Introduction
Western cultures do not really allow for the notion of a third sex. We are male or female. Even if our inclinations lead us towards being gay, we are still essentially man or woman. There are those members of our society who feel they have been born into the wrong sex, but they are a tiny minority. They have not chosen their dilemma, it has chosen them.
Seldom in the West do you find individuals who have chosen to look, think and behave in the manner of the opposite sex. There are effeminate men and butch women, but they are obviously what they appear to be. You do not easily find a complete and convincing transition.
Yet if you visit certain cultures within Asia, and in South America, you will find males who have decided to adopt a female lifestyle, and they have done so with such conviction that in many instances they are indistinguishable from genetic girls. Further, their allure goes beyond the feminine because somehow our own instincts detect a deeper sexual resonance, a yearning on our own part for the forbidden.
So odd is this notion that in English we don’t really have a word for this form of sexuality. “Transsexual” comes closest, but it is somewhat clumsy and it lacks the necessary femininity. In Thailand, where the third sex has been elevated to an art form and where individuals choosing that lifestyle are in general accepted in society, the expression is “sau prapet song”; meaning second type of woman. It sounds awkward in English, but in Thai has a gentle sexual quality, the word sau coming close to our word “nubile.” Another word that has been gaining currency in recent years amongst Thais and Westerners alike is “ladyboy” and this again carries an erotic charge.
For those who have not been to Thailand, the sight of their first ladyboy can be astonishing. I can remember the first occasion for myself, and how I felt the kind of breathlessness that I had not felt since early adolescence, and discovering girls for the first time. Not only was the first ladyboy I saw a person of great beauty, but there was a mystery about her, an eroticism that stemmed from the unknown.
I have lived amongst Thailand’s ladyboys for many years now, and began photographing them some while back. In the gallery you will find a collection of those I consider to be beautiful.