Archive for February, 2014
A novel approach
Thailand’s ladyboys receive little serious coverage in the media, and also I don’t know of any work of fiction that attempts a serious explanation of the phenomenon. When I wrote No Angel, available now for download from Amazon, I wanted to describe Thai ladyboys in a credible way, and to describe what it is like to know them intimately. I also wanted to place them against a realistic background. Whether or not it works, I really don’t know.
What I did do however was to draw upon many of my own experiences. The material was just too good to ignore. Consequently, much of the book is pure documentary. So, yes, there really was an Angel, and she was much as she appears in the story. Her background was the same, and her appearance and personality the same. But of course there is a point where the real-life Angel and the fictional Angel separate, and the character depicted in the book can be regarded as fiction.
There was also an Apple, and the Twins. At least, the original inspiration for them existed: in the story, the characters quickly left their origins behind and became pure imagination. Toffi and the travelling cabaret really existed. The Major has his origins in a real-life character, but he never did have a sliding panel and two-way mirror. The three Kevins I met, although in real life they weren’t called Kevin.
The apartment on Suan Phlu existed, and disappeared in similar circumstances to those described. The drunken apartment manager and the Mousekeeper are both based on reality. So too is the mansion apartment in Ramkhamhaeng, and much of what is described in the book actually happened there.
What is however a complete work of fiction is the political background against which the story is set, and the characters and events depicted. Bandhit owes his existence purely to a Chinese man I knew many years ago in Hong Kong, who had the same startling appearance. Arthit, Prakit, and Chao Cheewit have their existence only in the mind of the author.
The choice of illustration for a cover gave me some problems, in that I had plenty of material to choose from but that I had to make the final product acceptable to potential readers, rather than catering to my own interest in ladyboy bottoms. I discarded two versions, which I’m posting here, before deciding on the version that appears at the top of this column.
I would welcome the feedback from anyone who reads the book. A review on Amazon would be great, as it pushes the book up the search engines. The first one and a half chapters can be read for free by clicking on the thumb of the cover in the Amazon store.
Posted: February 12th, 2014 under General.
Tags: The ladyboy experience
Comments: 4
A gay view
I had some interesting insights recently as to what prompts the formation of a ladyboy. I was talking to a young gay guy, who was 18 years old and had just landed a job at the makeup department of one of Bangkok’s largest department stores. He was explaining that he is from Roi Et, in Isaan, one of the regions that has more than its fair share of ladyboys.
There were, he said, many young gays growing up in that province. Life in and around Roi Et is not easy for working class Thais, and the temptations for the average young man to take to drugs, booze or petty crime, rather than succumb to the mind-numbing manual work that his father and all those before him had to do in order to survive, are considerable.
He said he found the girls of his neighbourhood to be consistently pushy, eager to get married and have children, anything to get away from their oppressive and poverty-stricken home life. Several of his friends had got girls pregnant when they were in their mid-teens. Some had knuckled down ruefully to mundane lives, while others had simply run away.
When he was an adolescent, my young friend had had no particularly gay inclinations. He and his friends had done the usual things that youngsters do, flashing their cocks around, but there was no sexual frisson between him and any of the members of his group.
At the same time, he was wary of girls. He was excited by them, but had heard so many horror stories of older boys being trapped into marriage, that he began to distrust them. “I was scared of even being in the same room, breathing the same air, in case I made one pregnant!” he said.
When he was 14, he had had a crush on an older boy, who had been working in Bangkok. The boy told him how easy it was to make money in a gay bar, and that there was no need to actually be gay to do it. Then the older boy had shown him a few things, which made my young friend reconsider his attitude towards his sexuality.
As he grew up, he began to seek the company of older boys, and to find comfort in going to bed with them. He said there was no feeling of involvement, it simply became a sexual adventure. He began to move in Roi Et’s gay circles, and this of course brought him into the world of ladyboys. He told me that he was very much aware, in the early years of adolescence, that there were kids of his age experimenting with dressing as girls. None of his friends seemed to find this strange, but he was also aware that these fledgling ladyboys were causing considerable upset to the conservative adults of the community.
It was understandable that their families were upset, he explained, but also he could see that their rebellion – for that is partly what it was – was upsetting the established order.
“There was a lot of tolerance for them, but at the same time people were angry at them because they were rejecting their community standards. They were upsetting everything. But this only drove them on to be even more flamboyant and outrageous.”
The girls were also upset, he said. The young ladyboys found regular companionship with older boys and with men, even married men. They always seemed to have money, because their men friends gave them gifts. Nobody expected a ladyboy to work in the fields or the factories. Not the attractive ones, anyway.
What made them experiment in the first place, I asked him.
“Some were naturally effeminate. Some did it simply because their friends did it. Some did it because it meant belonging to an exclusive group. Some identified closely with their mothers, because their fathers were drunk or violent, or both. Some saw a theatrical career ahead of them.
“You must remember that we Thais do not condemn people for their sexuality,” he said. “We also do not think it strange that someone prefers to dress as a girl, and to behave like a girl. There is no shame for a man to have a relationship with a ladyboy.”
He added that an attractive ladyboy can always find men who will support her. If she stays in her home village or town, she will be taken care of and probably be able to save enough money to open a small business – maybe just a food stall, or a stall in the market selling flowers or clothes. But enough to get out of the dreadful dead-end of labouring jobs.
Had he ever had any desire to become a ladyboy himself? No, he said, although he had joined in sessions with ladyboys, putting on makeup and even dressing up. “They were fun times, but I just didn’t feel I could go that extra step and become a ladyboy,” he said. “I am a man. I have a cock. I look like a man.”
Being gay seems to have released his creative abilities. He enjoys doing makeup, and has an ambition to study interior design or landscape design. “I understand ladyboys,” he told me. “I understand gays. I understand straight guys. From where I am, I think I have a pretty good understanding of people.”
Posted: February 11th, 2014 under General.
Tags: The ladyboy experience
Comments: 1