the third sex

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Following on from the previous couple of entries, and mulling over as to what it really is that makes a young Thai boy decide to become a ladyboy, I decided to ask the opinion of my maid. Not only is she a fount of information on all things that relate to the Thai working class – which forms the vast majority of the population – but as regular readers of this site will know, she has a son who is a ladyboy. Consequently, she has a huge number of ladyboy acquaintances, and knows a large number of families with ladyboy members.

She confirmed what I had long suspected, that many young Thais become ladyboys as a way of attempting to escape from poverty. Although for us from the Western cultures it is hard to understand how changing one’s sex is a route out of an impoverished life, we do not really understand just how hopeless life can be for a young Thai man from a poor background and with limited education.

My maid told me about the large number of young men, many of them from the rural northeast of the country, where she herself comes from, who go to work in the gay bars of Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket and other tourist destinations. She said they are usually not gay, but that by working in a bar and going with a foreign visitor they are able to earn as much in one or two nights as they would in a month working in the rice fields or the factories.

Ladyboys, she said, are really only carrying this idea a step further. Many of them are gay, but some are not. What they really want is a life of glamour and money. Their biggest ambition is to find a wealthy man, usually a foreigner, who will take care of them and their families. They see how girls from poor families use their beauty to make money, and bearing in mind the enormous and increasing demand for ladyboys, feel they can do the same.

As a lot of youngsters are making this decision at a very early age, usually the onset of adolescence, it is not necessarily a rational one. Little thought is given to what might happen later in life. But the attractions of working in cabaret, in one of the big red-light areas, or even mainstream in beauty salons or the media far outweigh the alternatives.

My maid added that such is the vast number of young Thai males who are now opting for work in the gay sector, or becoming ladyboys, there is actually now a shortage of eligible young men in Thailand. I hadn’t known that. But apparently it is a well-known fact amongst the Thais, and when you realise just how big this sector is, it becomes understandable.

Given the current political situation in Thailand things are not going to become any easier in the near or medium future. But one rather frightening aspect is that tourism has plunged in the wake of the political turbulence, and the international meltdown. This is also not going to improve very quickly. Which means there are a lot of young guys and ladyboys chasing a diminishing dollar.

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I had a very interesting email following on from the previous entry, the reader wondering if there is any environmental factor that can be triggering genetic changes amongst young Thai males, changes that in particular affect the genitals. Over the past couple of generations, he says, during which there has been an incredible surge in the number of Thai ladyboys, there has been an enormous increase in the use of chemicals for food production.

There is also the fact, he adds, that the American government used chemicals to clear jungle during the Vietnam War. These chemicals were dropped from aircraft and could have floated for hundreds of miles in the air. The compounds could have been ingested by the Thai population, which went on to produce children who developed a genetic defect.

The reader adds that he is only speculating, but this is the kind of thought-provoking email that I enjoy reading.

My immediate reaction is that I travel regularly to Vietnam, but I know almost nothing about Vietnamese penises. I am not gay and so I do not follow the gay scene there. My interest is in ladyboys and the amount of ladyboy action in Vietnam is almost negligible. This is not to say it doesn’t exist. But Vietnamese society is more conservative than that of Thailand, and of course you have a communist government that is not dreadfully amused by what they would no doubt describe as depravity and decadence.

So, I’m not in a position to comment on the sexual proclivities and problems of young Vietnamese males.

There is no doubt that what appears to be a large number of teenage Thai boys are being served very poorly in the downstairs department. Time after time after time – and don’t forget I see an awesome number of ladyboy penises – I see a pair of panties come down to reveal a little bud of a dick, or one that clearly was never going to do what it was supposed to do ie propagate the human race.

Female hormones are sometimes to blame, and eventually of course taking hormones will remove the maleness from a penis. But this takes time, and a good strong cock will fight hard and long against the feminine tissues that start to swirl around the bloodstream of a normal teenage boy.

I really don’t have an answer. Very little real research has been carried out on the Thai ladyboy phenomenon. I think I will stick with my original premise that the majority of ladyboys are ladyboys for an economic reason, followed by teenage rebellion against society, followed by malfunctioning of the naughty bits, followed lastly by genuine transsexualism.