Lip Service on the Fantasy Lines

Introduction

• Kira Hall's 1995 chapter, "Lip Service on the Fantasy Lines," explores the complexities of linguistic power within the phone-sex industry. It examines how women in this industry consciously utilize language stereotypically associated with female powerlessness to achieve economic and social gains.

• Hall's research, conducted among five women-owned fantasy-line companies in San Francisco, argues for a multidimensional definition of linguistic power, acknowledging the role of sexuality in conversational exchange and individual variability in women's conversational consent.

The "Powerless" Language of Women

• The concept of women's language as "powerless" stems from early interpretations of Robin Lakoff's 1975 work, "Language and Woman's Place". Lakoff argued that language differences between sexes both reflect and reinforce societal inequalities.

• Lakoff identified linguistic features associated with women's speech:

  • Lexical items related to women's work.

  • "Empty" adjectives (e.g., divine, charming, cute).

  • Tag questions.

  • Hedges (e.g., sort of, kind of, I guess).

  • Intensifiers (e.g., so, very).

  • Hypercorrect, polite forms.

• Lakoff suggested that indirect speech in women's language and direct speech in men's language reflect a broader cultural power imbalance.

• Some feminist scholars have criticized Lakoff, arguing that her identification of women's language as subordinate reinforces sexist notions, while some sociolinguists have dismissed her claims as quantitatively invalid.

The Power of "Powerless" Language in Phone Sex

• The type of language considered sexual and economically powerful by phone-sex employees is precisely what language and gender theorists have defined as "powerless."

• The notion that seemingly powerless behavior can be perceived as sexual in certain contexts is explored, highlighting the term "sweet talk" as an example of the ideological connection between women's language and sexual language.

• By adopting linguistic features associated with submissiveness and powerlessness, female "sweet-talkers" project sexual availability to further their conversational aims, a technique Hall dubs the "Mata Hari technique".

Financial Success and Subversive Aspects of Conversational Consent

• The adult-message industry has seen considerable financial success, grossing over 3 billion since its national debut in 1983.

• The increasing demand for women's "vocal merchandise" due to AIDS awareness calls for a new interpretation of women's language in contemporary society, acknowledging the subversive aspects of conversational consent.

Antipornography Feminists Meet the Legislative Right

• The growing demand for fantasy-line services led the U.S. Congress to examine the legality of vocal pornography.

• Live-conversation services allow callers to engage in verbal encounters with speakers paid by the minute to fulfill fantasies, mimicking conventional sex work in the vocal sphere.

• Prerecorded services, or dial-a-porn, offer callers a choice of predetermined sexually explicit messages.

Congressional Response and the Pleasure/Danger Controversy Among Feminists

• In 1988, Congress amended the Communications Act of 1934, imposing a ban on both indecent and obscene interstate commercial telephone messages (the 1988 Helms Amendment).

• A legal battle ensued between Sable Communications of California and the FCC, with the FCC arguing that mass telephone message systems are analogous to public radio broadcasts.

• In 1989, Congress amended section 223(b) a second time, requiring telephone companies to establish presubscription policies.

• In 1992, the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act established uniform standards for the pay-per-call industry.

• Congressional debates coincided with feminist discussions on the pleasure/danger controversy, dividing feminists into those who stress the sexual danger of male pornography (e.g., Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon) and those who emphasize the need for freedom of speech in pursuing women's sexual desire (e.g., Susie Bright, Pat Califia).

The Debate Over Representation and Act

• Catherine MacKinnon argues that "pornography, in the feminist view, is a form of forced sex," blurring the division between representation and act.

• Conservative legislators have appropriated MacKinnon's arguments to back U.S. obscenity law.

• Legal equations of representation and act could have implications for the adult-message industry, inviting comparison with actual prostitution.

• Courts and legislatures will have to determine which types of representation (visual, verbal, vocal) more closely approximate, or affect, reality.

Questioning Definitions of Sexuality and Power

• Some feminists argue that Dworkin and MacKinnon define sexuality in terms of oppression, linking masculinity with agency and aggression, and femininity with passivity and injury.

• Theorists like Alice Echols and Gayle Rubin argue that Dworkin and MacKinnon leave no room for women to construct their own sexual desires.

