Ambisexuality

The Anatomy of Transerotic Desire

About the Author

Over the past 25 years, James has undertaken in-depth doctoral and post-doctoral study of trans women and their clients. He has worked with various gender organisations in the United States and Australia, and has immersed himself in the lives of the people who appear in this book. He has interviewed gender luminaries such as Carmen Rupe and Georgina Beyer and, equally, has interviewed many people who remain unknown. James has a deep interest in wanting a better world and this passion is expressed in different ways. After helping establish the ‘Deep and Meaningful Conversation Meetup Group’ in the United States to stimulate engagement on issues of social significance, he founded similar groups in Australia and New Zealand. James lives with his wife in New Zealand and the United States.

About the Book

Ambisexuals are men who are erotically attracted to ‘women with a penis’.

Michael simply smiled and said, “I've never been with a man. For me, a trans woman is a woman with masculine genitals, but she is still a woman. She looks like a woman and she acts like a woman.”

It's the 21^st century. Trans women sex workers go to great lengths to meet these needs.

Tens of thousands of men like Michael currently live around the world. You might think this is a modern development made possible by sex-change technology. But meticulous research reveals that this unrecognised sexual orientation has persisted across all major cultures throughout recorded history.

In spite of this, almost nothing is known about ambisexuality. What motivates their sexual orientation… and the trans women they are drawn to?

This book has fascinating anecdotal stories and hard data which leads to deep insights. It will make you re-evaluate what you think you know about human sexuality in an era of growing acceptance of gender diversity and sexual expression.

Dedication

To those who accept people who are different

How to access the Ambisexuality interviews

Interactive QR code tags

Some of the trans women and one ambisexual man participating in the research for this book agreed to be filmed. This lets you engage more directly with the book’s content. You can see this filmed material whenever you find one of these designs on a page:

These are QR code tags. Simply download a QR code reader onto any device such as a mobile phone or tablet which contains a camera. You can then hold the device in front of any of the nineteen QR code tags scattered throughout the book to access the filmed material.

Download your free QR code reader

1. Download any QR code reader by clicking on ‘Apps’, then clicking on ‘Play Store’ (for Android devices) or the ‘App Store’ (for Apple devices).

2. Type in ‘QR code reader’ in the search bar and search.

3. A number of QR code readers will appear. Some are free, but others are not. Choose one of the free readers.

4. Click on ‘Install’, then follow the prompts.

5. Once installed, a QR code reader icon should appear on your screen. It should be on your desktop or in your ‘Apps’.

Use your QR code reader

1. After downloading is complete, click on the QR code reader icon.

2. Hold your mobile device over one of the QR codes that appear in this book. Point your camera so that you clearly see the QR code on the screen of your device. When the device recognises the code, the reader will automatically identify a URL link to the interview, which can then be played.

Copyright Information

Copyright © James Watson (2019)

The right of James Watson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528910361 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528959568 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
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London
E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

So many people have contributed to the research, writing and completion of this book. To all those who have assisted in a myriad of ways – providing helpful information, revealing sensitive personal details, giving practical assistance, editing manuscripts, encouraging and mentoring me – I thank you. Without your support, this work would not have happened.

But there are two people who have encouraged and mentored me more than any others: Frank Lewins who, for 10 years, was my Masters and PhD supervisor and a very good friend; and my wife, Wendy, who took over this role. Thank you both for your warmth and thoughtful guidance.

If thinking never deviated from what is normal, nothing would ever change.

Table of Contents

• Introduction 1

• Part 1 - Origins 11

  1. Ancient Worlds 13

  2. Modern Worlds 31

• Part 2 - Women with a Penis 47

  3. Transitioning Rites 49

  4. Sex Working Rites 69

• Part 3 - Clients 109

  5. A Hidden Culture 111

  6. Erotic Desires 134

• Part 4 - Incarnations 147

  7. The Anatomy of Transerotic Desire 149

  8. Ambisexuality: An Unidentified Sexual Orientation 195

• Terms and Definitions 207

• Sexual Services 211

• Addendum 212

• Bibliography 213

• Index 225

Introduction

There are not four sexual orientations but five: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual and ambisexual. This is borne out by the evidence of history (all of these orientations have existed in some tangible form); the substantiation of the cross-cultural record (they are universal, not culturally specific) and the sheer number of people who express a particular romantic and sexual desire when they are not culturally repressed from doing so (representing a statistically significant population). There is, of course, a spectrum of gender identities, but sexual orientation is different. Where did the idea come from that ambisexuality – an unrecognised sexual orientation – exists among men attracted to ‘women with a penis’? Notions like this were the last things on my mind when I first started my sociological field work over twenty years ago.

The year was 1996 when I began conducting interviews in Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia, as a PhD student doing my initial research. I naïvely sought to engage with male-to-female (MTF) trans people to develop an understanding as to why people who were born as biological males wanted to live permanently as women. It became apparent that many trans people living there worked as sex workers and that nearly all of them chose not to have sex reassignment surgery – that is, there was little incentive or desire to have their penis removed surgically and replaced with a neo-vagina. These findings seemed to fly in the face of all that had been written about trans women at the time.

Back then, trans people were referred to as ‘transsexual’ or ‘transgender’; and were commonly defined as people who emotionally and psychologically felt they belonged to the opposite sex or gender. What was important was to do everything possible to change biological sex to be consistent with these feelings. The literature suggested that all trans women wanted – even demanded – sex reassignment surgery (SRS), so what I was being told was baffling. I asked the trans women I interviewed what motivated their decision to retain the penis. Was it the high cost of surgery? Was it the limitations of surgical outcomes? Most answered that it was not in their interest to have sex reassignment. When I asked what was meant by this, a typical response was: ‘Well, you have to cater for what the market wants, honey, and that's what men want!’ The happily married ‘heterosexual men’ who made up the vast majority of their clients were not looking for the sexual services of a female, but neither did they want intimacy with a male. These men were attracted to a different incarnation – a ‘woman with a penis’. I was so astonished by the responses I was getting that I discussed them with my PhD supervisor, Frank Lewins.

