the third sex

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A member who has had experience of ladyboys in Bangkok says that to his surprise, one of the most compelling attractions for him was their vulnerability. He said he wasn’t talking about the big tall ones, or the over-the-top kind that you so frequently find freelancing along Sukhumvit Road. It was the quieter, more feminine kind.

This is the type of ladyboy that can often pass for a genetic girl; the kind you can take home to Mum. The kind you can easily fall head over heels for.

I also find this vulnerability attractive. I am drawn towards vulnerable people anyway, and have all too often paid the price for being a big softie. But the feminine ladyboy, in her teens, unsure of herself, her sexuality, and her place in the world is something with which I can sympathise.

As you may imagine, I meet and photograph ladyboys of every kind. I have long been able to look at someone who arrives for a shoot, and to sum up pretty accurately how she will behave when it is just me, her and the camera.

All too frequently, the brassy, confident kind who fusses unduly with her hair and makeup tends to be insecure. In front of her friends she is the extravert, but faced with me, the confidence fast subsides. So I do my best to put her at ease. I never talk too much during a shoot, as I prefer in a way for the model to forget I am there. But I do make the occasional encouraging remark, I show them the LCD screen so they can see their best close-ups, and I joke along with them to keep them smiling.

That is one kind of ladyboy with vulnerability. The other type that I feel particularly protective towards is the young, boyish kind: the Suzis, Honeys, Nickies and Nans of this world. In their late teens, they still have a child-like quality and represent perhaps more than any other members of the third sex a blending of the boy and girl. In some instances, they could probably switch back to the masculine without too much dislocation. But in others, you wonder quite what will have become of them within five years’ time.

As the ladyboy population of Thailand becomes younger and younger, this category has been increasing. Youngsters make the decision to become ladyboys, often under peer pressure, as they are entering puberty. No one knows themselves at that stage of life. By the time they reach their mid teens, they may well be wondering what they have let themselves in for. Yet in terms of their friends and their sexual experiences, they now find it difficult to break out.

I try and talk to ladyboys like this, asking about their general aims and their ideas for the future, but I have never yet received a convincing reply.

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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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Those of you who have been following my photosets for some time know that I like to finish with the ladyboy model spurting cum over herself, something that I personally find intensely exciting to watch and judging by the emails I get, so do many others.

Now, you may feel that a ladyboy ejaculating to order is a simple enough business. I demur. Believe me, I demur.

First of all, let’s take the obvious point that many ladyboys take female hormones. Over time, these have a beautifying effect, making skin smoother and glossier, pumping up bosoms and bottoms, and making the figure softer and more feminine.

But the hormones also have a deadly effect on the dick, making it slower to rise to the occasion and shoot a load. Semen, when it comes from a young ladyboy with no or minimal hormone intake, is a very fine sight: hot, white and plentiful. It also tastes delicious, having a creamy, nutty, salty, slightly acrid flavour that slips down a treat.

As the hormones exert their pull, not only does the quantity ease up but the whiteness begins to disappear. Instead, there is a colourless liquid that looks and tastes somewhat like the white of a raw egg. It is better than nothing, but not very exciting.

Eventually, after several years of solid hormone taking, the semen will cease to be there, and the ladyboy’s penis will have shrivelled to such a degree that she is scarcely aware of it. At this stage, it is not surprising that so many ladyboys have a sex-change operation. Not only have they become so female that they believe the penis to be an abnormality, they no longer have a use for it.

But back to a conventional set-up, with a ladyboy still raring to go.

Most of the models I photograph I am meeting for the first time. Most of them are nervous, not having met me before, and aware that a camera can strip away their artiface and reveal whatever imperfections they have, or think they have. A photoshoot lasts less than an hour. I usually work in the afternoon, and the weather is hot. The big studio lights I use tend to take away any feeling of intimacy.

She lays on her back, or sits in a chair, pulling away with someone standing over her with a camera. Well, how would you feel?

A bit of encouragement is often needed, and I am happy to help out. Usually, as most of my models are young and not too far gone with the hormones, we get there. A hot spurt is immensely satisfying, not just for the ladyboy, but for me also: and spare a thought for poor old me, hunched over the model with my camera, waiting to try and catch the elusive moment when she lets fly. Believe me, semen shoots fast: even when I take a video and play back the moment of orgasm, one flicker and it is gone.

Afterwards of course, if the result is plentiful, it is a pleasure to linger over the whole sticky mess, and to photograph the penis slowly returning to normal size.

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Many ladyboys understand the fact that a lot of men like their women to act slutty, and they build up a persona of the teenage slut that would be hard for anyone to resist.

