3. You also present Lek, who is at the center of a subculture literally defined by sexuality, as asexual (Sonchai even tells Kimberley so [152]), despite several other katoeys in the cast who are clearly anything but. Why?

Once again, I cannot agree that he’s asexual. He doesn’t have sex, but he talks about it a lot, and associates with other katoeys who talk about it all the time. Sonchai points this out somewhere: it is a well known characteristic of many katoeys that they talk dirty whenever they get the chance, but can be quite prudish when it comes to the act itself. Also, in the literature on transsexuals generally, there are some references to the fact that true transsexuals normally feel that they belong in a different body long before puberty and when they have successfully had the operation they tend to live quiet, often chaste, lives. Where their survival depends on participation in the sex trade, however, as is often the case in Thailand, then they are more or less compelled to talk dirty. An interesting take on this occurred after I wrote the book and took a trip to a very remote part of Isaan which is almost as pagan as it is Buddhist. There I found it a pastime amongst respectable women, who were scrupulously faithful to their husbands and dedicated mothers, to talk dirty – and I mean filthy – to each other all the time “just to keep from being bored.”

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