Frank's research had taken a different path. He had recently published a book on MTF trans women, but his work had focused on individuals who had sought SRS. As such, he had little familiarity with the trans women I was encountering. So I decided to investigate the matter further by searching out the published work of other social researchers. Although there were many studies of the trans community, most of the references to sex work were incidental. Researchers were more concerned with other issues such as gender discrimination and the range of transformative technologies that were available. There were also many autobiographies which recounted the stories of the enormous physical, social and emotional changes trans women endured when coming out. Typically, these narratives described their lives before, during and after transition, and reflected on aspects of the changes that had been experienced. A mere handful of studies referred to trans women sex work itself, and these were generally brief narratives that focused more on aspects such as the inherent dangers of working on the street or the HIV/AIDS risk and less on ‘the mechanics’ of what actually took place when sexual services were provided. Most intriguingly, there was silence about the all-important role of their clients.

With my PhD research proposal finalised, I set about conducting interviews. The prime focus at that time was on the lives of the trans women who offered sexual services. During this first period of research, I learnt a great deal about their backgrounds, their friends and family, their daily lives, their concerns about gender and, of course, their work in the sex industry. What was so striking was how different the trans women who performed sex work were from those who did not. These women inhabited very different worlds: they had distinct social networks, their attitudes about transitioning were not the same, and their lives revolved around their occupational employment. As my field work proceeded, I started to wonder about the involvement of the clients who drove this demand.

The year was 2001. The field work for my PhD on trans woman sex work had been completed, but in the process, I had become intensely curious about the lives of the clients who continued to lurk in the shadows. I could see that their role was pivotal, and I now wanted to understand what motivated their sexual desire for non-operative trans women. After all, it was their agency that sustained the lives and even the identity of the working trans women who had become so well known to me. I wondered, then, what an investigation of clients’ interest in with ‘women with a penis’ would reveal. From an historical perspective, how long had a sub-culture of men expressed this erotic attraction? And how prevalent was this form of sexual desire in other world cultures? Did some women as well as some men have a sexual interest in trans women? Most intriguingly, what motivated clients who quite patently understood the genital status of the trans women to pay for sexual services? Was this erotic interest a fetish or – as I was beginning to suspect from the sheer number of clients I knew to exist – an unrecognised sexual orientation?

After graduating, I vowed to find the answers to these questions. I understood the importance of the sex workers’ views on this, but I also recognised that the clients themselves were the only ones who could explain or in some sense rationalise their own erotic interest in trans women. The literature review revealed an understanding of the circumstances and motivations that lead sex workers to engage in sex work, but very few had sought to understand the motivations or circumstances of the clients. Trans woman sex work involves two parties – the client and the sex worker. Any research which restricts analysis to only one party will obviously produce a rather one-sided perspective if the whole phenomenon of trans woman sex work is to be understood. So my post-doctoral research focused specifically on the role of clients.

From 2002 to 2007, I conducted further field work gathering new data to make intelligible the motivations, behaviour and aspirations of the clients. This is something that was then and until now has remained missing in modern scholarship on trans woman sex worker-client relations.

I knew that access to clients would be challenging. Even though it was possible to gain the trust of working trans women, few wanted to risk scaring their clients away by mentioning their acquaintance with me and my research. Even when the subject was broached with clients, the likelihood of gaining their willing participation was remote. Fortunately however, there were some individuals who agreed to be interviewed.

It occurred to me that although some clients might find face-to-face interviews too confronting, they possibly would agree to complete a detailed questionnaire. This turned out to be a very effective way of acquiring research data which revealed important new information. In particular, it helped validate the conclusions reached in the second half of the book.

The client research involved nine face-to-face interviews supplemented by the 28 clients who completed the questionnaires, making a total of 37 responses. The trans woman sex worker research involved 27 face-to-face interviews and psychological personality profile questionnaires, supplemented by a further 10 stand-alone personality profile questionnaires, also making a total of 37 responses. To evaluate and contextualise these responses, these results were compared to the information obtained from face-to-face interviews with 17 non-sex working trans women, 13 male sex workers, 6 female sex workers and 8 other individuals: a trans woman escort agency owner, an hermaphrodite, two female-to-male (FTM) trans men, a safe house sitter, a store owner who had observed trans women soliciting for many years, a clinical psychologist who worked with trans woman sex workers and the mother of a 15 year old trans woman who had given her approval for her biological male son to undergo hormone therapy to become a woman.

The client interviews provided a fascinating insight into a facet of human sexuality I could hardly have imagined. As the anatomical description of a ‘woman with a penis’ was related over and over in a succession of interviews, I began to wonder if I had stumbled onto something that applied more widely than I originally thought.

The year was 2007. The task of writing this book was underway, and I once again reviewed the historical and cross-cultural research on feminised male sex work. I was no longer content with what I had previously uncovered in my PhD literature review. This time, I really trawled through the digital and print media and bit-by-bit, accumulated a significant body of evidence that confirmed what my field work had revealed. It soon became apparent that a persistent sexual desire for feminised males – ‘women with a penis’ – is threaded through human cultures. The results of this research are detailed in the first two chapters of this book. When these findings were combined with the results of the field work, no doubts remained about the existence of this previously unrecognised sexual orientation.

