the third sex

There is a piece in one of the London newspapers this morning about the increasing acceptance of India’s third sex, the hijras. The article does however make the point that although progress is being made, the hijras still face not only discrimination but hostility. Clearly, there is a long way to go before they are regarded as being equals.

In Thailand, I don’t think there is any hostility at all towards ladyboys. Individual cases do occur, of course, but what I mean is there is no general public reaction against them. A ladyboy can walk down any street and not be in fear of violent abuse. The worst she is likely to face is little kids making fun of her.

This holds true in even the rougher areas. In fact, if you walk through a Bangkok slum you are likely to find ladyboys living there, having decided that they can make more income from the sex trade than from the unskilled work that is the lot of the poorly educated working-class male.

I was thinking this over yesterday, when I was in one of the rougher parts of the city. I†was cutting through the area to visit an interesting old temple, when I saw two ladyboys walking, arms linked, along the lane. They passed a group of men drinking outside a grog shop, and rather than attract ribald comments†they†didn’t attract a second glance. At the corner of the lane was a group of motorcycle taxi riders, a tough looking bunch,†but again there wasn’t even the raising of an eyebrow. The ladyboys were simply part of the scenery. In fact, the†girls hopped onto the back of a couple of the bikes to ride off to the shops.

There are several reasons for this acceptance. The Buddhist culture, of course. The fact that ladyboys are such an accepted part of society that Thai men regularly take them for sexual partners without any qualms at all. And the sheer number of ladyboys,†which means†they are such a common†sight that no one is startled to see a ladyboy in full rig, even in the middle of the day.

Then there is the sheer beauty of so many ladyboys. There are plenty of ugly ones about, naturally, but I would say from personal experience that the greater number are attractive and that they embellish a crowded mall or busy street rather than appear as an oddity.

As I have mentioned before, there is an increasing trend on the part of employers to take on ladyboy staff and put them in upfront positions where they deal with the public. This is very indicative of the way in which the third sex in Thailand is accepted.

There is an ever-increasing number of Thai youngsters deciding to become ladyboys, and so acceptance can only continue to grow. Very little academic work appears to have been done on this very interesting subject, which is a great pity because it could provide all kinds of guidance for other countries struggling to assimilate the transgendered.

I was in Central Department Store in Rama III Road one Sunday afternoon recently. Just browsing around by myself, checking out the camera store mainly, with its mouthwatering display of vintage Leica cameras. Up on the third floor of the atrium I saw a ladyboy. She was by herself, looking over the balcony towards the escalators, obviously waiting for someone.

I liked the look of her. She was very young, very natural looking: not much makeup, and wearing a neat little grey-and-black dress. I went and stood beside her, and spoke to her softly in Thai. I said that she looked good, and that I knew she was sao prapet song, which is the polite Thai term for a ladyboy. She gave me a warm smile, not at all scared by the approach of a foreigner.

I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was waiting for a friend. I asked her if she had an hour to spare, and said that I had an apartment nearby. If she came with me, I said, I would give her some money so that she could come back later and enjoy herself with her friend.

There was no hesitation. She called her friend’s mobile and said she would be back during the afternoon. Then she gave me another beaming smile and we went outside and hopped into a taxi.

Back in my apartment she slipped out of her little dress to reveal a firm and boyish body with an exceptionally hard cock. I held it gently. It was so hot and so eager that I thought it might go off in my hand, so I turned my attention to her cute little bottom. But the situation was so explosive that everything was all over within a few minutes, she shooting what felt and tasted like an endless volume of creamy salty white-hot cum.

Then we both got dressed and she gave me another of those warm smiles, which I had come to really like. She told me she was still at school. Her family had no money. Her father was a driver and her mother worked in a noodle shop. I handed her the promised money, and she said she would treat her parents as well as going with her friend to buy a new dress and then for a meal. She went out of the door looking really happy. By the time she got back to the mall, the entire episode would have taken just an hour.

Two things. One, this was an incredibly erotic experience, enhanced by the unexpectedness. Brief encounters with a stranger can be dynamite. The other aspect is that I would never have approached a genetic girl in that way, unless she had made it clear she wanted me to. By dressing as a girl, my ladyboy friend was sending out a signal that she was available. A ladyboy does not decline sex, unless she has a very good reason.

