User:FacultiesIntact/sandbox/Phone sex industry

The commercial phone sex industry is estimated at $2 billion. Phone sex is a pay-per-call service, where a caller dials a premium-rate phone number to reach a phone sex operator (PSO), and calls are billed by credit card. Also known as dial-a-porn, advertisements appeared in adult publications, websites, TV, and on social media.

History

Origin

Commercial phone sex began with Gloria Leonard, an adult film actress. Carl Ruderman, the owner of the adult magazine High Society, appointed Leonard as editor, and allowed her to record her own voice for use in a promotional recording. They then advertised a phone number, enticing callers to listen to her describe the contents of the next month's issue.

Call and payment

In its early stages, callers would dial a local phone number and speak with an operator. The caller would then provide their credit card to the operator before being transferred to speak with a phone sex operator (PSO). Beginning in the 1980s, calls could be billed directly on the caller's phone bill.

Operations

Phone sex service provider operations range from home-based PSOs to call centers. Call centers are small offices equipped to distribute calls to different PSOs. In California, more than 200 phone sex service providers were in business. Technologies including touch-tone enabled the caller to use the telephone’s push buttons to input their credit card number, as well as other actions including inputting their age or an access code. By May 1983, an estimated 800,000 calls per day were being made to phone sex lines. In April 1985, leading 900 prefix carrier AT&T began giving providers up to 5 cents from each call, depending on volume, to increase the telecommunication company’s business. Other telecommunications companies such as MCI, Sprint, Verizon, and smaller carrier Telesphere offered 900 phone numbers and processed billing for phone sex service providers. In a six-month period ended in that April, New York City received 6 to 7 million calls a month.

Advertising

Advertisements of phone sex numbers appeared in adult magazines and local newsprint magazines. Traditional newspapers prohibited the advertising of adult content. In the late 1980s and 1990s, adult magazines such as Hustler and High Society featured full color advertisements. The advent of phonewords, which are mnemonic telephone numbers (e.g., 1800PhoneSex), replaced advertisements of traditional 7 digit phone numbers.

Regulation

The Telephone Decency Act was introduced to Congress by Virginia Congressman Tom Billey. Enacted in 1988, the law prohibited the advertisement and transmission of live or recorded telephone conversations deemed indecent or obscene. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced the law by imposing $50,000 fine and six months in jail. The law prohibits any obscene or indecent telephone communication, in foreign or interstate communication or in the District of Columbia, for commercial purposes to any person. Current law prohibits such communication to any person without his or her consent or to any person under 18 years of age.

In 1988, Mill Valley, CA-based company Audio Enterprises, Inc. became one of the first companies to be fined by the FCC under the new law. The company went out of business as a consequence. In 1989, Sable Communications of California sued the Federal Communications Commission on the grounds the federal statute encroached on free speech and violated the First Amendment. In June of that year, the US Supreme Court unanimously upheld free speech protections. Justice Byron White wrote the decision "Sexual expression which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the 1st Amendment," White wrote, "and the government does not submit that the sale of such materials to adults could be criminalized solely because they are indecent." Quoting from an earlier decision, White said the law was another case of "burning up the house to roast the pig."