the third sex

How many men, I wonder, lead secret lives? This thought occurred to me recently when I met up with an old friend, together with his wife. They made a delightful couple, clearly devoted to each other. Yet I know that as he roams the world on business, he indulges in his deep addiction to ladyboys. “I can’t do without them,” he explains. “I don’t bother with girls anymore. It’s the ladyboys.”

There are plenty of other examples. The friend who on a recent visit to Bangkok managed to leave his girlfriend enjoying the hotel spa while he went for a quickie with a ladyboy. The married man I knew who on a visit to Bangkok went full-blast at the ladyboy scene, explaining to me afterwards that he was perfectly happy with his married life and that he loved his wife, but that ladyboys excited a different part of his personality: “It’s almost like I’m two people,” he said.

I remember the young IT specialist who had contacted me before his first visit to Bangkok, saying he was desperate to meet up with ladyboys but was too shy to do it on his own. “I don’t think I could handle the bar scene,” he said. So I took him to KC3, where in his urgent need to get started before he lost his bottle, he took up with the first ladyboy who spoke to him, bar-fined her, and as he told me later, almost came in his pants when they got into the hotel room. “It was all over in 20 minutes,” he said. I tactfully refrained pointing out that the girl he was with was one of the most ordinary girls in the bar. In his rush, he hadn’t noticed. He told me that I was the first person he had ever confided in. “If they ever heard about this in the pub, I would have to move out of the area,” he explained.

Then there was the university lecturer who asked for a discrete introduction to one of the models on the site so that he could spend time with her when he was out here on an exchange visit. He told me that a couple of his students were also spending their holidays in Bangkok, and that the possibility of meeting them when he was cruising for ladyboys was a mortifying one. “Back at home I’m regarded by my students as a pretty boring bloke, married for 22 years, two kids, no interests apart from my subject, art history,” he said. “But every day I fantasise about ladyboys. I’m not a closet gay, I have a satisfying sex life at home. Ladyboys stir up emotions I never knew I had.”

I myself like to believe that I pass as an ordinary person (albeit a devilishly handsome one), and that going about my daily business no one would possibly guess that the evening before, I had been eagerly exploring the cock and bottom of a young ladyboy eager to help me in every way she could.

In some ways, having a secret life is itself exciting. But while it is fine for me, living here, and able to indulge and then cover my tracks easily enough, it is a lot less easy for those who only visit Thailand or other countries with a sizeable ladyboy population.

When I first started out with ladyboys, it was long before the days of the internet. I didn’t even know what ladyboys were. I had never heard of them. These days, with so much ladyboy porn on the net, it is very easy to become addicted to the images. For most people, they are something entirely new. Something completely exotic that excites because it has never been seen or experienced, and because so many of the ladyboys who are posted on the net are under any criteria, extremely beautiful. In my experience, a lot of men visit Thailand because of the ladyboys.

For those men who are married, or in long-term relationships, does going with a ladyboy constitute being unfaithful? This is something of a conundrum. Having sex with a genetic girl certainly is. Having sex with a member of the third sex is problematical, in ethical terms. Enjoy the moment, is my advice. And, of course, keep quiet about it.