As I sit on my couch in my PJs (probably much later in the day than I should be) frantically re-reading my exam study notes for the hundredth time, my phone starts ringing.
The caller ID tells me it’s a random New Brunswick number. It isn’t one of my contacts. By now, I’ve learned to ignore these calls.
A notification pops up showing they’ve left a voicemail. “Oh, that’s new,” I think to myself as I check to see if this was actually a real call.
“Hi, I’m looking for a dildo that would be good for some anal play. Not just some entry-level stuff, I want a realistic one, but like bigger. So please call me back OK?”
I wish I could say this was a prank call. For all I know, it might have been. The guy who left it was laughing as he spoke. It equally could have been real, none of this surprises me anymore.
Three years ago, after constant harassment from telemarketers, I decided to change my cellphone number. I didn’t know the switch meant leaving myself open to an even more annoying onslaught of random callers.
Immediately I knew the phone number had only recently been deactivated from another customer. I’d receive texts and calls from Jenn’s (the previous owner whose name I quickly learned) friends and family checking in on her. Then came the doctors and dentists (I sincerely hope she made it to all her appointments – she apparently needed a lot of reminders), but then other, stranger, calls started coming in.
It wasn’t until this fall I realized what was going on. I’d given a friend my number and received this message in response:
“You need to check out what comes up on Google + if you check your number. Someone is using it for their profile, so when you add it as a contact it switches your name.”
When I Googled the number, it suddenly all made sense. Jenn, it seems, was a Passion Parties consultant. She used her cellphone as a business phone. Her cell number – my cell number – is listed on Yelp, Yellow Pages and Can Pages as a Passion Parties business line.
In case you don’t know what Passion Parties are, well, the short of it is they sell sex toys. They also sell a variety of intimacy aids, like body lotions, massage tools and more, but the bulk of it consists of selling personal pleasure objects. Everything from vibrators to sex swings.
Consultants are invited to peoples’ homes, where a host has parties and the consultant shows off the product line while you and your friends play games. It’s kind of a “sexy” equivalent to a Tupperware or Avon party.
Mostly the calls are just annoying; they usually are time-wasters or come at inconvenient times. Sometimes they can be quite amusing. More generally, they’ve changed some preconceived notions I’ve held.
The vast majority of the attempted order-placers sounded like middle-aged men. Many seemed to have foreign accents. These people tend to be quite confident in our conversations, brief as they were. They sound surprisingly professional and mechanical about their orders. I had no idea this would be the largest demographic for Passion Parties products.
A few calls have been from what sounds like timid women. Passion Parties seems to market itself as a fun girls-night-in experience so it actually surprised me how shy these women seem to be about their intentions. I mean what happened to sexual liberation and female empowerment? One poor soul was downright embarrassed when I kindly told her she had the wrong number. Not gonna lie, this kind of bummed me out.
Around November, I started receiving an average of about two calls per day. One day, I had over five. Around mid-December they stopped entirely. That’s peak Christmas shopping season people. I’m not a betting woman but I’ll throw down $100 wagering “my customers” were looking to put a different type of toy under their trees.
What this experience, these phone calls – not to mention the frantic e-mails and calls to Yelp, Yellow Pages and Can Pages trying to get my number unlisted – has ultimately taught me, is that even phone numbers can have a sexual history. So please, learn from my mistake and always Google a number before you commit to it.
