Three Ladyboys, a Waterfall, and a Wedding Dress : A Photoshoot in Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park

“How about a photoshoot outside of Bangkok?”, I asked May one day.

“Yes! Let’s go to Hawaii! I start packing now!”, she said as she jumped for joy.

“Er, I was thinking more like a couple of hours drive away”, I countered.

“Ok, have fun, and see you when you get back.”, she said, as she walked away dejected.

That wasn’t the response I was hoping for, but eventually I did convince May, my Ladyboy girlfriend, to help me do a world’s first: a professional quality Ladyboy photoshoot in a public park.

I’d picked three of my good friends and fantastic models, Aom, Ae, and Passy, for the shoot, as they were, well, georgeous frankly, but also fun to work with and would appreciate the adventure. We were going to shoot in Khao Yai, a national park about 2.5 hours drive outside of Bangkok, Thailand. The terrain was a little rough in some places and we’d be shooting from morning to evening, sometimes in the blistering sun.

“Look at the monkeys!”, said Ae, as we drove up the steep, narrow road, filled with monkeys.

“Looks like Ziggy”, said May. I could tell it would be a long day. Ah, but such is the life of a Ladyboy photographer.

We finally got to our first location; a roped walking bridge across a somewhat dirty river. People came and went as we shot, typically with the male gawking and their partners elbowing them in the gut, saying something like, “Keep your eyes on me, honey!”. I could sympathize with the men. The girls looked fantastic.

After our first shoot on the bridge, we moved on to a more private location in an open field. I called the shoot Field of Angels because of the wings used in one shoot. Everything was going ok until our friendly park warden walked up while the girls were still in their bikinis.

“What’s going on here?”, he demanded.

“Just taking some photos in your beautiful park”, I replied, meekly.

“No sex pictures allowed here. I’ll have to escort you the whole day if you want to continue…to make sure you behave properly!”, he countered.

Ah. I got the picture. Personal escort. Observe everything all the time. I caught a glimpse of him checking the battery level on his camera while he phoned his buddies in glee. Never mind, we thought! Come along!

So, with another member in the crew, and after a few changes of clothes, with the warden’s personal supervision and observation of course, we moved on to our next shoot at the famous Heau Suwat waterfall. Unfortunately, the top was easily accessible by car. That meant lots of people.

In this shoot, Passy was in a wedding dress at the base of the falls. It took some doing to get there, get the dress fitted, and get everyone on the right rock. As we did so, a throng of perhaps a hundred people gathered to look on. What could be stranger than a foreigner taking a wedding dress photo with three Ladyboys at the base of a waterfall in a public park? Only aliens from Saturn is what they likely thought. It was then I realized that we were being photographed more than the Mona Lisa! I mean how often do you get to take a picture of an alien?

Our final shoot was at the top of the falls in Swamp Land. Actually it wasn’t a swamp, but it had that eery feel to it that could be either beautiful or creepy.

I was a bit worred about all the people around. So I asked the warden if we could do bikini pictures as we’d done in the more private field setting before. He answered enthusiastically, “Yes, yes, of course! As long as I am here it is ok.” Okey, dokey. I looked on as he searched for somewhere to recharge his camera battery.

The swamp, despite my name for it, was very picturesque, and made even more picturesque with three bikini clad, beautiful Ladyboy models in it. Cameras flashed everywhere! Foreigners were the leaders in the fray, taking hundreds of photos before I’d even clicked my first shot! We didn’t really mind, as fun was had by all, and the photos turned out great!

All in all it was a unique and awesome photoshoot, and a fun place to go and do it. However, I can’t explain that in writing to you. Rather, look for yourself at the pics on http://www.silk-angels.com/ in the Khao Yai 3 gallery. You’ve never seen Ladyboys this way before, but you will again - I start my next shoot, to be called Beach Babes 3, in about a month!

To see the pics, go to: Khao Yai

Is it a Boy or is it a Girl? We don't know! Sex Determination and Intersex

“Is it a boy or girl?”

“We don’t know!”

While not what a mother really wants to hear, it does happen.

The majority of babies have a biological sex that is typically and obviously male or female. For most people that means they have either a penis or vagina. However, that is not always the case. In fact, about 1 in 2000 children are born with atypical sex characteristics, or about 150,000 people in the USA, and perhaps 2.5 million people world-wide.

How can this happen? How can a baby not be obviously male or female?

It all starts in the womb. The fetus is sex neutral until about the 7th week. Until that time, the sex organs, or gonads, are identical in both future males and females. Starting about the 7th week, sex determination starts. By the 9th to 12th weeks, the genitals start to differentiate. Sex determination is based on a lot of factors, with some understood by scientists and some not.