Clients were neither heterosexual nor homosexual. Instead, these men fantasised about and actively sought ‘women with a penis’. These men were, as will be seen, ambisexual. Given that there was no shortage of clients, the nagging question that remained in the back of my mind was: why hadn't this sexual interest in ‘women with a penis’ been uncovered before? It became evident that there were good reasons for this. The strong social pressure to conform to one of the four existing sexual orientations means that most people, including clients themselves, view their erotic preference for ‘women with a penis’ as decidedly transgressive. Despite the growing acceptance of gender diversity and toleration of relationships which vary from stereotypical norms, these men were uncomfortably aware that most people in the wider community – including their close friends and family – still viewed their involvement with trans women as ‘perverted’ and therefore unacceptable. To this day, clients are extremely secretive and guarded about their sexual preferences, and interviews with them are extraordinarily difficult to obtain. Their existence has largely passed ‘under the radar’, and even when their presence is acknowledged, these men are largely inaccessible to social researchers. For this reason, no significant research has been done with them and information about their motivations and sexual orientation is meagre, if not negligible.

It is now 2019. A great deal of time has elapsed since I began this journey and much has changed. Although technology, gender labelling and modes of soliciting have demonstrably altered, the phenomenon of ambisexuality has remained constant. When viewed through the prism of history and culture, there is every reason to be certain the phenomenon will continue.

Irrespective of whether one accepts the premise that a given sexual orientation is ‘natural’ or not, the fact is that there are many, many clients – literally thousands of men in most of the larger cities of the world – who consort with non-operative trans woman sex workers on a daily basis. Many of them can be accurately described as having an ambisexual orientation. These figures are derived from the number of classified advertisements listed on the internet and in newspapers and magazines. In San Francisco, for example, 46 non-operative trans woman sex workers (excluding transvestites and cross dressers) had advertisements on sf.backpage.com, 18 had advertisements on tran.eros.com and 24 on transx.com.sf.listcrawler.com, giving a total of 88 classifieds in December 2016. This did not include Craigslist or any other classified services. At the same time in Sydney, 74 trans woman sex workers (excluding transvestites and crossdressers) had advertisements on Locanto, a worldwide online classifieds network. Conservatively, if these trans woman sex workers attracted only one or two clients per day, it is not unreasonable to guess that at least 500 clients were being serviced each day, and around 2,500 clients were being serviced in each city each week. There are even more men who view photographs and videos or read erotic stories about non-operative trans women on the internet, on DVDs or in printed magazines.

What's in this book? Part 1 provides compelling historical and cross-cultural evidence for feminised male erotic desire and introduces the idea that attraction to the incarnation of a ‘woman with a penis’ might be the preferred sexual orientation of a small but significant number of men. What is most intriguing is the absolute persistence with which this pattern repeats itself across cultures and across time. Buoyed by consistent client demand, modern trans woman sex workers and their forebears appear to represent a universal social pattern that keeps appearing in the historical texts of all major cultures. Sometimes, the evidence for their existence is fragmentary, sometimes it is inferred, but mostly it is blatantly obvious. This extraordinary pattern of social and sexual behaviour is recorded in both the ancient and modern worlds which, for the purposes of this book, are divided into the periods before and after 1950.

Chapter 1 ‘Ancient Worlds’ corresponds to the period in history before trans technologies – such as the use of hormones, sex reassignment surgery and cosmetic surgery – became available around 1950. The chapter is structured to provide a vivid description of feminised males and their clients in a very broad range of historical cultural settings. It suggests that the concept of some male clients being erotically attracted to a ‘woman with a penis’ incarnation is universal in each of these cultures. The historical records suggest that the berdache in North America, young feminised male prostitutes in ancient Greece and Rome, the ginks in Egypt, the xanith in Oman, the shaman in Siberia, the hijras in India, the male geishas in Japan, the sodomites in the Netherlands and the mollies in England shared identities as ‘women with a penis’, and engaged in sex work with their male patrons.

Chapter 2 ‘Modern Worlds’ examines the technological and cultural shift that progressively changed the expression of feminised male prostitutes around the world after 1950. The chapter starts with the medical transformation of George Jorgensen becoming Christine Jorgensen, and this ‘sex change’ inspiring Harry Benjamin to coin the term ‘transsexual’. The concept of a trans identity and the use of transformative technologies such as hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery are introduced. The attendant concepts of the ‘elective’ and ‘extant’ trans woman which fall out of the field work done for the PhD are developed. These two identities distinguish between extant trans women who wish, as far as possible, to complete their transformation and live their lives as women in the wider community; and elective trans women who wish to appropriate some female sex and gender attributes but not others. Most notably, elective trans women do not wish to lose their penis. The chapter then shows how ancient world cultures have modernised – how the feminised males who provided sexual services to their clients have evolved to take advantage of the new transformative technologies: how, for example, the hijras in India, the travesti in Brazil and the waria in Indonesia have appropriated them.

Part 2 provides a vivid picture of the lives of elective trans women working in the sex industry. Chapter 3 focuses on the trans aspects and Chapter 4 on the sex work aspects of their identity.

Chapter 3 Describes the early life experiences of trans women, the transformative changes they undertake and the challenges associated with ‘coming out’. Facets of transitioning such as acquiring women's grooming methods, learning how to move and speak in characteristically feminine ways and choosing suitable clothing styles and accessories are discussed. From the common sense of social dislocation in their pre-adult years, the reasons for undertaking their transformative ‘rites of passage’ become readily apparent. As mentioned earlier, one of the major research findings was that there are two discrete categories – extant and elective trans women. How and why these women are so different is clearly articulated. The selective use of feminising regimes such as hormone therapy and electrolysis and the reasons for rejecting SRS are considered. At the end of the chapter, the unique identity of elective trans women is compared and contrasted with those of men, transvestites and extant trans women in terms of gender presentation and the use of sex reassignment surgery and other feminising technologies.