The Importance of Economic and Social Oppression

• These theorists emphasize that sexual oppression should not be emphasized to the exclusion of economic and social oppression.

• Freccero (1990) highlights that sex workers provide an important corrective to middle-class intellectual feminist debates.

• Freccero asserts that feminism should be concerned neither with "the commodity itself (pornography) nor the 'private' sexual practices of individuals, but rather, their convergence in the marketplace".

• Fantasy-line operators in San Francisco see parallels between their situation and that depicted by contributors to collections such as Gail Pheterson's (1989) "A Vindication of the Rights of Whores".

• Because pornographic representation is essential to their economic livelihood, fantasy-line operators have allied themselves with pro-pornography activists.

Fantasy and the Telephone

• The telephone's lack of visual cues allows for greater fantasy creation compared to face-to-face interaction; callers must construct their conversational partner visually, entering a fantasy world.

• While communication studies in the 1970s asserted that the telephone restricts individual expression, today's users find that it encourages creativity.

• Telephone deregulation in the U.S. and mobile phone availability have shifted the telephone "from a 'home' or 'business' based communications link to an individual, personal based one."

• Adult-message services capitalize on the private and expressive nature of the medium in their advertising strategies, often appealing to the senses, equating phone talk with touch, smell, and taste.

• Dial-a-porn clients use a public medium to engage in a private subject matter, requiring fantasy-line performers to present themselves through a mixture of public and private discourse.

• Fantasy line, operators create a feeling of intimacy by evoking a frame of reference that the majority of her male callers will understand, by employing the language of pornography.

Constructing the Ideal Woman

• For fantasy to be effective, it must parallel reality, catering to hegemonic male perceptions of the ideal woman.

• The training manual for operators of 970-LIVE instructs female employees to "create different characters" resembling the ideal woman, including bimbo, nymphomaniac, mistress, slave, transvestite, lesbian, foreigner, or virgin.

• The manual advises against initiating sex, encouraging callers to start phone intimacy by telling crazy fantasies or interesting stories while remaining bubbly, sexy, and interested.

• The verbal qualities of the ideal woman are reminiscent of Pamela Fishman's definition of maintenance work: encouraging men to develop their topics, showing assent, and listening.

• The number 1-900-HOT-LIPS advertises as a "steamy safe-sex fantasy number", asking their operators to verbally "carry" condoms and spermicides, referencing the practice of "safe phone sex".

The Prerecorded Message

• The language promoted in trainer's manuals is similar to the kind of language sold by the prerecorded messages.

• The qualities are extensive detail and supportive hearer-directed comments and the messages present a reality.

• The messages construct a visual image of the speaker with feminine words; their voice is dynamic, moving from high-pitched, gasping expressions to low innuendoes; and the monologue establishes a passionate secret.

• The speaker's verbal creativity often comes to represent the sex act itself, equating the spoken word with sex. Fantasy scenarios often involve the speaker discarding books, encyclopedias, and academic pursuits for the bedroom.

Interactive Inequality

• The prerecorded message presented on the line creates an interactive inequality. It portrays men as dominant (penetrating, powerful, intellectual) and women as submissive (penetrated, powerless, emotional).

• The speakers must affirm the inequality in order to have a conversation, aligning with a frame for male pornographic discourse. Rosalind Coward (1986) relates that images become pornographic when they explicitly affirm the differential: female-as-object versus male-as-subject.

• In vocal pornography, this differential is created through voice and word alone, with the fantasy-line operator assuming a submissive position.

• Operators sell numbers through low, breathy tones that convey the women will provide the love depending on the caller's control.

Interviews with San Francisco Fantasy-Line Operators

• Hall interviewed eleven women and one man in the San Francisco Bay Area working for heterosexual male markets.

• They all had reinterpreted the concept of the recent feminist controversy over pornography within the vocal sphere. Each of them perceived their position as a powerful one.

• The positive attitude may have much to do with the fact that in San Fransisco, many of the services are women-owned and operated, with a large percentage of employees identifying as feminists.

• For these individuals, many of whom are freelance artists, fashion designers, graduate students, and writers, the work on the telephone brings economic independence and social freedom. They see women in suits making 0.65 to a man's dollar as the real prostitutes.

• These people primarily understand themselves in the industry as fantasy tellers.