Once the gonads start to differentiate, hormones produced by them impact the reproductive organs and genital development. Because of the complexity of the process, variations happen, resulting in people who may have an atypical phenotype (visual appearance of the genitals) or even atypical reproductive organs.

For example, some males have a penis so small (micro-penis), it can look like a vagina. Likewise, the clitoris’ of some females are so large, they look like a penis. There are also males with testicles that haven’t descended (and are thus invisible), females with no ovaries, and even situations where both reproductive organs exist in one person (ovotestes).

These variations continue at the chromosonal level. Some males have a female karotype of 46, XX and some females have a male karotype of 46, XY. Even at the genetic level there are differences. For example, some females have the ‘male’ SRY gene. In short, while we may have an image of a typical male or female, many of us are not the same, and perhaps don’t even know it.

Olympic Committees became aware of genetic variations the hard way. In 1968, a sex determination test used was based on karotypes and then in 1992 based on detection of the SRY gene. Unfortunately, in both cases, women were falsely identified as men and vice versa, due to their sex reversal conditions. These tests were abolished in the 1998 Olympics.

According to the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), there are about 17 different intersex conditions. Except for one (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia), all others are non life-threatening. From studies done, most if not all intersex people grow up having healthy physical and emotional lives, and are not ostracized by society. As such, it is highly recommended that no decisions be made regarding surgery or hormone therapy except by the individuals themselves, once they are capable of making such decisions.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many doctors still follow the Optimum Gender of Rearing system developed by John Money of John Hopkin’s University in the 1950s. That system assumes that gender can be nurtured. Practically, it encourages doctors to make a decision at birth to reverse the gender of children born with genitalia that do not represent their biological sex. This is done through surgery before 18 months.

The most famous case of this is referred to as John/Joan. Because of a botched circumcision resulting in a very small penis, David Reimer’s doctor decided to reverse his sex through surgery, hormone therapy, psychological support, and encouragement of parental nurturing. Money used David’s case as an example of success and proof of his theories. When David found out about his past, he reverted back to a male, getting surgery to undo what had been done before. David committed suicide at 38 after significant pschological trauma throughout his life. Those against Money’s nurture theories use this an example of why they were wrong.

So, if your doctor says “We don’t know if your child is a boy or girl”, don’t be distraught. Be happy. You have a healthy and very natural child, like many others with an intersex condition around the world and perhaps even in your own community.

And remember, evidence shows your child will grow up and be a happy adult, just as others have done before.

The Quest for Beautiful Breasts : 7 Question for Transgender Implants

”How about really big ones, May! Like Raquel Welch or Pamela Anderson!”

“I just want a natural looking breasts,” she replied.

“But you could buy low cut tops and a skimpy bikini. It would be cool on the beach! I could take pics of you to look at when I travel and show my friends”, I tried.

“Grrrrrrrr”.

The growl was clear. Natural looking, natural sized breasts. I would not be dating Thailand’s Pamela Anderson after all. I sighed in disappointment. I was really hoping for the big ones. Don’t all men?

And so we went on a quest for breasts, after my girlfriend, May, a Ladyboy in Bangkok, Thailand, made it clear that in no uncertain terms, she wanted implants. I loved her looks as they were, but conceded to her wishes…as all wise men should!
It would be easy enough, I thought. This quest should last all of 20 minutes. They’re all the same. A sack of silicone. Stuff ‘em in. Instant breasts! Or so I thought. At our first stop, however, Doctor Arthi gave us a barrage of questions:

“Do you want saline or silicone?”

“Do you want textured or smooth implants?”

“How big do you want your implants?”

”Do you want a teardrop or round shape?”

“Do you want low, medium, or high profile?”

“Yo, yo, Doc! Slow down buddy!”

We’d never even seen an implant before let alone know what any of those options implied. I thought it was a simple matter of saying I want breast implants, fixing a price, and voila, Pamela! However, it seemed that wasn’t exactly the case.

“Do you want insertion through the armpit, nipple, underside of the breast, or belly button?”

“Do you want a sub-muscular or sub-glandular implant?”

It never even occurred to use that there were different places to insert the implant, but there were. It was all a bit daunting at first, but with each doctor we visited and each web-site we looked at, we gradually understood what all those questions meant. Frankly, our original view, that it really wasn’t so complicated, was essentially true, however, we wanted to be 100% clear about what each decision meant and its associated implications.

It was like buying a car. There were standard features and a few options, but you needed to understand both so that you could select the options that best suired your personal tastes. In fact, we found most decisions straight-forward except for one…

“I recommend smooth implants”, Dr. Thep had said.

