The sweet relief of phone sex

How this auditory act satisfies my libido while accommodating my depression

I have done the math, and so far this year, my sex life is 69.9% phone sex. (Nice.)

That number feels like it should be higher, and the only reason it isn’t is that when my partner and I are together in person, we cram sex into our schedules like a game of Tetris. Three or four times a day isn’t uncommon. But those blissful stints are a sprint, and our ritual of near-daily phone sex is more like a marathon. Except more fun, and marginally less sweaty.

Here’s the secret I wish someone had told me about phone sex before I knew fuck-all about it: Like “real” sex, it can be terribly awkward, but when you find someone whose style and desires are compatible with yours, it can be divine. I always envisioned it as a nervewracking endeavor, like a two-person improv set with no suggestion where the stakes are boners/orgasms/your relationship, but in reality it’s more relaxing than any sex I’ve ever had.

Our nightly catch-up conversations are like any you might have with a partner: casual, breezy. We talk about work and family and friends, TV and Twitter and the news. But then some flirty comment or bratty remark drops his voice to a molten register. “Oh yeah?” he says, or sometimes he just growls or purrs, provoking a reaction in me that Pavlov might find interesting. His voice is a tool with which he’s stroked me off hundreds of times and my brain and body respond with this knowledge, bone-deep, worn in.

I always imagined phone sex as more of a give-and-take, but that’s not necessarily the case once you’ve introduced “tops” and “bottoms” into your lexicon. In kink-speak (as opposed to gay male culture or any other usage of these terms), the top is the one who gives sensation and the bottom is the one who receives it, though of course giving sensation can also involve receiving pleasure. For tops who identify strongly with their toppiness, giving is their pleasure; the reactions of their receptive partner are their reward.

My boyfriend is a phone sex top. He transmits sensation/arousal/excitement with his voice and his words, which makes me whimper and moan and pant, which is the reason he does it. For years I thought I’d be bad at phone sex because I was bad at talking dirty, but what I didn’t know is that I’m a phone sex bottom. I like to listen, and react, and respond, and I like people who like that about me.

This is why phone sex with my partner is relaxing rather than horrifying: it mirrors how I like to have sex “in real life,” only – unlike during face-to-face sex – I can remain utterly unconcerned with how I look and even how I smell and taste. I’m a chronically depressed person in chronic pain, so (let’s be honest) sometimes I go days without showering, or putting makeup on, or even looking at myself in a mirror. The type of self-scrutiny that physical sex would seemingly necessitate is inaccessible to me in that state; I can barely acknowledge my own painful thoughts, let alone my aging, ailing, aching body.

Enter phone sex. Someone impossibly handsome calls me up, flirts with me, talks dirty to me, and he’s interacting only with my voice: a part of me that’s affected by my depression, sure, but not in a scary or detrimental way. Much like Depressed Me doesn’t want to touch her own genitals directly because it feels disgustingly intimate, Depressed Me also doesn’t want to rub her morose grossness against someone else’s body; she just wants to stay in bed, disaffected and alone. Alone can be scary, though. With phone sex, I can reach out and touch someone… without actually touching anyone. Not even necessarily myself.

My penchant for phone sex grew out of necessity in my long-term relationship, but now it’s part of my depression toolbox, too. Someone doesn’t have to live 500 miles away from me for us to engage in this erotic ritual together. Like oral sex or anal sex, it’s just another type of sex – but a type that works for me when almost no others do.