the third sex

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She was on her hands and knees, with her bare bottom in the air. “What you want me to do now?” she asked. I scratched my head. There had to be an answer, but I simply put the camera down and told her to take a five-minute break.

“Don’t you want me?” she asked slyly, a delicate hand snaking out for my zipper. I withdrew modestly. She was attractive, but not my type. A bit too pushy, a bit too big and noisy. She came after me, tugging at my zip. But I really didn’t feel any attraction. I didn’t actually want to do anything but finish the photoshoot.

She pouted. “You don’t like me.”

You are a very nice model, I told her. Your photos look good. Here … And I grabbed the camera and quickly wheeled through the shots we had taken. That did the job. She became enchanted by her own image, and I wriggled out of a situation that I did not want to be in.

When I tell people that I don’t have sex with the models during a shoot, they look at me as if I’m slightly bonkers. Well, I wouldn’t deny that. But the fact is, I don’t. If I like a model, I arrange to see her later. But getting halfway through a photoshoot and then giving up and hopping into the sack is not what I’m there for. I need to get photo sets. I would never get any pictures done if I behaved like that.

Nor is it a case of making myself, or part of myself, into an element of the pictures. When I look at photos from other sites, if I see a big penis extending from the lower part of the frame and into my fantasy, I switch right off. I’m very happy to see as many ladyboy cocks as I can, but a photographer pushing his dick and his beer belly into the shot is an instant turnoff.

The funny thing is, that when I’m taking the photos, I’m very single minded. I don’t actually want to have sex, I want to get the job done. Although this might surprise a lot of people, I do have a lot of self-discipline. Besides, I certainly don’t lead a sex-starved existence. I am surrounded by ladyboys, and a phone call will have one of them in my apartment within the hour. So, I’m alright, Jack.

Years ago, when I was a student, I studied art at night school. One of the biggest attractions about this for me was the figure drawing classes, when a model would be hired for the evening and come in and disrobe for us. At the age of 18 or 19, and bursting with hormones, I used to go hot with desire if the model was a young and attractive one. Even if she was not that attractive, quite frankly.

I also used to disbelieve the stories that I read about photographers who specialised in glamour work, and how they primly kept their hands off the models when they were doing the shoots. But now I can understand. I have also in my career done food photography. You don’t eat what is on the table, no matter how hungry you may be: you take the photographs.

Ladyboy photography is like sex, in a way. You get the model to undress, you flatter her, coax her to get a hard-on, then you photograph her having an orgasm. After she has done that, she doesn’t feel the need for sex. Maybe I do. So, as I say, I reach for my phone and an hour later….

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I was in Nongkhai, the small town on the Mekong River that faces Laos. I was with a ladyboy friend, Anne, and Anne’s mother. It was a bit of a family outing, as Anne’s GG sister was living in Nongkhai, and we had all gone up to visit her.

The four of us were wandering along the main street of this little town, which runs alongside the river. There is a temple at one end, and we had a look around there. There is also a small streetmarket, where we spent a short while. But really, there isn’t much to do at Nongkhai except admire the river, and the view of Laos on the other side of the brown, slow-moving water.

It was still only 11am, and we were just killing time before going for lunch at one of the restaurants that are perched on stilts above the river. The local specialty is catfish, and we were looking forward to that.

Suddenly Anne whispered in my ear: “I very horny!”

Well, so was I. That goes without saying, really. But I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Anne resolved the problem. Arranging to meet Ma and sister in the restaurant a bit later, she led the way to the end of the main street, and down a little footpath to the water’s edge. There was a clump of trees there. We moved amongst them. We couldn’t be seen from the path or from the water.

And there I took out Anne’s lovely long wand of a dick. She was a good-looking girl, but her dick was extra-special, curving upwards strongly from a thick base to an almost pointed head. At the same time she unzipped me. It didn’t need much effort from either side, the pressure of warm hands and rhythmic pulling, combined with the exotic surroundings and the feeling of exhibitionism acting together to create an intense explosion of sensation almost simultaneously.

When we got back onto the main street, I bought a copy of the Bangkok Post from a street stall to hide the big wet patch on my thigh where Anne had shot a load. Then we went to meet mother.

“Did you have a nice time?” the old dear asked pleasantly.

Yes, thank you, mother.

