Listen up and listen in. Cameryn Moore wants to shake you. Performer and phone sex operator, Moore hits Montreal on June 12 to kick off the five-and-a-half month “Cameryn Moore: Phone Whore” North American tour. The show “starts out with a very vanilla call, and it gets more intense,” Moore says between sex-work calls from her home in Boston. “My hope is that when people leave, they’ll be shaken. The area that I’m shaking them in does not often get touched in that way. It’s a really deep down, kind of raw place to go.”
The show follows Moore for an hour in her studio apartment. As she tells the audience about her life and work, they’re interrupted by five different calls. “Anybody who’s listened to even one call will be like, ‘Wow. Really?’ or ‘Do you get that often?’ or ‘What was it like doing that call?'” Moore says. “The content of a call leads to further discussion.” Xtra made a phone date with Moore to discuss the show, the perks of wearing pajamas at work, and surprising man-on-man action.
Xtra: What made you create Phone Whore?
Moore: I wrote the first part as a submission for a queer theatre festival here in Boston. I realized that a lot of calls that I take are fairly… there’s a lot of man-on-man action in the stories that I do for guys. They almost certainly don’t identify as queer, but their fantasies are queer. So I kind of looked at common scenes that had come out and wrote that as a short, 10-minute vignette. And then I looked at it further and thought, “Well, there’s more material here. There’s a larger arc that I could be playing with.”
Xtra: Why do you think straight-identified men are calling a female with their gay fantasties?
Moore: There are different reasons for every individual, obviously. My feeling is that somehow it is less queer if it’s coming from a girl. It’s more firmly in the realm of fantasy, because there is no other man actually involved in the generation of the fantasy. So it takes some of the threat out of it. I can’t account for it in any other way.
Xtra: How do you get material for your calls?
Moore: I have watched and read a lot of pornography. I have to say, I get a lot of inspiration from older works of Pat Califia. Some of his earlier works were very inspiring and remain inspiring to me, because they have that nice, brutal fucking quality that a lot of erotica doesn’t have.
And my life experience has been very complex and rich! I’m uniquely qualified for this. When I think of all the other jobs that I’ve done, I think, “Why did I not find this sooner?” All the things that I love to do — talk about sex, make sexy noises, use my motormouth, wear pajamas — it’s all happening right here on the job!
Xtra: You’re doing fundraisers in addition to your solo show. Tell me about that.
Moore: I have a lot of privilege as somebody in a segment of sex work that is legal, and there are a lot of sex workers who are in different areas doing illegal stuff, or for whatever reason they can’t be as open about it or they don’t have the time or the luxury to write plays. So I want to use my privilege for something good. I like to give money to those organizations that support sex workers.
Xtra: What do you hope audiences take away from the show?
Moore: I hope that they’ll come away maybe being a little more open to their own fantasy life. That my talking about these people’s and my own fantasies on stage will kind of open the window a little bit and get some fresh air in there, because people really hide their fantasies. I feel that people have a lot of guilt and angst and repression around their fantasies and I’d like to see that maybe someone talks to their partner that night. Like, “Wow, that was interesting.” I didn’t write the play with any kind of crusade for sexual freedom and liberation, but I’ve had people say it gives them a lot to think about. You know, the place of fantasy and, quote, deviance in our lives.
For more details on Cameryn Moore’s Phone Whore Tour, see camerynmoore.com.
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