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Rating: 
Summary: Provocative, fascinating and a little sad
Review: Amy Flowers delves into one of the growth areas of the sex industry. Phone sex is a $1 Billion/year industry here in the US. And yet, despite its size, it is generally given no more thought than as the punch line of a Monica Lewinsky joke.Flowers reveals just what a difficult job it is to deal with the gomers, the goobers, the candymen, the turners and the psychos (her amusing and accurate segmentation of the different kinds of callers). Gomers are the lonely, who call "just to talk" - they don't even want "hot chat" from their favorite phone sex operator, they are craving contact since they have so much difficulty connecting with people in other venues. Gomers are the most lucrative clients because their calls are *long*. Once these fellows want hot chat however - some gomers get jealous, knowing that other guys are getting erotic conversation from the same woman that the gomer has been speaking to for hours on end, so some gomers start to want that same treatment - the gomer becomes a goober. Candymen want the phone sex equivalent of a quickie - they're fast and cheap, and not particularly lucrative. Turners are guys who could have been boyfriends or buddies under other circumstances, and are usually charming, with high status jobs. Psychos, however, are the misogynistic freaks who harass the operators and who comprise 15% of all the callers. Flowers describes how the operators deal with each of these groups, and she describes how performing this kind of an intimate, emotional service can impact the operator. Her interviews with various operators are insightful and fascinating. And should someone read this book thinking it will be a how-to manual regarding how to succeed in the phone sex industry, they will be sadly mistaken. Instead, it's a startling and accurate depiction of a very difficult business.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative, fascinating and a little sad
Review: Amy Flowers delves into one of the growth areas of the sex industry. Phone sex is a $1 Billion/year industry here in the US. And yet, despite its size, it is generally given no more thought than as the punch line of a Monica Lewinsky joke. Flowers reveals just what a difficult job it is to deal with the gomers, the goobers, the candymen, the turners and the psychos (her amusing and accurate segmentation of the different kinds of callers). Gomers are the lonely, who call "just to talk" - they don't even want "hot chat" from their favorite phone sex operator, they are craving contact since they have so much difficulty connecting with people in other venues. Gomers are the most lucrative clients because their calls are *long*. Once these fellows want hot chat however - some gomers get jealous, knowing that other guys are getting erotic conversation from the same woman that the gomer has been speaking to for hours on end, so some gomers start to want that same treatment - the gomer becomes a goober. Candymen want the phone sex equivalent of a quickie - they're fast and cheap, and not particularly lucrative. Turners are guys who could have been boyfriends or buddies under other circumstances, and are usually charming, with high status jobs. Psychos, however, are the misogynistic freaks who harass the operators and who comprise 15% of all the callers. Flowers describes how the operators deal with each of these groups, and she describes how performing this kind of an intimate, emotional service can impact the operator. Her interviews with various operators are insightful and fascinating. And should someone read this book thinking it will be a how-to manual regarding how to succeed in the phone sex industry, they will be sadly mistaken. Instead, it's a startling and accurate depiction of a very difficult business.
Rating: 
Summary: A researcher's view of the industry, not a juicy read, but..
Review: I thought it was a pretty balanced and compassionate look at those who make the calls and those who take the calls. However, her writing style is very dry and "scholarly", understandable since she is a researcher, but she sort of took a juicy topic and made it rather bland, and I don't think she's revealing anything really surprising or earth shattering about this business. Flowers is pretty accurate in her description of a large, company run, warehouse type phone sex operation where she actually worked as part of her research project. It would have been interesting had she explored other types of phone sex operations as well, especially Internet based services, but this book was based solely on her thesis project. The points she made about the de-personalization of sex & relationships in this age of electronic communication are good ones - however, there's much more to be said about the phone sex industry, and Amy did not come close to saying any of it.
Rating:
Summary: A researcher's view of the industry, not a juicy read, but..
Review: I thought it was a pretty balanced and compassionate look at those who make the calls and those who take the calls. However, her writing style is very dry and "scholarly", understandable since she is a researcher, but she sort of took a juicy topic and made it rather bland, and I don't think she's revealing anything really surprising or earth shattering about this business. Flowers is pretty accurate in her description of a large, company run, warehouse type phone sex operation where she actually worked as part of her research project. It would have been interesting had she explored other types of phone sex operations as well, especially Internet based services, but this book was based solely on her thesis project. The points she made about the de-personalization of sex & relationships in this age of electronic communication are good ones - however, there's much more to be said about the phone sex industry, and Amy did not come close to saying any of it.
Rating:
Summary: Exopa Terra - Phone sex lovers and sellers should read this!
Review: Phone sex, especially when done by a pro, is one of the hottest new services in the age of telecommunications. Understand it, like it, and consider profiting from it, because it may become the next boom in cottage industries. Add a little video, some Internet connectivity and we have the stuff that wet cyber dreams are made of. We are going to hear a lot more about impersonal electronic sex and this book is a building block in understanding the future.
Rating:
Summary: Rather dry
Review: The Fantasy Factory is a rather short and rather dry look at the behind the scenes of the Sex Phone industry and in particular, one company. As there are only a couple dozen real life accounts of what it is like to work as an operator, the book is rather anecdotal. In tone and approach the book is similar to Nickel and Dimed but is more academic. At just under 130 pages, there isn't much room for deep analysis. I would have liked to read more about the business aspect of it, the history of it and the social ramifications/taboos from the callers' points of view.
Rating: 
Summary: A student looks at phone sex
Review: This is a book written by a student who took a job as a phone sex operator in order to write a thesis about the women in the industry. She talked to the operators...actually she was interviewing them for her paper. I think she did a good job of showing what they are like, certainly she doesn't look down on them. She may have done a better job of writing aboout the men who call. She divides them by types...from goobers to candymen to psychos. Very amusing and for a scholar...a good read.
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