the third sex

After all these years, I still cannot tell how it is that at some point a boy ceases to be a boy and becomes a ladyboy. Believe me, I get as close up as it is possible to get. When you are photographing a nude person, you really get to know them. A boy, even though he may be effeminate, is undeniably a boy. Yet a ladyboy loses the masculine aura. Somehow, the maleness slips away.

I treat ladyboys in exactly the same way I treat genetic girls: opening doors, pulling out chairs, a peck on the cheek, a kiss on the hand. I do all this automatically, without any self-consciousness about it. I regard them as female, or to be more accurate, a species of female. The Thais, in polite conversation, refer to ladyboys as “sau praphet song”, second type of woman, and this is I feel a very profound expression.

In addition to ladyboys, I have also photographed boys and girls. Whenever I photograph a boy, as I’m not attracted to masculinity I regard it as simply a photographic session. Enjoyable, interesting, but not particularly erotic. Cross that boundary to ladyboy, and there is a tremendous eroticism about a photoshoot. Proceed further along the sexual spectrum to the photographing of a GG, and the transition from ladyboy to girl is scarcely noticeable.

In fact, to be honest, as you have something more tangible with a ladyboy shoot, and you have this paradox of the female and male in one body, photographing a ladyboy is actually more exciting; something I would not have thought possible when I was an adolescent.

All this came into my mind yesterday evening. I was sitting at the restaurant of a beach bungalow resort in Phuket. One of the staff was a young ladyboy, very attractive, while another was a very effeminate boy of about 20. The boy was actually very trim and handsome, but he was undeniably male. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ladyboy, but the boy was simply a gay guy.

Is it the taking of female hormones that sets off certain signals? Probably, but not all ladyboys take hormones. Is it the clothing, makeup, mannerisms? Again, yes, it must all be part of the illusion. But this spiriting away of the masculine is something else, and it is uncanny.