“I recommend textured implants”, Dr. Kamol had said.

“I recommend big ones, May!” [I had to try one last time.]

Out of the five doctors we visited in Bangkok and endless hours on the internet, it turned out that the most difficult decision related to smooth versus textured implants. For all other options, the decisions were either personal or obvious for transgenders, and didn’t really require any technical knowledge.

For example, all Bangkok doctors recommended silicone implants, meaning the contents inside the implant sack were made of silicone gel versus saline (salt water). The consensus seemed to be that silicone created a more natural feel than saline, and concerns of possible health risks caused by silicone leakage in the body were unfounded, or perhaps more accurately, not proven. Admittedly, this debate continues. But for us, silicone it was.

Likewise, all doctors recommended a sub-muscular implant for transsexuals, meaning an implant below the pectoralis muscle. For women, it was also near universal that the implant should be above the muscle, and just below the breast glands, or sub-glandular. The reasons were cosmetic. The male body does not have much fatty tissue in the breast area and thus the outlines of an implant just below the skin’s surface would be visible. By putting the implant below the muscle, its outlines were hidden giving it a more natural look. The procedure required cutting of some muscle fibers at the bottom of the breast to create the implant pocket, however, this was considered normal and insignificant in its impact to muscular strength and movement. Sub-muscular it was.

As a side note to sub-muscular implants, we found it important to find a doctor who had experience with transsexuals, because the operation was simply not the same for women. While it was similar, it wasn’t identical, and we wanted someone who had experience in making a beautiful transsexual implant, sub-muscular, versus a doctor who had experience making a woman’s breasts beautiful, sub-glandular. [Granted, some doctors do perform sub-muscular implants on women.]

As for insertion point, all doctors we visited recommended inserting the implant through a cut at the bottom, front section of the armpit as it usually resulted in the least visible scar. However, we also had friends who had done insertions through the nipple and the underside of the breast. In all cases, we’d seen good and bad results, but more good results through the armpit, possibly because it was an area of skin folding already, and so, any imperfections were naturally hidden.

Profile and shape were personal cosmetic decisions, but the majority of transgenders we knew had selectied medium profile, round shapes. High and ultra high profiles were for a more dramatic appearance, making the breast stick out more than usual (the Pamela look, sigh). We had one friend who had the ultra-high profile, and, it looked great, or at least I thought it did! But May wanted natural looking, so medium profile it was. For shape, teardrops were more costly and had some slight risk of looking odd if they rotated after the operation. While we liked the idea at first, we didn’t want any risk at all of a second operation in the future to correct an unwanted rotation, so we decided on a round shape.

Size was perhaps the most important decision to make and was dependent on the patient’s body size and desired future look. Because the implant generally looked about 20% smaller after being implanted, it was difficult to pick a size by simply putting an implant in a bra and seeing how it looked in the mirror. In our case, the doctor recommended that we show him a picture of how we wanted May to look after the operation, and he would decide the implant size based on his experience. (I slipped him one of Pamela, but it didn’t work. Darn!)

However, for texture, this is where doctors and literature on the internet seemed to disagree with vigor.

Three doctors recommended textured implants. They were a relatively new technology, with small dimples on the surface of the implant that adhered to scar tissue in the body, theoretically reducing the likelihood of capsular contraction, or, hardening of the breasts over time, caused by hardening of that scar tissue. That was a good thing.

However, two doctors recommended smooth implants, citing and printing off internet articles showing how textured implants increased the likelihood of skin rippling where the surface of the skin seemed to ripple like a wet piece of paper.

Also, some doctors admitted that textured implants didn’t seem to fully live up to their objective of reducing capsular contraction. Ditto for internet literature.

For us, the fact that textured implants formed a greater bond with scar tissue making them more difficult to extract in the future, or so we thought, swayed us to smooth implants. That decision, in turn, convinced us to not go with teardrop implants. The reason is that one method to prevent teardrop rotation was to use textured implants that would stick to the body better, thus reducing the likelihood of rotation. By deciding on smooth implants, we effectively had decided to not use teardrops. Well, that was my logic anyhow.

On the positive side, we found most doctors willing to consult with us and give us their opinion, but also accepting that the final choice was ours. Ultimately we found that while doing research on the internet was valuable, it was essential to talk to the experts face-to-face, ask questions, but then make our own decisions.

So what were our final selections for May’s perfect breasts? She decided on 320 cc, smooth silicon implants, with a medium profile and round shape, implanted sub-muscular through the armpit. For May, at 5’8” in height, with a small frame, the result was a very natural look and feel. Most importantly, it created that most sought after of all things for a young Ladyboy - cleavage!

