/~ilk)
and Lindsay Moore (e-mail her at Shevamp9@aol.com
for info on her guide to the phone sex biz "Oh Baby...Talk Nasty to
Me":The Practical Guide to Succeeding as a Phone Sex Operator) for
information, and Paul Wallich, Jill Lane and Terri Senft, for comments on the
manuscript. Notes 1. I define phone sex as "any sexual
act involving a phone network" and cyber sex as "any sexual act
involving communications networks in general." 2. See Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari,
Felix. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 3. See De Landa, Manuel. 1991. War
in the Age of Intelligent Machines. Cambridge: Zone Books. 4. The recent introduction of the video
phone and video conferencing will no doubt extend the domain of telepresence
further, but for now, the phone remains exemplary. Also see Wired
3.05 (1995) p. 98. 5. It is for this same reason that I think
considerable caution is required when using the term "reification"
to describe technological developments. On the one hand, technological products are not merely "natural"; on the other hand, they
are more than merely mute or neutral objects brought entirely into being by
the productive process. Perhaps Latour's concept of "nonhuman
actors" is the most accurate way to describe the way various potentialities
of different types of matter are incorporated into a productive process 6. See The Washington
Post, July 25 1994, D1. 7. Thanks to Lindsay Moore for much of the
information on chat-line and phone sex infrastructure. 8. McGraw-Hill
Encyclopedia of Physics, 2nd Ed. 1993 Ed. Sybil Parker. New York:
McGraw-Hill. 9. I realize that the existence of the
cellular phone contradicts this statement, but in my experience, very few
users of chat-lines, for whatever reason, use cellular phones
to connect. I have also neglected the topics of sound and radio waves, which
are crucial to a discussion of chat-line technology in this discussion.
Suffice to say for the present article, that these represent further
potentialities of matter which are integrated into the assemblage constituted
by the chat-line. 10. See McGraw-Hill
Encylopedia of Physics, op. cit., entry for superconductors for further
information. 11. I define hot-chat as "talk aimed
at simulating sexual interaction". 12. Chat-line systems host
more diverse groups of people linguistically than do many online systems; a
call to the New York City chat-line known as the Night Exchange offers an
explosion of different accents: Chinese, Japanese, Caribbean,
African-American, English, Australian, Southern, Texan, and all the race,
class and gender nuances to be found in the five boroughs, Staten Island and
the entire tri-state area. Works Cited Ballard, J.G. 1994. Crash. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. De Landa, Manuel. 1991. War in the Age
of Intelligent Machines. Cambridge: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix.
1987. A Thousand Plateaus: CapIism & Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian
Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1989. "On the Crystalline
Regime," trans. David Rodowick, Art & Text 34 (1). Koolhaas, Rem. 1994. Delirious New York:
A Retro-active Manifesto for Manhattan. New York: Monacelli Press. Lacan, Jacques. 1988. Seminar: Freud's
Papers on Technique, 1953-4. New York: Norton. Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action.
Boston: Harvard University Press. McKenna, Terence. 1992. Trialogues at
the Edge of the West. Santa Fe: Bear & Co. Mitchell, James, ed. The Random House
Encyclopedia. 1977. New York: Random House, p. 1530. Ronell, Avital. 1989. The Telephone
Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech. Nebraska: University of
Nebraska Press. Sade, Marquis De. 120 Days of Sodom.
New York: Grove Press. The Washington Post. July 25, 1994, p. D1. Wired 3.05 (1995) p. 98. Marcus Boon (Boonm@aol.com)
is a writer, medical journalist and grad student in the Comparative
Literature Dept at N.Y.U. He has just completed his first novel, a biotech
thriller called Brain Forest,
and is researching a history of writers on drugs. |