Interview Process and Key Issues

• Hall informed the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline about her project. She spoke with 12 people over the course of few months, including the call-doers, managers, and a co-owner.

• Approximately half of the interviewees allowed Hall to record their interviews anonymously.

• Six of the interviewees were heterosexual, three bisexuals, and three lesbians; eight of them were European American, two Latino, one African American and one Asian American. The ages ranged from 23-46; they were generally from middle-class backgrounds, college-educated, and supportive of the industry.

• Most had sought a place of employment within women-owned services due to mistreatment at the hands of the men-owned services. At the beginning of each interview, the participants were told of Hall's interest in the labor force; only at the end was the specific idea of the interest in the use of language disclosed.

• Operators feel that pro-freedom feminists prioritize an issue that the majority of the women in this country do not have the privilege of debating due to their lack of economic and social oppression.

Motivations and Concerns of Operators

• The operators are focused on how they, as a group, can mobilize for a better work environment so that the job that they chose will be as non-oppressive as possible. They spoke of the need for a sex-workers' union, healthcare benefits, etc.

• All of the participants chose this line of work initially for the economic and social freedom. One participant stated that she refused to dress in 300 outfits while making 6 an hour.

• One woman moved from Ohio so that she could still be as strange as she is and do a job. She has multiple piercings and tattoos.

• Operators speak of the freedom of making their own hours. A participant mentions marginalization due to the choices of work and the inability to attain healthcare or the assistance of a union in those dire moments.

• Overall, women have balanced patriarchal oppression from corporate America against it in a capitalist enterprise, opting for the latter because of its treatment.

Linguistic Qualities and Marketability

• These San Francisco operators are very aware of the type of language they produce and the specific linguistics qualities that it makes marketable.

• These qualities are the same features that linguists working in the area of language and gender have defined as powerless. Feminine lexical items, intensifiers, interruption to narrative with questions and supportive comments, and the adoption of a dynamic intonation pattern.

• One participant mentions having to have "big tits" in one's voice due to the need to build a mental image within the caller's mind and choosing feminine colored words such as peach or apricot instead of standard colors.

• Another operator defines her language as marketable towards the phenomenon of intonation.

• One can produce an intonation and create a feminine feeling.

• Samantha of San Francisco emphasizes her maintenance work through collaborative exchanges drawing out shy callers using supportive questions and attentiveness to provide a personable experience.

• The article speaks of stereotypical representations such as the incorporation of other ethnicities. One such experience is that of African American women performing better to the expectations of the people on the phone through stereotypical African American tones.

The Art of Vocal Performance

• Operators must vocalize stereotypes that cater to the racist assumptions of their clients. The success of their interaction depends on their ability to perform as the ideal representation of specific races.

• Andy, a Mexican American bisexual, poses as a female heterosexual. To convince the callers of his womanhood, he style-shifts into a higher pitch and moves the phone away from his mouth to soften the voices.

• The receiver then becomes an extension of his apparatus, tailoring it to his interactant's mindset.

Conclusion

• What exists on the adult-message-lines is primarily gender-and secondarily age, class, geography, and race.

• Whether it is Asian American, African American, European American, or Latina, the operators switch conversational styles into what they relate to as "woman's language".

• Operators learn these styles through positive and negative forms and sell it back to the larger culture at a high price.

• Speakers also develop their strategies for expression through their experiences within the linguistic market.

• Conversations on fantasy lines are specifically situations in which linguistic production is evaluated. An operator does not produce the same discursive style.

• The reinforcements that women have obtained at an early age allow them to acquire durable dispositions towards a strategy of expression.

• Powerless speech becomes a very powerful sexual commodity.

• Operators that operate out of San Francisco challenge theories that have categorized women's language as powerless and men's language as powerful.

• Women have learned to manipulate the female conversational stereotype; it brings a lot of money and allows themselves to exercise sexual power safely.

• To say that all women are powerless denies their sense of reality. This states that any theory of linguistic power must allow for a variety of influences that have respect to individual consent.

Kira Hall's exploration of language in the phone-sex industry provides a compelling case study for examining the complexities of power, gender, and language. Her work challenges simplistic notions of 'powerless' language, particularly as it relates to women, and opens up avenues for considering how linguistic strategies can be consciously employed for economic and social gain.