Chapter 4 Describes trans women's involvement in sex work in detail. It explains what factors induce trans women to work in the sex industry and how that work patterns their daily lives. On one hand, stories are told about the difficulty experienced in obtaining and keeping conventional jobs. On the other, an admission is frequently made that most kinds of conventional work are found to be boring and unrewarding. This is not surprising in view of the scores that elective trans women achieved in the NEO-PI-R personality profiles conducted as part of the field work. In contrast to this, becoming sex workers provides many benefits and a typical ‘day in the life’ of a trans woman sex worker is described. Trans sex workers enjoy the attention of prospective male clients, earning lucrative incomes, using drugs without losing their employment, and, generally, having more choice and control over their working conditions. Almost half the chapter is devoted to a discussion of the sexual services provided. The narrative reveals some intriguing aspects of performing sex work, such as what sexual services are provided to clients (including the contrast between generic services provided by all prostitutes such as fellatio and services that are uniquely provided by trans woman sex workers. The juxtaposition of a trans woman's feminine body and active penis becomes the main point of difference from other sex workers. The final part of the chapter concludes that sex work is rewarding for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it connects them with other trans women and with clients – both of whom accept and value their trans status.

Part 3 turns the focus of attention to the clients of elective trans woman sex workers. Locating clients and gaining their agreement to be interviewed was exceedingly difficult for several reasons. Firstly, compared to females, the number of trans women who participate in the sex industry is small, so there are fewer clients available to be approached for a prospective interview. There was also a strong reluctance on the part of the clients to be interviewed. Like the prostitutes, clients are aware of the stigma associated with their transerotic desire. There was a clear perception that mainstream society regards the sexual services provided by trans woman sex workers to be deviant, perverse and therefore, unacceptable. A further complication that worked against clients agreeing to be interviewed was that some clients – particularly younger ones – do not fully understand their own erotic desire for a ‘woman with a penis’. It is confronting to clients, let alone trying to explain this preference to others. Such views are reminiscent of the attitudes once expressed towards gays and lesbians. Clients are fully aware that they do not conform to an orthodox heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual pattern of sexual desire. These all act as powerful disincentives to openly discuss their sexual preferences and erotic desires.

Chapter 5 Begins with a brief review of the research findings on the clients of all sex workers, then specifically focuses on clients of trans woman sex workers. The narrative then turns to the main theme of the chapter, introducing the clients who participated in full interviews for this research. A short biographical sketch of each client is provided and the motives for obtaining sexual services are described. Readers find out who clients are, where they come from and why they have an erotic preference for non-operative trans women. In many cases, the regular clients only consider trans women as sexual partners. Several clients have consorted exclusively with trans women for many years. Despite this, clients also reveal that living in a committed relationship is challenging. Most describe themselves as ‘heterosexual’. There are complex reasons for this which are discussed in detail.

Chapter 6 Shifts the focus to understand what motivates men to pay for the sexual services of a ‘woman with a penis’ when female or male prostitutes are much more readily available. Many clients were married or living in de facto relationships and most were employed in conventional jobs. It also became clear that homosexual men were not interested in sexual relations with trans women because they look and act like women, not men. Similarly, the vast majority of trans women indicated that they were not interested in advances from gay men because they wished to be treated like women, not like men. In short, trans woman sex workers did not see themselves as ‘homosexuals’ and nor did their clients. The details of the sexual encounters between prostitutes and their clients tell a great deal about their erotic preferences. In summary, the narratives indicate that the sexual preference of men for ‘women with a penis’ is something categorically distinct from both heterosexual and homosexual orientations. Consorting with a trans woman is not a ‘stepping stone’ to homosexuality – it is an end in itself.

Part 4 explores the meaning and significance attached to men's attraction to ‘women with a penis’ using a deeper level of analysis.

Chapter 7 Introduces a new analytic model called holistic analysis to develop a more meaningful understanding of trans-client relationships. Holistic analysis is a multidisciplinary approach which seeks to explain this phenomenon by examining five dimensions of human interactions: physical bodies, psychological orientations, the cultural environment, the technological environment and the physical environment. Each dimension adds insight in its own right, but it is only when they are all considered together that a complete picture of trans woman sex worker-client interactions emerges. Three specific client sub-cultures are identified from the field work done for this book: Kings Cross in Sydney, the Tenderloin in San Francisco and the navy sailors who sought the sexual services of trans woman sex workers when visiting overseas ports in South East Asia. Just as the soldiers and sailors of antiquity were known to have a taste for feminised male prostitutes, modern sailors were found to continue this tradition. Although having sex with ladyboys and beanies is widely seen by many sailors as an initiation rite for junior sailors, some seasoned sailors continue with these involvements, preferring trans women to females.

Chapter 8 Concludes that, at least for men, there is a fifth, unrecognised sexual orientation. This casts a new light on the nature of male erotic desire and male sexuality. Traditionally, people are subject to strong social pressures to fit into just one of two genders (masculine or feminine) and sexual orientations (heterosexual and homosexual) when, in fact, there is a spectrum of sex and gender possibilities. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify the principal shared sexual preferences that characterise common patterns of sexual orientation. Viewed from this perspective, the final chapter concludes that in addition to heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality, there is an unrecognised non-binary sexual orientation – based on transerotic desire towards an idealised ‘woman with a penis› – called ambisexuality.

In summary, the subterranean world of male erotic desire for ‘women with a penis’ is threaded throughout human history and cuts across all cultures. The findings presented in this book reveal just how much there is still to learn about sexual orientation and erotic desire. The evidence for the ideas and concepts presented are compelling, and it becomes clear that rather than being regarded as a fetishist indulgence of a few men who occupy a place on the fringe of society, the incarnation of the ‘woman with a penis’ and men's erotic objectification of these individuals constitutes an important part of the human condition. Although simple in concept, ambisexuality is unfamiliar to most people and as such, many will find it confronting. Just as homoerotic feelings were once maligned as ‘an unfortunate form of deviance’, the book ends with the hope that ambisexuality will one day gain the same level of social acceptance that heterosexual and homosexual adults take for granted in most parts of the Western world. Both elective and extant trans women and their partners, who choose a lifestyle built on private, consensual relations, deserve the same respect that the wider community enjoys.

