So I was shooting the breeze with this ladyboy I met at a bar in the beach resort town of Pattaya, Thailand, while on shore leave.
I will admit that I didn’t know “she” was a “he” when I first saw her – I mean “him”. Not that I was inclined to re-enact the love story from The Crying Game. (M Butterfly, maybe.)
Around 20 years old with a fair complexion and wearing a T-shirt, denim skirt and minimal make-up, he looked like the sweet girl-next-door type.
Except that he was working at a bar, which wasn’t very sweet. And he wasn’t a girl, next door or otherwise.
He even showed me old photos of himself as a skinny Thai schoolboy – in uniform and everything – before he decided he wanted to be pretty.
He was on hormone replacement therapy, but hadn’t gone for the, uh ... final cut yet, so to speak.
I jokingly asked if he was going to get really big breasts. To my surprise, he said he wasn’t getting any breast implants at all.
“Why?” I asked, confounded by his rejection of my favourite female erogenous zone.
“What’s the point of becoming a women if you don’t get breasts?” I argued. “They’re the best part! Look at the other ladyboys. They all have huge boobs.”
“That’s why I don’t want them,” he explained. “I don’t want to look like a ladyboy.”
Oh. That actually made sense.
How ironic, I mused, that the much sought-after twin props that make a woman a woman are also what make a man a ladyboy.
“But how are you going to attract men?” I asked. “We like big breasts.”
“Oh, I already have a boyfriend,” he said. “He’s an architect in Japan. He likes me the way I am.”
I was impressed. How many architects could there be on the planet Earth with a partiality for flat-chested pre-op transsexual prostitutes?
And my ladyboy acquaintance here managed to nab one of them.
It just goes to show that there’s someone for everyone in this world – even if you don’t have a couple of Dolly Partons on you.
And the place to find that someone is in Thailand.
Now isn’t that a lovely and reassuring thought for the day after Valentine’s?
- Published in The New Paper, 15 February 2009
hi,
would just like to say that your articles are really quite humourous and i look forward to reading them each week..keep up the good work!
:)
pris