A GG, unless she was on the game, would be frightened off by a direct approach. You could even find yourself exciting the attention of the security guards. But a ladyboy is up for adventure, sex, and the chance to make a little bit of cash. My little friend was no hooker. She was just a natural ladyboy, and for a brief hour one sunny Sunday afternoon, two people were happy.

I have written on this page before about ladyboy Dew, who is from the Deep South of Thailand and who until she took up a job in her home town as a teacher of dance and drama was a regular visitor to my apartment in Bangkok.

Dew loves pornography. To be more specific, she loves to see pictures of young Thai men. Although pornography is illegal in Thailand, there is a thriving underground of Thai porn magazines and videos, as anyone who walks past Patpong or visits the Panthip Plaza IT emporium will be aware.

Much of this material features Thai guys, and some of it gets posted on the internet. Dew knew where to find the websites, and whenever she visited my place it wouldn’t be long before she took over my computer and went surfing. At this point I would be bundled out of the room, on the pretext that she would be emailing friends and reading the Thai newspapers, and that I would get very bored.

I knew what she was up to. The door to the computer room wouldn’t close properly, and after she had shooed me out she would “accidentally” put a chair against it so that I couldn’t walk in unexpectedly. Then she would hurry back to the screen. She didn’t realise that from a certain angle I could see through the crack in the door: I couldn’t see her face but I could see from her waist down.

Finding a batch of pictures she liked, she would tug down her shorts and knickers and start to play with her cock. I would watch as she got it up to full strength, her hand moving faster and faster, culminating in a white spurt that leapt into the air and went all over her belly. I would be sitting innocently reading a book as she sidled past and went into the bathroom to clean up.

I once asked her to show me the type of boy she liked best, and she pointed out a cute looking young guy with floppy hair and a slim and undeniably attractive body. As I’ve said here many times, I have no interest in men: but I could see the attraction.

Dew’s interest in porn is by no means uncommon amongst ladyboys. When I’m taking photographs, when it comes to the wanking sequence I do sometimes get asked if I have any gay magazines that would act as a stimulant. I feel guilty when I say no, and I tell myself I really should get a selection in, but I always forget.

I have found on several occasions that ladyboys actually have porn clips on their mobile phones. They will lay back and watch the clip, and I will hear strange gruntings and other sounds coming from the phone’s earpiece, but as I am standing with my camera waiting for the white spurtings I have never actually seen the visual quality of these clips.

This interest in porn is yet another facet of ladyboy life, which again underlines the strangeness of it all. Genetic girls tend not to have an interest in erotic pictures, but here is a beautiful girl flicking eagerly through photographs of handsome young naked guys. Then she takes out her own cock and gives herself one off the wrist. What could be stranger?

Ladyboys are however not aroused by pictures of other ladyboys. Many times I have shown visitors and models some of the pictures on the site, and they are always interested to see what their friends look like. They especially like to see photos of their friends’ cocks. But the interest is curiousity, not sexual arousal.

One of the things I enjoy doing when I have time, especially at the weekends, is to tramp around obscure parts of Bangkok looking at the ancient temples. These tend to be off the tourist map, and consequently I very seldom see any other foreigners.

Last weekend I was exploring part of the Thonburi side of the river, walking along the bank of the Bangkok Yai canal where there is a collection of historic but little-known temples and shrines.

Outside one of them, at an open area of land that appears to double as a carpark and a volleyball court, there was a girl selling lotus flowers to devotees entering the temple. She gave me a smile and tried to sell me some, but as I wasn’t planning on entering the temple I politely declined.

I did however realise that she was a ladyboy. I circled around the temple slowly. I had read up on the history of the place, what little I could find, and was looking in particular at the mix of Chinese and Thai architectural elements. But of course, by now my mind was also on the ladyboy at the front of the temple.

As I came round the corner of the building, she was still there. It was just gone 5pm, the light was beginning to go, and there were few visitors. Seeing me, she flashed another smile. I went up to her.

I said, in Thai, that I knew she was a ladyboy. The polite way to do this is to say that you know she is “sao prapet song”, which means “second type of woman”, the courteous Thai phrase. Then I complimented her on her makeup.

She smiled an even bigger smile and asked me why I spoke Thai, and how many years I had been in the country. So we got talking like this, and I asked her where she lived. Only a few minutes away. She asked if I wanted to come back home with her.