To gain a better appreciation of this sexual orientation, let's start on a journey of discovery; one that leads back to the ancient cultures of the old world. As the historical record reveals, the phenomenon of feminised male sex work has existed for a very long time…

Part 1

Origins

1. Ancient Worlds

From the alley appeared, in the slowest of rhythmic steps, the young man who had made such an impression on me this morning. He was dressed in a tunic cut from some rare purple fabric threaded with gold. His trousers were grey whipcord that flowed about his legs as he danced, and his turban was of pale blue silk, its free end flying out from his left shoulder… his extraordinary hair was held in place by the turban, but at his shoulders it was free to twist and move in the flickering lights. He was a young man of extreme physical beauty.

The tempo of the music increased… I noticed that he kept lagging behind the beat of the music, as if he were too languid to keep up, and this gave his dance a quality of sexual boredom and lethargy. Then the musicians began to shout and hammer their drums in planned frenzy, giving the impression that the boy was being driven to dance more rapidly, and as he did so the end of his turban pulled loose and was soon expanded into a flash of colour and a hypnotic gyration that I had to admit was thrilling. No woman in a steamy hall, loosening her garments one by one, ever generated more excitement than this young man did in twirling away his blue turban until his furious black hair was free to whirl out in great circles parallel to the earth. He now intensified his rhythm until he was beating the earth like a drum, his head twisting in ecstasy.

Dr Stiglitz… refused to acknowledge his spell…‘You forget. His job isn't dancing. He's here to attract customers for a troupe of nasty little boys. When they grow too old to attract these swine,’ he said, indicating the silent, panting watchers, ‘they're through, and that sweet little man playing the fiddle finds himself ten more teenage mountain boys who enjoy sodomy’¹

In James A. Michener's Caravans, the reader knows that the young male dancer portrayed in this passage enjoys dressing in beautiful, feminine clothes and loves to dance. It is also known that he engages in sex work with men, although the amount of pleasure he personally derives from this is uncertain. He lives a life that is very different from other boys his own age, yet given his girlish behaviour, his passion for dressing like women and his love of and skill at dancing, readers are left with the feeling that he was not taken into this life against his will. Indeed, he would most likely object to being forced to live the much harder and more responsible life that is demanded of other young Afghan men.

Although this precise description of the erotic dancing that took place among the Afghani caravanserai – the inns where travelling caravans historically rested – is part of a fictional adventure story, Michener clearly researched Afghan culture in some detail to lend authenticity and interest to the plot. References to the training of older boys and young men, in the twin arts of seductive dancing and sex work, can be found in many historical and religious texts, not just of Afghanistan but as an aspect of cultures in many cities in South Asia and the Middle East until modern times.

The desire to be someone other than who you are is an experience most of us have at some point in our lives. Similarly, the desire to be able to do something, other than what you are biologically equipped or socially permitted to do, is also something most of us have felt at some time or another. But rarely have these aspirations been felt more strongly than by the feminised males discussed in this book². Throughout history, feminised males have been known for their strong sense of aesthetic beauty, for their desire to seduce and entertain men for the attention and material rewards and for their association with mysticism and religious practices in their respective cultures. The sodomites of Palestine described in the Old Testament, the catamite courtesans who entertained the noble citizens of ancient Greece and inhabited the palaces of Roman emperors, the hijras, who ritually blessed and celebrated the arrival of newborn sons and daughters in India, the shaman of Siberia who possessed mystical powers to banish evil spirits and to allow healing, the ginks who performed seductive dances in Cairo nightclubs, the North American berdache who assumed the role of wives in Indian tribal society, and the mollies of London who outraged civil society by dressing as women and imitating their ‘petty vanities’; in all their incarnations, lead fascinating lives. Their social, religious and symbolic significance within many cultures stemmed from the fact that they were neither true men nor women. Feminised males can be thought of as a third incarnation – ‘women with a penis’.

In these accounts, ‘women with a penis’ attracted the erotic attention of a large number of ordinary men – as admirers, benefactors, clients and lovers. According to the historical evidence, these men could hardly be called ‘closet homosexuals’ because many – perhaps most – had no erotic or sexual interest in individuals who had masculine bodies or acted in stereotypically masculine ways. Clients were erotically attracted to the feminine form and liked their sexual partner to look and behave like a woman. From the material that is available, most were probably married, had children and worked in traditional occupations.

The historical record also provides clues that the link between feminised males and sex work even existed in some hunter-gatherer societies. In North America, the journalist and critic, Peter Ackroyd suggests that some native Indian societies accommodated feminised male sex work. The Pueblo Indians for example, maintained a mujerado, a ‘trained male prostitute’ in each village, who identified as a ‘man-woman’, not as a male³. Similarly, records suggest that the berdache were males who took on the roles of wife, communal concubine, prostitute and participant in certain sexual rites of native Indian tribes. The berdache wore women's clothing, did women's work and in sexual relations with their male partners, behaved like women as far as possible.

In some societies, the practice of feminised male sex work was associated with communal brothels, dancing and other forms of entertainment, the role of the courtesan, and religious or mystical rituals. There was, for example, a recurring link between cross-dressing and various forms of religious practice. Religious transvestism has been found in many ancient civilisations⁴.

The feminised male prostitutes living in the temples of Canaan and Ishtar were regarded as sacred, and sexual intercourse with them was considered to be a holy act. In the same way that sexual intercourse with women and girls who were attached to temples was considered to be sacred, sodomy with transvestic men was, by extension, also considered to be a ‘holy union’.