I well remember a young ladyboy friend who used to dress in a tennis skirt and trainers with white socks, and who had a knock-knee stance that brought me out in a hot flush. She was small and super-cute, and to tease me she would flip up her tiny skirt and display her beknickered little bottom, slowly pulling down her panties halfway before springing away from my grasp, giggling. The little minx.

I also find that dressing suitable ladyboys as schoolgirls brings out the tease in them, and that suddenly they start to speak in a lisping little-girl manner, give me shy little under-the-eyelash glances, and sit in a sprawling manner so that their panties can be clearly seen. When the uniforms come off, the white socks stay on, and the necktie too, if they are wearing one. Somehow they know instinctively that this is fantastically arousing.

I remember a genetic girl asking me once, what did I find so exciting about ladyboys. I told her that ladyboys know how everything works, that they understand what is a turn-on, and how to fulfil fantasies. My GG friend couldn’t really understand too well what I was saying. To her, being a girl was enough. Surely, all that men wanted was simply to have sex? Not so, I said. There is an enormous need for fantasy as well. If your fantasy is to be with a gorgeous little schoolgirl who acts in the most slutty way before revealing herself to be a boy, then so be it. It takes all sorts.

I also tried to explain the forbidden fruit aspect. Many young GGs know instinctively how to tease, but it stops there. You don’t get to have actual sex with them. But with a ladyboy, you know that along with the teasing, sex will certainly follow. Ladyboys don’t refuse sex. They still have the sex-drive of a male, and will be as excited as you at the thought of what is about to happen. Plus, they will be enthralled to see how you are falling for their feminine charms and their come-hither act.

I remember once taking photographs in a riverside park in Bangkok. My ladyboy model, Cherie, was very young and innocent looking. She jumped down next to the water, just out of sight of the people in the park, and promptly yanked her jeans down so that I had an eyeful of her pert, pale little bottom. Then she went into giggles as I gave an involuntary impression of a landed fish, eyes bulging and mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

On another occasion with another ladyboy, during one hot afternoon when she had stopped by and found my maid was still in the apartment working, she asked if she could take a shower. I sat working at my computer, while she showered and then emerged dressed only in a towel. I watched her, hot with desire, as she sauntered past and went into the kitchen. My maid was out on the balcony, watering the plants. My ladyboy friend gave me a sultry look, turned her back on me, dropped her towel, and then with both hands gently parted the cheeks of her bottom, laughing as I almost went into meltdown at my keyboard. Just in time, she grabbed the towel as my maid entered the room with her watering can.

Yes, of course, GGs do all this and more. But ladyboys sometimes do it better.

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A ladyboy friend announced to me the other day that her young brother had decided he would become a ladyboy. How old is he, I asked. “Twelve,” she said.

I asked her why he had made the decision, when he hadn’t even reached puberty.

Instead of giving me the reply that I expected, that he felt his career expectations would be better if he changed his sex (regular readers will remember this theme), she simply said: “He thinks can have more fun that way.”

I asked her what kind of fun. “Oh, go out, party, disco, lots of friends, try on makeup, buy clothes, go with friends to beach, go singing dancing, have good time.”

But couldn’t he do that as a boy?

She looked at me as if I simply didn’t get it. “Yes, he could, but if ladyboy, someone else pay for him. Ladyboy can always have good time for free. Boys take them, sometimes boyfriend give money, sometimes have fan [lover] pay everything. Then not have to worry about money.”

I’m sure this was not the only reason that the boy had decided on his future life course, but I can see that it would have influenced him hugely, especially as he has a big and very attractive “sister” who seems to do pretty well out of being a ladyboy.

Thais love to have fun, and even in the provincial towns there is a whole world of nightlife to be enjoyed. For the youngsters, the fun they have is much better if no sense of responsibility is involved, and they can just party on without having to worry about money.

Then of course there is the dressing up, and the makeup, and the theatricality of being a ladyboy. There is the excitement of being part of a minority group that rebels against conventional society. The reflected glamour of being allowed backstage at the ladyboy beauty contests and the cabaret shows, of which there are a huge number throughout Thailand, and of tagging along for supper after the show or the bar closes.

The sexuality side of things will not really be considered by a young ladyboy, because he probably won’t really understand it. By the time he does, it will appear normal behaviour: especially if he has begun taking female hormones. And especially when he sees how easily money can be made.

When you compare this life of perceived fun to the lot of the ordinary young working-class Thai male, with his ripped jeans and rubber flip-flops and his paltry wages, you can just about begin to see what attracts so many youngsters to joining the third sex.