Bland, boring and costly

ANYBODY searching for an erotic thrill on Ireland's telephone sex lines needs patience, persistence, and a lot of money. Having no imagination of your own helps a bit too.

The lines available here are mostly a mishmash of the bland and the boring, with a great many sexy female voices telling you that for a real thrill you need to ring another number.

The services provided often bear very little relation to what is advertised. For instance, a common series of 1550 numbers promises a "menu" of such delights as "2 Swedish Girls", "Lick my heels", and "Take my wife". But callers in search of these particular fetishes may be disappointed to get through to a breezy voice announcing "Eyaland's most exciting messaging service" instead.

A "1 minute relief line", blurbed "Come on then, use me", features a young woman talking in a matter of fact way about what a large bottom she's got. This is presented less as an erotic line, more as something she's learned to accept through counselling.

A voice calling itself "Mandy" retails a very humdrum fantasy about what happened when she answered an ad for a glamour model, the climax of which is the mention of "sheer lycra briefs". Five minutes later it feels like 20 she stops at about the same place a Mills and Boon novel would, and tells you she wouldn't dare give any more details without getting to know you better (an option you're not offered).

Another voice comes on, with a cheerful "Hi, I'm Debbie and I'm a bored housewife." Sounding a lot like Mandy, Debbie affects to be thirty something but her voice is strangely suggestive of a first year arts student.

Some of the "information" lines have arguably more erotic content, or are at least good for a laugh. A helpline on impotence, for instance, has a perky English schoolmarm sort answering the ancient problem of (and here I quote) "why should Percy suddenly not want to pop up and play?".

Spontaneity and breaking with routine are the keys, she explains, though wisely advising that "jumping up in the middle of Sunday lunch at the in laws and having your evil way on the table" may not be good idea.

There are hard core "services" around, however, often from phone numbers in faraway places like Guyana. Telecom has become pretty adept at cutting them off as soon as they appear, but if you do get through you will usually have to ring at least one other (equally faraway) number.

And there are "live" services too, though rarely on the advertised line. A voice at the end of an Israeli phone number advertised in some of last Sunday's newspapers warns callers that they have dialled a hardcore pornography service. After the usual suggestion that for even harder stuff they need to dial another number, the line cuts to a recording of the conversation between a hired female voice and an Irish caller who gives the name "Jimmy".

In a vaguely south Leinster accent, the caller rehearses the standard and a couple of not so standard sexual positions, encouraged by obliging "oohs" and "aahs" from the other end of the line. Having apparently discovered the multiple male orgasm, Jimmy goes on for a tiresomely long time rehearsing the moves.

Telecom Eireann has been working assiduously to block access to some of the more hardcore lines. A whole series of Guyanese phone sex lines currently advertised has, for instance, already been barred.