the third sex

A member emailed me during the week to say that he had recently been in Thailand and had his first experience with a ladyboy. That had led on to several more experiences during his visit, and now he was back home in the United States and missing ladyboys so much that he was going cold turkey.

He said that visiting the local mall had shocked him, because he suddenly realised how big, loud and unattractive the women were. No longer in any kind of relationship, he says he now has no enthusiasm at all for finding a local girl. At the same time, he had found the prospect of the local gay community repugnant to him. He simply was not interested in men.

He said that, at the age of 65, he no longer knows what to do. He has found a sexual fulfilment with ladyboys that he had not felt for many, many years. They had made him feel youthful again, they had reawakened instincts that he had almost forgotten he had. What on earth was he to do, he asked me. Should he move to Thailand full time?

This is a position in which many people find themselves. The sexual explosion that typifies an encounter with a ladyboy  has an intensity  that  takes us right  back to the times when sexual experience was new.  Consequently, it is addictive.

Then there is the beauty of the ladyboy. Small build, fine skin, polite manners, natural charm. There is the vulnerability, which arouses our protective instincts. And there is the fact that ladyboys will do all they can to please you, because they want to prove that they are better than genetic girls.

There is of course no easy answer. Yes, if you can afford to leave your own country and move here, go for it. Alternatively, spend several months here during the course of the year. Or even several weeks. It would be expensive, certainly, but it all depends on what you want to do with your life, and what your present circumstances are.

I tell you: if Thailand was to suddenly start exporting its ladyboys en masse, the women of the US and Europe would find themselves with a major problem.

An old friend of mine is in town right now. I caught up with him for a coffee at his hotel yesterday. This is a man who from youth has been one of the most prolific cocksmen I have known.  And as he travels frequently throughout North and South America, and in Europe and Asia, he gets the opportunity to do what he likes with as many women as he can handle.

He also likes ladyboys, and when we met up he had a confession. On the first night he arrived in town, he said, he had gone straight to a ladyboy bar, taken a ladyboy back to his hotel, and had, as he put it, “the most gorgeous sex with this most gorgeous ladyboy.”

The next night, he had decided on a genetic girl. He found a very attractive one, but although she was more than willing to go on as long as he liked, he said that he ploughed miserably through the business and then couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

“The fact is,” he told me, dropping his voice as the waitress bustled around with more coffee, “these days I would much rather have a ladyboy than a GG. Girls just don’t do it for me anymore. But a ladyboy…that’s the most erotic, mind-blowing sex. I can’t exist without them.”


He went on to tell me how on his visits to New York  he has seen the transsexual escort services  increase hugely in the number of  girls available, and in France too, where they appear even more popular than in New York. How in Argentina there are now transvestis brothels where you sit and a number of the girls line up for you to take your pick.

“The world is changing,” he said. “If I was a GG, I would be worried.”

One of my regular ladyboy friends has just moved down to Phuket. I’m going to miss her. I’ve known her for about four years, since she was 18, and I have genuine liking and respect for her. A few months ago, another regular moved back to her home province. Again, I really miss her. She was ways sweet company, always there for me.

The world of ladyboys does not stay still for long. I was musing over the early ones I knew when I first started taking photographs, which was about 10 years ago. They have all, with a couple of exceptions, vanished. Some have gone overseas, some back to their home towns, some have had the operation and moved into the mainstream, putting their ladyboy years behind them.

Even those from five years ago have largely moved on. When I look back to the early galleries on this site, I see them how they were in their late teens or early twenties. Not how they would look now.

I get the occasional emails from people overseas, saying they are looking for a ladyboy for a long-term relationship. I reply as gently as I can that that might seem a good idea, assuming you find someone you like, but that the gorgeous sexual being of age 18 years is not going to stay that way for long.


Without wishing to sound unkind, ladyboys do not age well. Many who have the operation do go on to be attractive and successful women. But she will not be the person that you first fell for. Once you have spent a number of years amongst ladyboys you begin to realise just how transient they are. It is very easy to fall for someone in a serious way. As indeed I have on a few occasions over the years. But you have to be prepared for disappointment and even heartbreak, because it is not going to last.

Best just enjoy the moment, and when the inevitable day arrives, wish her all the luck in the world and try not to regret too much. 