In the ancient world, social and cultural conventions were often very different from those now experienced in Western society. The modern concept of marriage, for example, is built around monogamy, but marriage needs not be so restrictive. Historically and cross-culturally, marriages have implicitly or explicitly sanctioned multiple partners, and this has been particularly so for males who have possessed the material means to sustain such arrangements. It has long been accepted that men in Arabic cultures can take more than one wife, and this continues to be the case today. The prevalence and normative behaviour of the ancient Greeks to engage in homosexual relations provides another case in point. Given the attitudes of many people in modern Western society, the fact that homosexual relationships were accepted on an equal footing with heterosexual ones might be difficult to believe. Love between an older man and a younger, feminine man or boy was thought to be desirable and was often idealised. Alexander the Great and other historical figures from that time were known to have a taste for young men. The Greeks were extremely aware of the bisexual nature of men and women. They viewed the reproductive roles of males and females as distinctly different from an individual's erotic desire to engage in sexual intimacy, and erotic desire could spring from relationships with members of either sex. One pattern was clear, however. There were many older men who desired younger, feminine males who were not masculine. Boys were preferred to men because they had not yet developed many of the secondary sexual characteristics of puberty such as the growth of body hair, muscular development and deepening of the voice.

Perhaps one of the earliest examples to be found of feminised cross-dressing male prostitutes in the Hellenic world was in connection with the Greek poet, Agathon. The historical record is unclear about the precise nature of Agathon's relationship with the boy sex workers who lived nearby, but it is apparent that they could be hired by the hour or on a contract basis. Agathon would meet such boys dressed as women, in a long robe, saffron-coloured tunic and cape. He also wore a bust-bodice, a hair net and tight-fitting buskins⁵. The boy sex workers were also known to parade noisily in the streets in effeminate dress and make-up. An Athenian proverb of the time proclaimed that it was ‘easier to hide five elephants in one's armpit [than one of these boys]’.

The desire of males to cross-dress is also documented in many ancient texts. Burgo Partridge, a cultural historian who researched the historical development of sexual orgies in human society describes the impression left by one ruler, Sardanapalus when he granted an audience to one of his subjects: ‘He saw the king [Sardanapalus] with his face covered with white lead, bejewelled like a woman in the company of his concubines and sitting among them with knees uplifted, his eyebrows blackened, wearing a woman's dress and having his beard shaved close and his face rubbed with pumice, he was even whiter than milk and his eyelids were painted.’ Other Greek rulers, such as Androcottus and Sagaris also were known to dress as women in public.

Partridge confirms that the Greeks were well aware of the androgynous nature of human beings, and the evidence clearly suggests that men frequently cross-dressed to attract the social and erotic attention of others. This behaviour played a customary role in various festivals and celebrations in the Hellenic world. At the Oscophoria celebrations, two boys, beautifully made up and dressed as girls, would bear the branches of the grapevine after which the festival was named. In Cyprus, a male-female divinity was worshipped at Amathus. Part of this ceremony required a male youth to lie in a bed and simulate a woman in labour in order to honour Ariadne.

According to Partridge, the Greeks believed that covering only the private parts of the body when the rest of the body was not covered suggested contempt or shame for the genitals. In this respect, their opinion was almost precisely the opposite of the modern view. The genitals, as the source of sexual pleasure and fertility, were something to be exulted and revered; they should not be covered but left on display if the wearing of light clothing was appropriate. Nudity was a feature of Greek social life that occurred at prescribed times and particularly during parties and at festivals. In present day Western society, there are comparatively few social and cultural occasions where partial or complete nudity is permitted. The wearing of very brief swimming costumes on a beach, the removal of a piece of these costumes to get a suntan and even nude bathing (on designated beaches) are rare examples of modern social contexts where nudity is acceptable.

The historical record provides a great deal of evidence to suggest that Greco-Roman cultures indulged in sexual pleasures involving both female and male consorts. In Greece, homosexual and heterosexual sex work were both equally approved. Although homosexual sex work did not gain the same level of social acceptance during Roman times, it was certainly more acceptable than is the case in Western cultures today⁶. Regardless of the changing public attitudes towards homosexuality amongst the Romans, it was actually practiced on a very significant scale, so much so that some authorities on the subject estimate that the number of male sex workers in Rome equalled the number of female sex workers.

Many Roman brothels offered boys of different races, skin colours and professional abilities. Boys from the Middle East, for example, were prized for their dancing abilities and exotic appearance, while boys from Northern Europe were valued for their bawdiness and sensuality. Some brothel owners refined the process of procuring, raising and training very young boys to an art form. Boys considered to possess the appropriate attributes were purchased as young as two or three years of age and were raised and trained by their owners. Their sole purpose in life was to entertain men and pander to the sexual tastes of wealthy clients. Many of these boys were feminised during their training. They were beautifully groomed and perfumed, had unwanted body hair removed and wore their hair long and curly. Some were trained to perform for their clients – as dancers, mimes, singers and story-tellers. All were trained in fellatio, sodomy and analingus.

When the Etruscans who had become very wealthy under Roman rule, socialised at times of leisure or at family parties, the servants would cater for their pleasure and companionship. Partridge describes some of the intimate details of their lives as follows:

Sometimes, [these companions are] female sex workers, sometimes very beautiful boys, sometimes also their wives; and when they have enjoyed these, the servants then introduce lusty young men, who in their turn consort with them. They indulge in love-affairs and carry on these unions sometimes in full view of one another, but in most cases with screens set up around the beds; the screens are made of latticed wands over which cloths are thrown. Now they consort very eagerly, to be sure, with women; but much more, however, do they enjoy consorting with boys and striplings. For in their country, these latter are very good-looking because they live in luxury and keep their bodies smooth. In fact all the barbarians who live in the west remove the hair of their bodies by means of pitch plasters and by shaving with razors.

