Who really understands ladyboys? They are everywhere in Thailand and seem to be multiplying in Bangkok. They are perceived at best as a freak show and at worst as dangerous thieves. But what really lies behind the outrageous exhibitionism of Thailand’s third gender?
I had the chance to dig a little deeper when I was asked by Sukhumvit Eye, a new monthly magazine, to interview a ladyboy for a feature article. Perhaps because of the misgivings many farangs have about katoeys, I could not find a friend to accompany me on my mission as I headed to Guess Bar, the ladyboy beer bar that relocated recently to Sukhumvit Soi 4, near the Raja Hotel, following the demise of Sukhumvit 1 Plaza where it was previously housed.
It was relatively painless. Guess Bar has a good atmosphere and decent music. A few farangs were playing pool. The ladyboys were flouncing around and having fun. Some were dancing energetically. It didn’t have the oppressive vibe of a Nana Plaza ladyboy gogo bar I had visited. In fact, I must have been seated at the bar for all of 10 seconds before Bang came up and grabbed my wedding tackle.
“I like you,” she lied unconvincingly while tossing back her hair in the way that ladyboys do when they are not touching their hair. I came straight to the point and told her I was looking for a ladyboy who would agree to be interviewed and photographed. “I will do it,” she said without hesitation. “Buy me a drink.”
The interview began at the bar but I was constantly interrupted by the groping hands and suggestive poses of Bang’s far-from-shy colleagues. Life can be difficult as a sex object. We decided it would be best to go outside.
Bang gave me a summary of her life. She is 22 and from Kalasin in Isaan and has been living in Bangkok for seven years. She has one brother and two sisters. Her first job was with a company that made wedding costumes. Three years ago, she moved into the nightlife industry by working at two ladyboy venues, Cascade in Nana Plaza and King’s Castle 3 in Patpong, before switching to Guess.
“I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a lady. I was probably only five or six when I started wearing girls’ clothes. My family understood and there were never any problems with them about it. I have always liked sexy men and I had one or two boyfriends in Kalasin,” she explained.
“When I first went with a customer, I could not speak English very well. I was shy and did not really know what to do. He asked me to give him a blow-job. It was OK. I soon learned what customers like. I have never had a problem with a customer. They have all been fine and treated me well.
“Four years ago, I had a breast implant that cost 40,000 baht. I also spent 25,000 baht to have surgery on my hips. At one time I wanted to have a pussy, but not now. I am happy with what I have. I don’t think I will change. A few years ago, most ladyboys wanted to have a pussy, but things have changed. Most farangs don’t mind if we don’t have a pussy. It is not something we worry about.
“Thailand is a very open society. I think that is why there are so many ladyboys. People want to know everything about us and what we do. Many ladyboys are considered to be very beautiful and we also have a reputation for being very good at applying make-up. We take good care of ourselves.”
Having revealed that she was of the pre-op variety, Bang emphasised the point by lifting her skirt and presenting a sight that will haunt me to my grave – black lace panties trying manfully, but failing, to accommodate meat and two veg. Let’s just say that there was a bad case of gusset bulge and the veg were protruding from the lingerie. “Everyone in here has a cock,” she said matter-of-factly as she pointed at about 20 of her colleagues dotted around Guess Bar.
Bang has an Austrian boyfriend who sometimes sends her up to 45,000 baht a month. He travels a lot in his business and visits Bangkok at least three times a year, but Bang accepts that they have no future together. She is looking for more than money.
“He is very generous and has bought me lots of clothes and other presents, all brand names. He is crazy about talking on the phone. When he comes to Thailand, he takes me to a very nice hotel and to dinner. He is about 25 years older than me. I know he is a butterfly and goes with many ladyboys. I don’t love him and I have decided to finish with him. I don’t care about him; I care about my life and my family. I send as much money to my family every month as I can afford.
“I am happy with myself. I am happy with my life. As for the future, I would like to live with a farang. I enjoy working in Guess Bar. I have good friends here. We all get along very well. I share a room with one of my friends from the bar and I don’t have any friends who are not ladyboys. I don’t care about girls in other bars or what they think. I am easy and want everything to be easy.”
Bang’s ambitions seem remarkably similar to those of those of the bargirls working in Bangkok’s conventional venues: sending money to their families, hoping a farang will come along to provide financial security and enjoying life with the support group of their bar colleagues.
Despite Thailand’s reputation for tolerance, ladyboys still inspire fear and loathing from some parts of the farang community. Without a market for their services, there would not be so many working in nightlife areas (there are four ladyboy bars in Nana Plaza alone), but katoey still operate on the fringes. Even those men who enjoy their company tend to more discreet than regular punters. So who are their customers?