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Regular readers of these pages will know about Sergeant Shameless, an incorrigible pervert whose adventures make even me blush. After a few months of silence (and I really don’t want to know what he has been doing) he has just surfaced to provide me with the following list:

The Top 10 signs you are hopelessly hooked on ladyboys

10 You start going to Thailand alone rather than with your girl-loving buddies you used to go there with
9 You start fantasising about Nicole Kidman having a penis

8 You find yourself eating bananas in one single bite
7 You start salivating at the mention of the words “pina colada”
6 You learn all there is to learn about enemas and their application
5 Your friends start saying you remind them of John Wayne when you walk
4 You walk past the girlie bars of Bangkok or Pattaya and the door girls no longer bother to entice you into the bar
3 Your girlfriend demands that you fuck her pussy at least once for every two times that you fuck her ass
2 Your girlfriend demands that you fuck her pussy at least once for every 10 times that she fucks your ass
1 You religiously renew your Captain-Outrageous membership

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I was talking to a gay friend, an English guy, the other day. He is writing a novel that draws on his experiences in Bangkok, and he was asking me about ladyboys.

“You see,” he said. “I’ve never been with a ladyboy. What’s it like?”

For a moment, he had me stumped. I long ago became used to explaining to straight people how it is to be with a ladyboy, the same as with a genetic girl but with something extra and so on, but I had never really thought about explaining it to a gay man who had no interest in women.

The fact is, that most of the gay people I know in Thailand (and there is a very large community of expat gays here) are not in the slightest bit interested in ladyboys. “Neither here nor there,” snorted one friend.

Gays are interested in people of their own sex because they are aroused by people of their own sex. As we have said so often on this page, ladyboys may be biologically male, but they are the third sex. They aspire to be women, or most of them do. Consequently, for the majority of gays they are of little interest.

My friend was insistent on knowing about ladyboys because he wanted to put a ladyboy character into his novel and he wanted to get it right. I told him there was only one way to find out, and that was to take himself off to a ladyboy bar and find some companionship.

He heaved a heavy sigh, as if I had just suggested he go to a girlie go-go bar and find himself a pole-dancer.

“I thought I would have to do that,” he grumbled. But instead he prowled off to a little bar he likes going to near Patpong, where they have muscular young policeman-type men and bodybuilders, and where the guys are renowned for the size and strength of their dicks. That was much more to his liking. I don’t know if he ever made it to ladyboyland, as I haven’t seen him since.

It’s a funny old world.

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.I was doing a photoshoot of a ladyboy the other day and I could see she was wearing a long wig, but didn’t think much about it. She looked pretty good.

When I had finished, she went and sat in the lounge while I took some photos of her friend. After a while, I came out to see a young man sitting on the sofa. For a moment, the cropped hair and shorts threw me completely. But it was only the fact that my model had taken off her wig, and put her long dress into a bag and was back in civvy street.

She still looked something of a cross between boy and girl, as she was effeminate. But the appearance was undeniably male.

The smoke and mirrors that go into creating the illusion of a ladyboy are an art. Not all ladyboys can do it successfully. Some can flit between the two sexes with ease. Others are totally female except for one single attribute. The spectrum is a very wide one.

Learning female mannerisms is part of the art. I remember once watching a ladyboy who was learning how to sweep the floor the way a girl would do it, rather than a male. Little footsteps, knees together, a small whisking motion with the broom, even the correct facial expression – the differences are small, but also large in their total effect.

Some (many!) of course go too far in their striving for femininity. A few weeks ago I sat at one of the open-air bars on Patpong 2 and watched a tall ladyboy sashay her way down the strip. She was wearing a black cocktail dress and had long hair, and she vamped it the whole way, in the manner Eartha Kitt might have made a stage entrance. It took her ages to wiggle her way to the end of the street, where she turned right and headed for King’s Corner. So astonishing was her performance that all the GGs from the little beer bars came out and stood in the road, watching open-mouthed.

Of course, a real girl would never have walked down the street like that. But whatever…who’s talking about reality…

Then, of course, there is the matter of using the bathroom. Standing up or sitting down? A ladyboy making a serious attempt will demurely sit. Others, especially if no one is watching, might not make the effort. I remember watching ladyboy Dew taking a pee once. She was standing up. Why don’t you sit down, I asked.

“I can’t be bothered,” she replied.