Reflections on the Third Sex
3 katoys up close
© Nightlife -  Travelers' Net

Tui, Tim and Toy are impersonation dancers. All three were born as boys. Yet all three to different degrees look and live like ladies.

Tui the Lady

is seated in front of the mirror in the make-up room adjacent to the big stage, she is the perfect reflection of female sexiness. Long, rich, dark hair flows in cascades down her back, and points curly fingers towards the curvaceous and firm buttocks. Big, brown eyes look at you with an open glance - that's a questionmark.

You figure out the question yourself. Your desire will prompt you. As Tui lifts her arms and tussles her hair-cascades, the breasts lift and stretch, flattening the adorable cleavage. Her soft, clean-shaven armpits open like white flowers waiting to be kissed by the sun.

Does it hurt?
-When I was a boy... she says in a deep, husky voice, I always wanted to be a woman. I felt like a girl imprisoned in a man's body. 
Impossible to think of this lady as ever having had a boy's body! Impossible not to be captivated by the feminine aura that this "ladyman" radiates.

-So I worked hard in order to earn money for the operations. I saved as much as I could, but I didn't seem to get anywhere near the necessary amount. Then I met a rich farang, who fell in love with me and agreed to pay 100.000 baht. 30.000 for the bosom and 70.000 for the sex-change. I had all operations done at the same time.

Tui fondles her own breasts absentmindedly, as if they belonged to another woman. Has she ever fondled girls' breasts, when she was still a man?
-No, of course not! I go with men, not with women!

Tui has never been interested in girls. In this respect her story is basically the same as most of Thailand's katoys´. From the first stirrings of sexual love, their desire directs itself toward people of the same sex, but not as man to man. It is a heterogeneous love, and so they feel the need for a female body with female characteristics.

This leads katoys to rather drastic ways of alterations of the body. Medicaments and hormones are the first step. The surgeon's scalpel is the next. People always ask me, if it hurt, Tui smiles. Of course it hurt! But I didn't mind one bit, because I felt I had finally been given the body that should have been mine from the beginning!

Not surprisingly, Tui loves to show off her new body. And although she could make much more money in the streets, Tui has taken a dancing job   which only gives her 5.000 baht a month. But that's okay, she says, I have a boyfriend in Denmark, who takes care of me.

A rather obvious question seems to take Tui aback: Does she ever feel like having sex any more, now that she has neither male nor female gonads?
-Well... no, not very often, no. But when I fall in love with somebody, I do enjoy sex!

A ladyman´s life in beauty is relatively short. Who knows, when implanted body-parts start to sag or even brake up. Nobody knows, how many repair operations life has in stock for young Tui. Does Tui ever think of the future?
-No!!

The short answer needs no explanation. Farangs are very future-conscious. Even to a point that makes them unable to enjoy the present. But Thai people are not like that. The "now" for them is omnipresent and solely important. And actually there is no "now", unless there also is "sanuk" (fun). Who cares what happens next?

For a katoy the future does not exist as a causal link in a temporary chain of causal events. The future is a distant haze, not to be worried about. Like the weather, it will come to you, whether you want it or not. A German saying goes: "He who worries about the things to come, goes through the ordeal twice".

Remember the song "Don't worry, be happy"? That tune could be Tui´s theme song. She is happy with her present beauty. The mirror shows her the real self as an object of desire, come true: A magnificent woman with the body and face to prove it. No man could possibly reject her on sexual grounds. Nothing else matters...

Tim the Transvestite

Tim is a show dancer. She began her career 17 years ago, when she was 20 years old. She has stayed with the show ever since. At the time of this article, she plays "Pao Bun Jin", the judge and main character of a Chinese TV series with the same name. As the first notes of the immensely popular titel-song - surprisingly called "Pao Bun Jin" - call out from the speakers, she majestically strides on stage, escorted by soldiers in colorful uniforms.

So here is a man with a bosom, who is performing as a woman on the stage and in "real life", impersonating a man. Confused...?

Yes. Peering into this black face with a mock beard, one feels confused. What does Tim feel herself? First of all, Tim considers herself female. She is happy with her breasts, these trademarks of womanhood. So basically she feels, well... good. At first the breasts felt kind of odd, she says.

They were something, which did not belong at first. They were made out of a fabric alien to my body. My chest hurt, the skin was tense from the implants. But after a while the pressure stopped and now they feel all right.

Does Tim have a boyfriend?
-No, she says flatly. My boyfriend died from AIDs several years ago and I have stayed alone since then. I feel comfortable this way.

Tim plans to showdance as long as she can. And that might just be for a long time to come. But when retiring day draws close, she will go back to stay with her family in Sukothai, the ancient capital of Thailand.

Toy the Homosexual

On stage, Toy makes a grand impression. With the blue dress and a huge blonde wig Toy dominates the stage from the moment he steps down the silver stairs from a flashing dais. Down to the rather bantam male dancers, who hop and turn to the familiar tune.

"...you're still growing, you're still going strong..." they mime. Spectators thoughts exactly. The giant hairdo exaggerates the character and gives the svelte figure of "Hello Dolly" similarities with rather buxom Dolly Parton. Which lends the rendition of the piece quite a little twist. Makes you wonder who's genius has come up with this dual ambiguity. (Or is it just that the Thai choreographs thought this WAS a Dolly Parton song?)

When "Satchelmouth" Louis Armstrong finally enters the scene in the flesh of a lean, pocket-sized Thaiboy and lets out his famed scat-growl, one has to surrender to the hilarity of the scene. Huge, golden "Dolly" with her pearly voice and skimpy, little Satchmo" with his throaty roar in one of the greatest duets of all times.

Backstage without the wig and the costume Toy doesn't look like Dolly at all. Her hair is short and black, her eyes are dark and her figure not very female, let alone sexy. As for Dolly Partons celebrated characteristics… Toy has nothing to show except two minor protrusions.

-Alas, I have not been given the benefits of beauty, Toy sighs. Men don't fall for me as easily as for the other, more beautiful katoys. So therefore I must stay alone...What about his body, are all the parts natural, or has there been alterations? I have had nothing done, Toy says. I just eat female hormone pills and they endow me with a little breast.
Is Toy a boy or a girl?
- I am a homosexual, he says.

Toy is 36 years old and has performed as a showdancer for 16 years. After graduation from High School in Bangkok Toy did drag shows in Bangkok, but traveled a lot in order to make a living. In the beginning he was doing impersonations of Diana Ross.

-I have been staying alone for 15 years, Toy says ruefully. But I do have a friend now and then. Only boys, of course. And only Thais. In that respect I am a little different from the others.

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