I think my wife is becoming worried about my sexuality of late. No I
haven’t got a new friend called Guy and started singing ‘I am what I am!’ But I
am fascinated by a programme called ‘Ladyboys’.
If you are not aware just what a ‘ladyboy’ is, well it’s what it says on
the can; it’s a boy who dresses and acts as a woman. I’m not talking Lily Savage
diva type here, I’m talking about young men who have been taking the
contraceptive pill before they reached puberty. This boost of female hormones
makes their bodies develop as female; well female with extras!
Some do look very feminine, and if you were to see a photo of them you
could easily be fooled into thinking they were just regular women. But as soon
as you see them on film, you can tell they are ‘ladyboys‘. This is what is
fascinating me, why can’t they blend in as female. They have the figure and
face of a woman. Some have lived their whole lives as a female, but, for me, they
don’t pass.
The other weird thing is the girls/boys on the programme have British
boyfriends, who claim they are not gay! Sorry lads but if your girlfriend has a
penis then you should be thinking long and hard about your sexuality! (No pun
intended). The boyfriends themselves seem more than a little odd, with a hint of
creepy.
I’m a great believer in people living whatever life they choose, as long
as no one gets hurt. And I do hope these people are very happy together, but
the whole subject has turned me into a Jeremy-Kyle-type spectator, wanting to
know the whole nitty gritty, then hardly daring to watch, as it gives me the
creeps.
What is up with me? They are just two people who have chosen a lifestyle, so what?
I think it’s because I see it as self-loathing and self-mutilation,
because I don’t think most of them are transgender. I think it’s a very seedy
industry that has grown in Thailand over the last thirty years.
"Ban-cock" [see what I did there?] is famous for its clubs and prostitution, and the ladyboy scene
seems to be just another aspect of this. The poverty in rural Thailand is never seen by the tourist industry, but
the poverty is what feeds it. People with no hope willing to do anything to
survive.
I used to be a kickboxer and many years ago I sparred against a couple
of Thai boxers, these men were small and slight and probably the toughest men I’ve
ever encountered. They trained day and night. They fought against drunken
tourists in tournaments that were set up for a small amount of money. The men
they fought were often up to ten stones heavier than themselves, but the Thais
always won. If they lost, they didn’t get paid.
These fighters were very gentle outside of the ring and gave me a brief
insight into the seedy world that they inhabited. One of them shocked me by
telling me that he had thought about becoming a ladyboy at one stage, but
changed his mind when he got a local girl pregnant! I know, it’s hard to get
your head round it all!
He was hoping to earn enough money to one day open his own bar, which
seems to be the dream of most people in the ‘industry’ in Thailand.
He told me that quite a lot of the ladyboys are not even gay! Surely
this can’t be true? If it is, then it
makes then industry even seedier than it already is. These people usually end
up with incurable sexual diseases and drink and drug problems but it doesn’t
matter as there is a stream of others quite willing to take their places in the
grubby little bars.
Maybe me watching this Barnum-esk type piece of titillation (no pun
intended) is just as macabre as the sex tourists that spend a small fortune to
go and pretend they are not gay while having sex with men dressed as women?
It’s a strange old world, isn’t it?
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