Of course I did. She was not outstandingly beautiful but she had a sexuality about her: small, slightly built, a tom-boyish quality that I liked. My only misgiving was that I knew there would be no privacy in her house. I had earlier walked through the community, and it was a mixture of old timber houses and slightly newer brick-built ones. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and where there are probably three generations of extended family all living in the same house together.

But, what the hell, it was yet another opportunity to see Thailand up close and personal.

We left the flower stall to her auntie, who owned it, and walked across the road and into a smaller road and then into an alley. The house was a brick one, shabby on the outside but clean and tidy inside. There was an elderly woman sitting out back, and a couple of kids buzzing around, but otherwise it was all quiet.

We went into her bedroom, where there was just room enough for the two of us to stand between the dressing table and the bed. She was wearing a denim skirt, and I lifted it and slipped my hand down the front of her pants. She gave a little gasp as I felt her cock, which was hot and hard, and her balls, which were full and warm. I tugged her pants down.

Her dick stood out straight: not a particularly long one, but it was heavy and strong. I began tugging it, very gently, and she put her hands on my shoulders and her face against my chest. Then her body stiffened and she gave a little cry, and spurts of hot cum went over my hand and wrist.

I lifted my wet hand to my face and there was the aroma of fresh coconut juice: the warm scent of a clean-living ladyboy. She was concerned that she hadn’t satisfied me, but although we had locked the door I just wasn’t up for it. I had however certainly enjoyed giving her a hand job. I said I would see her again, and that next time I would take her to my apartment where I could explore that tight little body and find out how that hot and fragrant cum tasted.

I had an old friend in town who likes ladyboys but who doesn’t really know Patpong, so I took him for a wander through. We went along Patpong 2, the narrow pedestrian way that runs alongside the main strip, and paused at Pinocchio, an agreeable little pub. The staff here are a mixture of ladyboy and GG, with only about half a dozen of each, and the place is very friendly.

Pushing open the door, I was greeted by a gorgeous ladyboy who seemed vaguely familiar. “Remember me?” she asked. When you meet and photograph as many ladyboys as I do, this is a familiar situation. You may have photographed them with their pants down and shooting a load only a few weeks previously, or maybe a couple of years previously, but there are so many they can become a blur. Besides, when I take their pix I like them to wear minimal makeup. At night, in full regalia, they are often transformed.

“I am Pocky,” she said “Rachel!” Then the penny dropped. Not only had I taken her photograph on a couple of occasions a few years back, I also had even closer knowledge of her.

As a 16-year-old boy, Pocky had worked as a waiter at a restaurant near where I live. He was making pocket-money after school. Clearly gay and naturally effeminate, he always looked uneasy and self-conscious. Not a happy looking young man, I thought to myself. But at this time, of course, the only thing I had to do with him was to order my dinner.

Over the next couple of years I watched as Pocky morphed into a ladyboy. Not a particularly feminine one at first, but gradually the “he” disappeared and I began to think of Pocky as a “she”. When she turned 18, I invited her back to my place. She was painfully, embarrassingly shy. For a few months, she became a regular visitor, creeping in and snuggling up under the bedclothes. I took a couple of photosets, and thought she looked good. She liked the name Rachel, so that’s how she appears on the site. Then she went to college, and moved away. We lost touch until I entered Pinocchio.

“I not shy now!” she said, as we sat down, and she proceeded right there in the bar to pull her cock out of her panties and massage it up to full strength. It was a lot more impressive than it had been. “I not take hormones now,” she explained. Then, for good measure, she turned round on the bench seat and hoisted up her skirt and pulled down her pants, showing me (and the rest of the pub) her cute little bottom.

Apart from this boldness, the most remarkable thing was Rachel’s beauty. She had blossomed into a beautiful girl. Great makeup, lustrous hair, a slender figure, cute boobs, and a natural dimple in her left cheek that she must always have had, but I had not noticed. Above all, she looked happy. A bouncy, sparkly personality, and a confidence that I don’t think she would have had if she had remained male.

I turned round to see my friend sitting on the bench seat next to me, and his eyes were popping out like gobstoppers. Even the GGs in the pub were looking on bemused. I thought back to the time when little Pocky would lay on her back in my bed, her stiff little cock in the air, her eyes shut with the sheer embarrassment of it all. My, how you’ve changed.