“Many customers are married men,” said Bang. “They are not gay but just want to try something different. If they go with a lady, they can usually just have sex in the pussy or a blow-job. If they go with a ladyboy, they can do more things. They can fuck me in the ass, but some like me to fuck them in the ass and others like to give me a blow-job. I like it when farangs give me a blow-job. I like to have an orgasm. Every time it is easy for me.
“Most men find that getting a blow-job from a ladyboy is a better experience than a blow-job from a lady. It is a different feeling. Ladyboys can do everything. Many men find the sex better than they are used to with a lady. Some are scared that people will think they are gay, but they are not really gay.
“I am not a lucky girl. I am a bad girl who has to work. But I am happy and try to make my customers happy. If I could be born again, I would like to be born as a girl, not a boy. Every ladyboy would tell you the same.”
Sukhumvit Eye is a monthly magazine aimed at expats.
For more information go to www.sukhumviteye.com.
The edition in which this article appears is on sale at RX Pharmacy (near Nana post office), Rattanasan Pharmacy (Sukhumvit Soi 23), Banthad Book Shop (Ekkamai in Big C entrance hall), Jr Pharmacy (opposite Nana Plaza), Akane Pharmacy (between Sukhumvit Soi 13-15), 9 convenience store (Sukhumvit Soi 15) and Promsuk (Sukhumvit Soi 22).
“Some are scared that people will think they are gay, but they are not really gay” - PHEW!
View all comments by Penfold
just a bit happy….
View all comments by doctorbond
Oh, that’s okay as long as they’re not gay.
View all comments by werewolf
“Bomb” looks truly terrifying. A good read though.
And apropos of nothing, the “Recent Comments” sidebar makes for startling reading:
Sorry dude. Made me laugh
View all comments by TAFKABBB
is not gay, unless you make eye contact or go for the reach around.
interesting read though
View all comments by Omoroi Koto
Id like to make 1 thing clear…
I have never…… EVER fiddled with an LB - Keep that shit in the circus!!!
Have to agree with TAFKNABBB - She has a face/nose like a lowsy boxer
View all comments by Penfold
Scratch a subscription to “Sukhumvit Eye” off my Christmas stocking wish list, ok?
I’ll stick with Sports Illustrated and the free talking, mounted fish that comes with it.
View all comments by Mr. Kotter
Interesting to hear what what they think - now I don’t have to bother talking to one. The graphic description of their sex life almost made me puke though.
View all comments by mrpc12
Normally they are only annoying because of the fact that when you are on the look out for women, one of these LBs is bound to attract your eye at some stage and you will think for a second or two that it is a sexy woman only to be let down when you realise that is is not.
There are ladyboys in all of the main P4P areas in BKK and they normally they take no for an answer. However, I have found in Patpong there are some LBs who latch on to you and just will not leave you alone – especially if you initially approach them thinking that they were a woman.
If you have something that is half man and half woman then you could get the worst of both worlds – testosterone aggression and PMT mood swings.
View all comments by Mike Phillips
On Nutter: You interviewed a Nana LB.
He gave you grit he thought you wanted to hear.
Does that come as a surprise?
I believe nothing that he said.
View all comments by Prufrock
I would suggest two things:
1. Ladyboys have the capacity to be annoying anywhere, and under any circumstance. As a single example, I live on Soi 22 and have to pass the Angel Bar — a small bar open to the street near the corner of Sukhumvit & Soi 22 — at least twice daily. The bar is full of ladyboys. When I first moved to the soi a year and a half ago, they accosted me every time I passed the bar, until I had glowered and growled enough that they stopped touching me or even talking to me. Occasionally a new one arrives at the bar and accosts me on my first trip past the bar. As a group they have now been trained to leave me alone, but they constantly grab and drag at poor innocent men who simply want to walk down the soi past the bar. The list of annoying behaviour, of course, is much longer and broader than this one simple example.
2. I don’t think that I’ve had my eye wander in lust to a ladyboy in more than 2 years. They rarely resemble women; or at least they rarely resemble Thai women, and especially the petite, delicate beauties that I tend to be attracted to. They may resemble Las Vegas showgirls who share their propensity for over-inflated breasts and too much makeup, but kratoeys tend to look large and oafish compared to the typically small Thai girls that grace the sidewalks and bar stools of Bangkok.
I can say with certainty that Bang wouldn’t elicit a second glance from me.
View all comments by werewolf
I think the guy who did the interview should have chosen a non bargirl ladyboy as the subject.
Apart from the difference in sexual activities there is really no difference in thought to a bar girl anywhere else in Nana.
I don’t know what the ‘oppresive vibe’ claim meant either.
If one of the ladyboy bars is oppresive then all the bars in Nana must be (ladyboys or not).
And some of the ladyboy bars have petite looking ones that look nothing like a bloke werewolf.
Not that I think you’ll be checking out.
Thanks for the heads up regarding Angel bar on soi 22.
