What exactly is “ear sex”?

Cecil replies:

Dear Anonymous:

There is only one way to deal with a question like this, A., and that is to ask someone who knows. Accordingly, I recently had a little talk with one Christa, known to some as Madame Christa, the proprietress of one of the leading ear sex services in the great city of Chicago.

While our discussion was strictly of a nonrecreational nature, I would venture to say that this is a woman who is good at what she does. Christa initially worked for several ear sex services on the West Coast, but eventually decided to go into business on her own, ear sex being a very low-overhead type of operation. Presently Christa boasts a clientele that spans the continent.

The idea in ear sex, not to be overly bashful about it, is that you call up and have a woman talk dirty to you while you masturbate. When it seems advisable Christa will also mail you some of her dirty underwear. This is all a perfectly legal procedure, assuming that the relationship remains long-distance, which Christa assures me it does. While the phone company is not an enthusiastic supporter of enterprises of this kind, to date it has not made any serious attempt to put a stop to it.

What happens is you call up and give your credit card number plus your name, address, and phone number. If the credit card number checks out, Christa calls you back and you get down to business. The charge is $30 for up to 30 minutes. Christa says her firm (she employs three other women part-time) averages about 80 calls a week, so you can see we’re talking about a line of work that is very nearly as lucrative (and honorable) as writing newspaper columns.

One of the peak periods is 9 to 12 in the morning, when many customers call from the office. A fair number of them, Christa says, are lawyers, thus confirming the ancient dictum, “lawyers do it in their briefs.” There is evidently a considerable degree of customer satisfaction; Christa estimates that 85 percent of the callers are repeaters. The charge is listed under an innocuous heading on the credit card bill, so as to avoid unnecessary friction on the home front.

Christa has various theories on why men choose to avail themselves of her services, which have to do with feminism, the lack of, shall we say, suitable outlets for certain kinds of expression, and so on. Apart from that, Christa appears to have an acute grasp of male psychology, which no doubt has contributed to her success.

Many of her callers describe their fantasies in appalling detail, such as is best left to the imagination of the reader. Christa feels, not unreasonably, that this has a therapeutic effect on the men. If so, the women of this country, not to mention the mothers, 13-year-olds, young boys, dogs, and goats, should be everlastingly grateful. I’m reminded of a comment once made by John Wayne Gacy, the imprisoned mass murderer. “Be careful,” he told a caller one day. “There’s a lot of weirdos out there.”

Cecil Adams

Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.