Many of the Roman emperors encouraged or demanded the sexual services of boys and young men in their palaces. Both well and lesser known emperors such as Caligula, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Nero, Commodus and Elagabalus all engaged in bizarre forms of sexual behaviour and established a role model of sexual promiscuity for the public. The last three – Nero, Commodus and Elagabalus – encouraged transvestic behaviour in their exploration of exotic forms of sexual behaviour. Although Nero's fondness for indulging in orgies is perhaps best known, the lifestyles of Commodus and Elagabalus were in some ways more outrageous. The most scandalous of the transvestite emperors, Elagabalus frequently bathed among men and built a bathing chamber in the imperial palace to which members of the public were invited so that he might have a plentiful supply of male lovers to choose from. Like his predecessors, Nero and Commodus, he married one of his male favourites, the athletic actor-whore, Zoticus. Elagabalus also championed the profession of sex work in Rome. He opened brothels, he referred to sex workers as ‘comrades’ and he even held a convention for procurers, male sex workers and ‘lascivious’ young men and boys.

Commodus was another transvestic, bisexual emperor who indulged in intimate relationships with men he kept for the purpose. He treated one of these men, who possessed a penis larger than most animals, with great affection and gave him great wealth.

The historical records also suggest that although Roman soldiers raped women and girls when they invaded foreign countries, the scope of these activities was certainly not limited to females. Roman soldiers were permitted to keep boys and young men who had been captured. These boys were provided with food and shelter and used for sexual purposes.

When the soldiers returned from military campaigns, a crowd of young boys would make efforts to sexually arouse and encourage them. The soldiers were commonly regarded to be particularly receptive as they had little time for sexual pleasure during their absence. According to Drew and Drake, they were also known to be ‘bisexual’ in their tastes. Although they certainly appreciated sexual encounters with women, these soldiers nevertheless took the opportunity to engage in sexual variation whenever the opportunity presented itself. Drew and Drake's research tells us that although many female sex workers were very young and trained to provide virtually any service, boys were also in high demand. The authors explain that ‘boy sex workers gave all of the pleasures that were possible with women, plus other more extraordinary delights’. Although specific services are not given in detail, there is little doubt that anything the mind can imagine was attempted.

These descriptions are highly significant for several reasons. Firstly, it should be noted that pre-pubescent boys and girls closely resemble one another in physical development: that is, their bodies are clearly androgynous, neither masculine nor feminine. Secondly, although it is clear that some Roman soldiers consorted with both women and boy sex workers, the assumption by some historians that they were therefore ‘bisexual’, implies that these men were erotically attracted to adult males. But this is not necessarily the case. As will become apparent from the research results revealed later in this book, it is more likely that many of these soldiers would have found masculine body development distinctly unattractive. An alternative explanation for the sexual proclivities of these soldiers is that they preferred feminine bodies but also had an erotic interest in the male penis. For these Roman soldiers, it was the penis that was necessary to experience the ‘extraordinary delights’ referred to in the previous paragraph.

On the other side of the Mediterranean and across the Middle East, a similar incarnation stimulated the erotic desires of Arab men. In Egypt, effeminate cross-dressing males who engaged in sex work were known as ginks, and typically, they performed lively erotic dances to whet the appetites of their male audiences. The historical records show that these ‘dancing boys’ worked as entertainers and sex workers throughout Egyptian history, and as late as the 19^th century, were still considered to be more respectable than dancing girls in Cairo. Culturally, the involvement of young men in sex work was justified on the grounds that it protected the honour of women. Boys were trained to dress as young women did, and they were also required to offer sexual services for their clients. The boys were beautified as women – their body hair was removed, the hair on their head was allowed to grow long and their clothes were selected to accentuate their beauty. Described as ‘the women of the rich’, these boys offered sexual services to clients in both active and passive roles. To some, they were considered more beautiful than women, and parents who wished to protect their prepubescent sons would avoid washing and grooming them so that they did not present as attractive prospects to unscrupulous kidnappers!

Interestingly, G.W. Lane, a 19^th century English traveller who recorded his impressions of Egyptian culture at the time, commented on the cultural practices of the khäwals, a category of cross-dressing male dancers – whom he believed did not perform sex work – and the ginks, who were unambiguously associated with the practice:

[The khäwals impersonate] women, their dances are exactly of the same descriptions as those of the ghawázee [female dancers]; and are, in a like manner, accompanied by the sound of castanets; but, as if to prevent their being thought to be really females, their dress is suited to their unnatural profession; being partly male and partly female: it chiefly consists of a tight vest, a girdle and a kind of petticoat. Their general appearance, however, is more feminine than masculine; they suffer the hair of the head to grow long, and generally braid it, in the manner of the women; their hair on the face, when it begins to grow, they pluck out, and they imitate the women also in applying kohl and henna to their eyes and hands. In the streets, when not engaging in dancing, they often even veil their faces, not from shame, but merely to affect the manners of women… There is, in Cairo, another class of male dancers, young men and boys, whose performances, dress and general appearance are almost exactly similar to those of the khäwals, but who are distinguished by a different appellation, which is gink; a term that is Turkish and has a vulgar signification which aptly expresses their character.⁷

However, the cultural historian, Fernando Henriques, established that the distinction between the khäwals and the ginks was not so categorical and that both combined dancing and other forms of entertainment with the offer of sexual services. Because they were biological males, it was possible to avoid the Muslim sanctions applied to females displaying themselves in public. As khäwals and ginks, males could use their feminine charms to entice in public. On the other hand, they needed to be discrete about their sex working activities – although it was acceptable for women to seduce men for sexual purposes, it was not acceptable for feminised males to perform this role. The khäwals were not restricted to public dancing performances for patrons. Like the hijras of India, they were often employed to dance and otherwise perform at private functions such as weddings, the birth of a child and during circumcisions. The khäwals also performed frequently at public festivals.