I will check it out.
Cheers.
View all comments by Jimmy Cricket
The good thing about ladyboys is that they are tall and have solid tits from the silicone.
Perfect height for doing a line of Charlie in each nostril.
View all comments by MSB
I did a book of portraits of the Katoeys from Nana Plaza.
You can check the book preview at
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/33053
They can be fun in their own katoey way.
View all comments by arttv
The Mamasan/Papasan at Honey Bar on soi 22 is a horrific looking thing
Think of Steve Bruce in a skirt and your only half way there
Steve Bruce:
http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/m2/mar2006/5/2/0001A9CE-FFA8-1420-B9FF0C01AC1BF814.jpg
I agree with cricket, perhaps finding one of the many LBs that work in the hair salons and clothes shops of BKK would make for a more intruiging read. Im sure a ferang masquerading as an LB would of given an identical story. I have found that the LBs i’ve encountered out of the nightlife, have all been really touchy and defensive on the subject
View all comments by Penfold
p - I wait with baited breath for your reader submission…
View all comments by smitty
in any blog there is always a ’surprising’ number of replies to any articles about layboys?
View all comments by dk
Wanker, halfwit, dick, lazy sensationalist crap, quasi-journalist, fuck-head, half-rate article by half-rate journalist…I am just coming off the ropes after reading the comments on the ladyboy forum at:
http://theladyboyforums.com/cgi-bin/board/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=1;t=16199
I am really shocked by the anger of some of the posters. Let me make a few points in response.
1. I am not anti-ladyboy. In general, I find ladyboys to be interesting and amusing company. But many farangs are openly hostile towards them, for whatever reasons. That was what I was attempting to say in the opening paragraph. Perhaps it would have been better if I had written: “They are perceived BY MANY FARANGS as at best a freak show and at worse dangerous thieves.” As it is, the sentence could be interpreted as saying that everyone has a negative view of ladyboys.
2. Why didn’t I interview an office worker? I doubt if one would have spoken to me and, in any case, working in an office isn’t very interesting. Sex workers have interesting lives and make interesting subjects.
3. The article is simply an interview with one person. It is not an academic thesis and I am not making any claims that the subject is representative of the ladyboy community at large. It is an attempt to give one ladyboy sex worker a voice. Their voices are rarely heard.
4. I found Bang to be an interesting person and thought she spoke intelligently about many issues: the lack of prejudice she has faced in Thai society, her family, the change in her attitude towards having a sex change, her boyfriend, her aspirations and the reasons why customers choose ladyboys.
5. Overall, I do not think my article presents ladyboys in a negative light. Obviously some of the theladyboysforum.com posters would disagree strongly with that assertion. I would ask them to consider submitting an article to this site giving their opinions on what is a fascinating but very divisive subject.
View all comments by On Nutter
o - I totally agree with u. I wanted to highlight the forums because my belief is that there overzealous attitude about it all contributes further to the negative views of LBs and the guys who like LBs. They seem to assume that we should understand how they feel and that we should all share their same views. So when we try as novices to understand it we get shot down for trying. I would have done exactly what u did. I think your article was not negative at all.
We shall see if anyone of them can manage to write a retort or just complain about it all.
View all comments by smitty
here is one for u on nutter:
http://friskodude.blogspot.com/2008/02/thailand-interview-with-thai-ladyboy.html
View all comments by smitty
4 go go s in Nana are ladyboy bars
Guess bar is a roaring success.(although better in the old location imo)
these facts show that many men want sex with ladyboys - not a small minority.
Me - i have tried it many times. On balance I prefer GG’s for the actual sex but lbs always turn me on more before hand in the foreplay(maybe even now its the anticipation of the unknown.) - so I mix it up. Even have had sex with a ladyboy in the same bed as an English hooker a couple of times. She loved it!
As for always being able to tell - NO. Not true. I have picked up what I thought was a GG on 3 occasions (none in BKK mind) and got a surprise when the knickers came down. I coped!
View all comments by Koln
I had a browse through the ladyboy forum which i actually like, but the hostility and reaction is more dramatic and camp then a ladyboy from mambos cabaret
Although what On Nutter wrote wasnt what you’d call ground-breaking, he can only replay what the LB said, and as On Nutter said the LBS in the sex trade have a far more intersting life then say an LB who works 9-5 and is tucked in bed by 10pm every night
I would of taken some of there comments more seriously until browsing through the ‘trip reports’ some of them were posting pics of themselves on all 4s having there dinner pushed up by LBs - keeo that shit in the circus
View all comments by Young Penfold
I love ladyboy bars…..How many people back home can start a story with” So me and a buddy are at this bar full of trannys`
God bless them all!
View all comments by yesman
Granted On Nutters piece wasnt what you could call groundbreaking……… what the fuck do they expect from an interview with a bar-whore? them quoting shakespear?
