the third sex

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I consider myself to be a normal, heterosexual male. I like to think that in appearance I am conventional enough (albeit devilishly handsome) and that my mannerisms, speech and so on are all those of an ordinary Englishman of a certain age.

I’m not gay, and as far as I know I don’t have any characteristics that might indicate that I am. I’m not effeminate, not camp, not prone to hissy fits or bitching. I have an obsession about Thai ladyboys, that’s all. I’m an ordinary bloke who loves girls and who especially loves girls who have something a little extra. And quite frankly, given the beauty of some of the Thai third sex, I don’t blame me.

But a few days ago, something happened that made me pause to think.

I was shooting a video of a ladyboy, Jane. Jane was very nervous and when we started the shoot she was chattering to me, trying to overcome her nerves. That was okay by me. But then she asked me if I was a man.

I laughed, and if you watch the clip here you can see the camera shaking. I thought at the time she may have mangled her words and that she was telling me she was a man. But when I played the video back on the screen, there she was asking quite distinctly, in Thai and then in English: “Khun pen pu chai labao? You a man?”

What on earth prompted the question? I couldn’t figure it out. If I was a more insecure soul I might have started worrying.

I wrote about this on the log page on the main site, and in addition to some predictably ribald emails I had one member contact me with what seems now to be the likely meaning behind Jane’s question.

He said that perhaps she was asking me if I was straight. In conversation with a couple of Thai genetic girls recently, he said that they were referring to straight men as “men” and gay men simply as “gays”.

This should have occurred to me, perhaps, and in the inverse logic of the ladyboy it makes sense.

Ladyboys regard themselves as female. Any man who is attracted to them, if you follow this line of reasoning, is therefore straight. A gay man is not interested in ladyboys, because ladyboys are feminine. Gays are interested in masculine qualities.

Ergo, by being attracted to Jane, I was a man.

It does bear out my inner feelings. And it does seem accurate when I think of the gay friends I have, none of whom have ever expressed any interest in ladyboys.

I found all this reassuring. Until I read another email from a member who had been in Phuket, and had spent time with a beautiful post-op. During the course of their relationship, he said he had told her that he actually preferred pre-op ladyboys. In that case, she had replied, you must be a homosexual.

You really can’t win. But as I said on this site a long time ago, when it comes to ladyboys, conventional logic goes out the window.