HISTORY OF PHONE SEX

1980-1987

LINK TO PDF OF PHONE SEX ADS FROM 1988-1990

In early 1988, most phone sex was being promoted on local telephone numbers with the operators accepting all major credit cards.. A caller from Michigan [ 313 ] to a local California [ 818 ] phone sex number would receive long distance toll charges billed to his phone number in addition to the charges that the caller would pay directly to the phone sex operator. Advertisements promoted that the phone sex lines were available 24 hours per day. Call backs were still being offered on some phone sex lines but the majority of the phone sex being promoted were now being offered in real-time.

During the 1988-1990 timeframe, different offerings of phone sex became widely available. The staple were hot female models being promoted to straight males but there were also many phone sex numbers promoted for the gay and lesbian market, transgender numbers, S & M numbers and phone numbers promoted exclusively in Spanish.

Prior to 1988, there were only 44 numbers with the 900 prefix available while AT&T beta tested the nationwide technology. Many of the 900 numbers were promoting phone sex and most of the early promoters were making a lot of money. By 1988, MCI, AT&T, Sprint and a small carrier Telesphere opened up 900 numbers to the masses and most of these newly available 900 numbers were promoted as phone sex. For 900 numbers, the phone carrier billed the charges to the subscriber of the telephone number used to make the call to the 900 number. The carrier could disconnect the phone subscriber’s phone service if the phone bill was not paid so there was that heavy leverage and the phone bills got paid. Money flowed into the promoters using 900 numbers but there were many publicized abuses, often involving minors. The abuses with 900 numbers brought this platform to the attention of the politicians.

THE SHIFT

In June of 1988, many phone sex lines started using toll free 800 numbers; these lines were now being ordered for phone sex through carriers, primarily MCI, then with AT&T and Sprint, for nationwide service. With 800 numbers and phone sex, the caller did not pay toll charges in addition to the call charges. The promoter covered the toll charge and was paid by the caller presenting their credit card at the onset of the call. 800 numbers were not “portable” during the 1988-1990 timeframe so phone sex promoters were required to stay with their carrier assigning their 800 number and be subject to increasing rates charged by their carrier, or lose the telephone number.

This period was also the time when people in the United States turned in their rotary dial telephones and replaced these with state-of-the-art Touch-Tone telephones, aka DTMF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signaling. The Touch-Tone system used audible tones for each number on the phone and this opened up new efficiencies for the phone sex industry. Computers could be used to take the credit card information by the caller punching in the keys. Computers could also present the caller with an interactive menu from which they make selections through their keypad as to who they wanted to speak to on the call or the type of service they wanted to be connected to. These elements no longer had to be done manually and the automation allowed the caller to get to the voice chat (i.e., phone sex) part of the call without having to first speak with a live party.

In July 1988, Congress passed the Telephone Decency Act making it a federal crime to use a telephone to make any obscene or indecent communication for commercial purposes. A lawsuit was immediately filed by phone sex providers on First Amendment grounds to enjoin the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing the new law and the legal issues and confusion initially hung over the phone sex marketplace. The trial court ruled that the prohibition against “indecent speech” on 900-numbers was unconstitutional, though the law’s ban on “obscene speech” could stand. The case weaved its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed that obscene speech, even in commercial telephone calls, was not protected, but indecent speech was protected. Following this ruling, Congress and the FCC thereafter enacted rules clarifying that the communication of indecent content by telephone was permitted as long as it wasn’t available to minors or others without their consent. Providers now were given safe harbors that permitted commercial phone sex so long as the rules outlined by the FCC were followed.

By 1989 and 1990, The Advertising for Phone Sex lines by calling an 800 number became very popular. The concept of using mnemonic phrases also known as “ phonewords “ quickly caught on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneword.

Numbers like 1-800-PHONESEX, 1-800-HOT-SEXX and or 1-800-999-CHAT quickly dominated the marketplace. Marketers were also getting a higher yields using an 800 number with credit card billing, because the phone companies were no longer a part of the billing process.

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