Challenging Lakoff's Framework

Hall's research directly confronts the early interpretations of Robin Lakoff's work on 'Language and Woman's Place.' While Lakoff identified linguistic features like hedges, tag questions, and 'empty' adjectives as markers of female powerlessness, Hall demonstrates how these same features can be strategically used to project sexual availability and fulfill conversational aims in the phone-sex industry. This challenges the idea that these features inherently signify subordination, suggesting instead that their meaning is heavily context-dependent.

Linguistic Performance and Identity

Furthermore, Hall's analysis aligns with broader concepts in sociolinguistics and performance studies. The operators in her study engage in linguistic performance, consciously crafting their speech to meet the expectations of their callers. This performance is not simply imitative; it requires a deep understanding of societal stereotypes and the ability to manipulate them for personal gain. The concept of 'style-shifting,' as seen in Andy's adaptation of his voice to project a female identity, is a key element of this performance.

Power and Agency

Hall's work also connects to feminist debates surrounding agency and representation. By highlighting how women in the phone-sex industry actively negotiate their identities and economic livelihoods, she challenges perspectives that solely emphasize the dangers of pornography and the objectification of women. Her study supports the idea that women can exercise agency within seemingly oppressive structures, using language as a tool to subvert expectations and gain control.

Economic and Social Factors

Moreover, Hall's study emphasizes the importance of economic and social factors in understanding language use. The operators' motivations for entering the phone-sex industry, such as the desire for economic independence and social freedom, underscore the need to consider the material conditions that shape linguistic choices. This perspective aligns with critical sociolinguistics, which examines the relationship between language, power, and social inequality.

Intersectionality

Finally, Hall's observations about the use of stereotypical African American tones highlight the intersectionality of language, race, and gender. The fact that operators are more successful when they conform to racist expectations reveals the complex ways in which linguistic performance is shaped by multiple social categories. This aligns with research on linguistic profiling and the ways in which language can be used to reinforce existing social hierarchies.

In summary, Kira Hall's chapter provides a nuanced analysis of language and power in the phone-sex industry. By challenging traditional notions of 'powerless' language, highlighting the role of performance and agency, and emphasizing the importance of economic and social factors, her work offers valuable insights into the complex relationship between language and society.

While Kira Hall's work provides valuable insights into the complexities of language, gender, and power in the phone-sex industry, some critiques could be raised:

Generalizability

• The study is based on a specific context (women-owned fantasy-line companies in San Francisco) and a specific time period (1990s). It might be difficult to generalize the findings to other contexts, such as different geographical locations, different types of phone-sex services, or contemporary online platforms. The cultural and social norms of San Francisco, known for its progressive and feminist values, may not be representative of other regions.

Essentialism

• While Hall critiques essentialist notions of 'women's language,' there's a risk that the study could inadvertently reinforce stereotypes about how women speak or behave in certain situations. The focus on 'powerless' language and the 'Mata Hari technique' might suggest that women are inherently manipulative or that their linguistic strategies are always driven by economic motives.

Methodological Limitations

• The study relies on interviews with a relatively small sample of operators. While this qualitative approach allows for in-depth analysis, it also raises questions about the representativeness of the findings. Additionally, the fact that Hall disclosed her interest in language only at the end of the interviews could have influenced the participants' responses or self-presentation.

Lack of Intersectional Analysis

• Although Hall acknowledges the intersectionality of language, race, and gender, the analysis could be further strengthened by a deeper exploration of how these categories interact. For example, the study could examine how the experiences and linguistic strategies of African American operators differ from those of European American operators, and how these differences are shaped by the intersection of race, gender, and class.

Overemphasis on Agency

• While Hall rightly emphasizes the agency of women in the phone-sex industry, there's a risk of overlooking the structural constraints and power imbalances that shape their choices. The operators may be exercising agency in a limited sense, but they are still operating within a capitalist system that exploits and commodifies sexuality. A more critical analysis would acknowledge both the agency of the operators and the broader social forces that constrain their autonomy.

Ethical Considerations

• The study raises ethical questions about the researcher's role in studying a potentially stigmatized and exploitative industry. While Hall obtained informed consent from the participants, it's important to consider whether the research could inadvertently contribute to the objectification or devaluation of sex workers. A more reflexive approach would acknowledge the power dynamics between the researcher and the participants and consider the potential impact of the research on the lives of the operators.