I agree with On Nutter that the whores have far more varied and interesting stories then the non p4p LBs, but is he’d of interviewed a ’straight-laced’ ladyboy she’d of reported she works 9-5 and is tucked up by 11pm everynight?? that would of been a rivetting read wouldnt it?
After trawling through the ladyboy forum, the validity of his critisism were shot to shit when i stumbled on the ‘trip report’ section………. seeing the same 50year old somethings that were tearing strips off him posting pix of themselves grabbing their skinny white ankles and having their dinner pushed up really threw there judgemwnt into question
View all comments by Young Penfold
ladyboys are a huge fascination indeed. what I don’t understand is people in the forum flaming the blog and the messenger for someone like on nutter writing up a personal interview that was in no way negative to the LB or LB customers. It was just a simple interview and very interesting for people who have no idea about the scene. I think they could have tried harder to see it for what it was and offer some constructive responses or even offer up a better view - if there is one according to them.
They way they respond makes the group look like the strange fanatical faction that it is furthering a stigma that probably would not exist otherwise.
View all comments by smitty
I found the article to be well written and a good introduction to the general conditions a LB in the P4P industry faces. I was impressed with her communication skills. Like most things we are unfamiliar with we tend to fear, mock, belittle, trivialize them in an effort to deal with our fear and ignorance. On Nutter did none of these things, other than a dig or two, and presented Bang’s story as it is, in her own words.
I wouldn’t worry too much about those Asian TS Forum contributors; they all pretty much drink the same Kool-Aid and follow their revered leaders’ in their own little Jonestown. (following on smitty’s thoughts)
There are between 85,000 and 300,000 LB’s in Thailand. (I’ve seen the 85,000 figure in a government publication, and think that might have come from military exemptions, one official source. The 300,000 figure was mentioned as a quote, perhaps from someone who knows nothing, in an article in The Nation ~ 1 year ago.) Only a tiny percentage work in the P4P industry, maybe 2.5% at most? Additionally there is a whole rainbow of gender/sexual indentity/preferences blurring which makes it difficult to fit every person into one of two or three compartments. Just one example: in my neighborhood there is a 40 YO man who everyone, including ‘her’-self, refers to as a ladyboy. He looks like a regular Thai man to me.
If you speak with Matayom 1 - 6 (age 12 - 18) teachers in government schools you often hear figures of two or three LB’s in a male class of 35 ~ 40, and there are plenty of role models in the entertainment (music, TV, movies) industry, so it figures that the numbers of LB’s are increasing.
Re: Thailand’s tolerance for LB’s, understand that there is a huge difference between tolerance and acceptance. Most families come to accept a family member who is a LB, which only illustrates the importance of the family here, but not all. Thai-Chinese families tend to be the least accepting.
Lastly, there are a boatload of post-Ops working at the non-LB bars in NEP, and at King’s Corner in Patpong, and a couple of tuk-tuks full in Cowboy. These gals seem to be star performers, many times leading the bar in monthly BF’s. Many/most(?) customers do not know the true gender of the person they just had sex with. Pre-Ops also have a host of tricks to fool unwitting customers.
I’m not familiar with the publication, or the editorial/publishing goals, but follow-up interviews with Post-Ops, and LB’s working outside the P4P industry might be appropriate?
View all comments by Mark
Here’s an academic site on ‘transgenders’:
http://web.hku.hk/~sjwinter/TransgenderASIA/index.htm
Scroll to the bottom and there are interviews with LBs not in the bar scene.
View all comments by Jimmy Cricket
Has anyone ever tried to figure out the reasons why we see an upserge in LB behaviour?
Could it be that girls get the money for spreading their legs to farangs while the boys can go and whistle. How does a young Thai boy from a poor area see his way to financial security from the male viewpoint, working all his life on a farm with chickens as his only company and future?
I feel sure the sex industry is a more exciting and rewarding occupation.
This “third sex” argument can be substituted with green eyed sexual jealousy coupled with a duplicitous need for foreign money.
View all comments by R. J.
rj - a long time(30+ years) bkk expat reckons that the surge in LBs began when the CP group started using hormones in the chicken. There u go…
View all comments by smitty
Smitty,
Respect, we know common people , however your answer is merely conspiracy theory. I believe in basic need and the dynamics that follows.
View all comments by R. J.
I knew an extremely well off LB who turned to the life of a katoey from the age of around 4-5 as she grew up on a farm with 4 sisters and no brothers. She said she felt left out and isolated as she couldnt ‘play’ then she let her teenage sisters dress her up and do make-up on her, and it spiralled from there.
I doubt this is the case of every LB, but one of the instances i came across (not literally)
View all comments by Young Penfold
Amazing how much has changed in so little time!
View all comments by nurseRon