On Sunday morning I was walking outside the commercial complex in which I live, and the maintenance crew were busy hosing down the public areas and cleaning them with buffer machines. This is done every week, because the complex is well-managed, and the water and soap and the cheery bunch of cleaners, always ready with a smile, are all part of the pleasant weekend ambience of the place.

Looking over at the work gang, I saw a familiar figure. She looked up from her mop and smiled at me. A few years ago she had arrived at my apartment, taken down her pants, and showed me a whopping big dick. I had happily photographed it, and she had gone away again. But in leaving she had made enquiries with the management office about any job vacancies there might be in the building, and had been offered the job of cleaner.

This she has carried out ever since, and I find it heartening that she has shown such a sense of responsibility and kept the job, rather than succumbing to the kind of lethargy into which so many ladyboys sink.

It is all too easy, I’m afraid, for a ladyboy to think that because she is making easy money she can relax and simply rely on turning the next trick to keep the revenue coming in. I had better point out that I am talking about about a certain class of ladyboy: many of them are career minded, responsible people. But you do get a lot who will sell themselves as often as they can, become totally oriented to night-time working and consequently hopeless in the daylight hours, start taking drugs and gambling, and before very long find themselves in the kind of bind that they cannot escape. Reduced energy, no money, fading looks…it doesn’t take long.

So my young friend outside the building is to be respected. No doubt she has her own personal reasons for working in a lowly job such as a cleaner: poor education, impoverished background, the need to support siblings at school, and so on. But I admired her initiative when she first asked about the job, and got it, and I hope she is managing to save some money for herself.


I had to smile, though, when I thought what a contradiction this young upcountry girl represents. On the surface she is a diligent, hardworking, female cleaner. But that afternoon when she came upstairs to my apartment and pulled out an impressive cock, and then lay down on the sofa and wanked off while I stood over her with a camera, is really only the kind of bizarre double life that lovers of ladyboys can understand and appreciate.

I watched her now, as she returned to work, still glancing up at me through her eyelashes. Then she turned round, mop in hand, and presented me with a view of her tight little bottom: clad in overalls, admittedly, but cute for all that, and it brought back memories of how, on my sofa, she had knelt down and parted those tight little cheeks so that I could get a nice close-up of her crack.

I have no doubt that the women she works with know all about her, and her secret. I’ve no doubt too that they all know about me. Secrets cannot be kept it Thailand, and indeed they seem to fly telepathically. But do I care? No! Not me. I enjoy myself.

Musing about Thai names in the last blog entry, and the problems Thais have with the English language, brought me onto the related subject of communicating with ladyboys.

Although all Thai kids are taught English at school, few of them have the opportunity to use and improve on the language once they have left. Plus, of course, and I know this sounds patronising but it has to be said, the level of tuition is not necessarily that great. I once knew a Thai girl who had a qualification to teach English and she could not speak the language. She could read it and write it, but could not string a verbal sentence together.

Poor English language skills is one of the problems that holds Thais back when it comes to obtaining overseas work, even (or especially) the lower-level agency work that Filipinos more or less monopolise in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore and other prosperous parts of Asia.

This is also a problem you are going to encounter when exploring the ladyboy community.

A member of the site came to Bangkok recently, and contacted me to see if he could meet one of the models I had photographed. I knew that the girl in question was open to any offers that brought in revenue, so I gave him her number. The only problem was, she doesn’t speak a word of English. Not a word. He tried phoning her to suggest a get-together, and  in the end he gave up because of the language problem.

I can speak enough Thai to get me through most situations, although I have to admit I would find it difficult to sit and have an intelligent conversation in Thai (I find that hard enough in English!). So when I’m taking photographs the conversation is in Thai,  and I don’t always know if  the model can speak English or not. I do test them out before we begin, but as the response to “Do you speak English?” is inevitably an embarrassed “nit noi” (a little bit), I tend to let it rest at that and plough on in Thai.

In the bars, although the  girls in places like Obsession and KC3 do generally have some English basics, often picked up from customers,  it can still be difficult to make yourself understood.

I had to laugh the other evening. I was in Nana Plaza, standing at one of the outdoor bars with a ladyboy friend, who was on her way to start work. Her English is nil. We were talking in Thai, when at a distance she spotted a foreign man who she knew and who had clearly upset her at some recent point.

“Motherfucker” she said, very distinctly.

I creased up laughing. “That’s the only English word you know, and it’s a bad one!” I told her.

She saw the funny side of that, and went off to her bar with a huge smile on her face.