Another cultural historian, Gerard de Nerval, provides a vivid illustration of the public dancing practices of the khäwals, capturing the feeling of what it must have been like to watch these performances at the time:

The dancing girls appeared in a cloud of dust and tobacco smoke. The first thing about them which struck me was the brightness of the golden caps upon their tresses. As their heels beat upon the ground, with a tinkle of little bells and anklets, their raised arms quivered in harmony; their hips shook with a voluptuous movement; their form seemed bare under the muslin between the little jacket and the low loose girdle, like the ceston of Venus. They twirled around so quickly that it was hard to distinguish the features of these seductive creatures, whose fingers shook little cymbals, as large as castanets, as they gestured boldly to the primitive strains of flute and tambourine. Two of them seemed particularly beautiful; they held themselves proudly: their Arab eyes were brightened by kohl; their full yet delicate cheeks were lightly painted. But the third, I must admit, betrayed the less gentle sex by a week-old beard; and when I looked into the matter carefully, and, the dancing being ended, could better make out the features of the other two, it did not take me long to discover that the dancing girls were, in point of fact, all males.⁸

Similar dancing routines took place in Istanbul where boy dancers were often considered more beautiful than girl dancers, even though their beauty was quite different. There were no boy dancers who avoided sex work except for a few outstanding individuals who were privately owned and maintained for the exclusive entertainment of their master. Drew and Drake estimated that 3,000 sodomite boys worked in Istanbul's public brothels. According to observers at the time, these young sex workers were encouraged to cultivate a ‘feeble effeminacy’ which excited the passions of clients. The boys were professionally prepared and trained for their task. Their hair was carefully groomed and ‘they wore sensuous dresses of silk – trained in lewd dancing that could excite a statue of stone…’⁹

Hyacinth root, hemlock and various other treatments were applied to the skin and sexual parts of young boys to give them complexions and soft skins which was highly valued and sought after by paying clients.

In Turkish coffee and bath houses, other young males were also available. These boys painted their eyes and wore their hair long and curly. They often wore short robes which could be easily flicked up for teasing prospective clients. Like their Egyptian counterparts, these boys were taught the art of dancing and instructed in the methods of servicing customers. All of these dancers were sex workers: they were professional fellators and offered themselves for anal intercourse. In Constantinople (Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, young feminised male sex workers from various parts of the world serviced an enormous number of clients. According to Drew and Drake, it was supposed that more of these brothels existed than those offering the services of women. There was a mixture of Jews, Arabs, British, Africans and Turks. The boys were young, effeminate and reportedly enjoyed the sexual attention of men, yet they always dressed – ‘masqueraded’ as some social historians put it – as young women.

Among Middle Eastern cultures, another incarnation of the feminised male prostitute was found in Omani society. The xanith were feminised males who demonstrated their sex and gender expression somewhat differently from the pattern found elsewhere. Technically, the xanith could not cross-dress because the strictures of Islamic law forbade males from wearing women's clothing. Nevertheless, novel solutions were found which allowed them to present in a decidedly non-masculine way. They dressed in clothes that were distinctively feminine in style but which could be distinguished from the clothes worn by women. Specifically, the ankle-length gallabeja that was always used by men was worn, but belted in tightly at the waist as women did. Although men generally wore white clothing and women wore bright-coloured patterned clothes, the xanith wore coloured, unpatterned clothes, which represented a careful compromise between masculine and feminine styles. Their personal grooming extended this compromise: like women, they oiled their hair, but combed it in a slightly different style to that worn by women. The overall effect was undoubtedly feminine rather than masculine, and this was the result they sought while still protecting themselves from accusations of being dressed like women.

According to some cultural historians, the reason why the xanith presented as women was to enable them to make a living from sex work. As will be seen later, the suggestion that this lifestyle is driven by ‘economic necessity’ probably belies a considerable degree of individual choice in the matter. For many, the rewards of sex work led to a comfortable lifestyle, which was infinitely preferable to other occupations which paid less, demanded longer working hours and offered fewer other intrinsic benefits such as personal gifts.

Prior to the Russian revolution in 1917, the area to the north of Oman in the Caucasian mountains was known to have ‘lust boys’ who offered their services at hotels and public baths. There were also brothels, some dedicated to the provision of boys only, and others to supplying both women and boys for customers who expressed a preference for ‘both at once in a variety of ways’¹⁰. This preference indicates something about the erotic demands of clients and might be interpreted to suggest the existence of a client interest in ‘versatility’¹¹ in this part of the world prior to the twentieth century.

In North East Asia, Siberian tribal life embraced a form of religious transvestism amongst the local priests called shaman. The shaman acted as spiritual intermediaries between the secular and spiritual world, and although many tribes were organised in this way, perhaps one of the best known were the Chukchi. In all respects, except for genital emasculation, the Chukchi shaman attempted to make their change of sex as complete as possible. The shaman dressed as women, used feminine manners and forms of behaviour, and in many instances were known to engage in promiscuous sexual behaviour with men.

But of all the civilisations which have a cultural history of feminised male sex work, India has perhaps the most culturally visible and distinctive. The practice of sex work amongst the hijras has a lengthy and well documented history and continues to be practiced to the present day. The hijras are viewed as having a unique role within Indian culture: they are devoted to the mother goddess, Bahuchara Mata who commands a respected position in Indian social and cultural life, and their position is sanctioned by various ancient texts. These texts tell us, for example, about an arjuna who lived in the guise of a woman. He wore bangles, braided his hair like a woman, dressed in female attire and taught women in the king's court to sing and dance. He is portrayed in texts as having both a male and a female form – vertically divided in half. The same texts also portray two other Hindu deities – Vishnu and Krishna – in androgynous or feminine forms, and these texts relate numerous stories suggesting that all humans possess male and female aspects. Clearly, there is considerable support for the idea that maleness and femaleness are not fixed sex and gender categories.