I didn’t get Pamela Anderson breasts to sleep with every night or watch on the beach, but frankly, that didn’t matter. Natural looking breasts on May were just dandy for me. I love them and her just as they are, and the same would have been true if she didn’t get any at all, really!

Making Breasts for $1,200 : Breast Implants and Surgeons in Thailand

"I want breasts", May said.

"How many do you want?" I asked. "One, two, three?"

"It's not funny, I want breasts!" she insisted.

"How about some of that nice bra padding instead?" I tried.

"No, I want breasts!" she said emphatically.

Alas, I had to give in. After all, the bra pads didn't work so well in her bikini when swimming in the beaches of Phuket. Also, despite me telling her many times that she was a beautiful lady even without breasts; there was no stopping a Ladyboy searching for cleavage. I knew if we didn't get breasts, that flat panel TV we bought last year might be gone when I returned from one my trips; sold in exchange for implants. And I did like that TV.

And so we went on a quest. A quest for a reasonably priced and reputable surgeon to implant breasts in May, my Ladyboy girlfriend. I was determined to research it well as I really didn't want her coming back with 3 breasts despite my suggestion that might be cool.

The quest was to cover a total of five doctors in Bangkok, Thailand, our home. We knew some doctors' names already from friends and searched the internet for others who were better known by foreign patients. We wanted to be thorough, cover a range of options, and meet them face-to-face and feel comfortable with the person who would change May's appearance forever.

Our first stop was Bumrungrad, the most famous and expensive hospital in Thailand, well known by foreign patients. In there, we met Dr. Arthi Kruavit, who worked in the Cosmetic Surgery department. After some discussion on various types of implants, he explained to us that "The price of breast implants is made up of the cost of the implant, the doctor's fees, and the facilities fees (the hospital room). All three vary with your choices." His quote was 80,000 Baht ($2,200 USD) for what we wanted.

When we asked about quality, in the form of before and after pictures, he replied, "You have to trust my reputation, ask anyone in Thailand". So I took him up on his word and asked the parking attendant on the way out, but no luck. "You crazy man" was the expression on the attendant's face. Alas, not everyone knew his reputation including May and I.

We put an "X" on our scorecard chart for Bumrungrad due to the price and a request for us to "trust" him.

Our next stop was Dr. Thep Vechavisit of the Pratunam Clinic. Dr. Thep was well known and used by many of our friends, and had a reputation for high quality results, and especially soft breasts and a very low price.

"I charge 45,000 baht ($1,200 USD) for both foreigners and locals", he'd quoted with some pride. I hadn't realized it before, but doctors' fees, and many other things in Thailand, were typically double for foreign patients versus local Thai nationals. The theory was that foreign patients required more care; however, my theory was that it was more related to the likelihood that foreign patients had more money. I then realized that Dr. Arthi at Bumrungrad had quoted us a foreign fee, as anyone going to Bumrungrad was considered a foreigner, at least in terms of pricing.

"Yes I have many before and after photos, just take a look", he said in response to my standard question about quality of results.

We looked. There were some marvelous examples of his work and some not so great ones too. I was amused at his openness versus Bumrungrad, and made a mental note to try and sell him marketing consultation services in the future, and maybe weed out a few of those not so great results.

Dr. Thep's prices were almost half of Bumrungrad largely because of his personal fees and the fact that he did surgery in his clinic. His clinic, small and messy, clearly was low cost, and thus facility fees in his case were lower than low, as they should have been. The actual cost of the implant itself was the same as Bumrungrad, and I would later learn that they were generally priced the same at all clinics and hospitals.

We put a "?" near Dr. Thep on our scorecard due to the look of his clinic.

After these two baselines, i.e., the highest priced hospital and the lowest priced clinic, we went to visit two other doctors who represented more of the middle ground. In both cases, they had both foreign and local fee rates, and offered us a local rate, given that May was Thai. I suspect there was some surcharging happening, as I knew well that I was considered a walking ATM machine, and my mere presence would elevate the fees somewhat.

Our last visit was to Dr. Chettawut Tulayaphanich, at the Dr. Chettawut Clinic. He was an apparently highly skilled surgeon, and somewhat famous on the internet, at least for foreigners. We thought he might be the best and saved him for last thinking he might be the one we'd pick.

"That will be 500 baht ($14 USD) please".

I was a little shocked. We'd only been there 10 minutes asking him the same questions we'd asked the other four doctors, when he asked us to pay for the consultation. No other doctor had done that.

"If you want to discuss more, you will have to commit to my services and make a payment", he continued.

At 98,000 Bath ($2,600 USD), he was the most expensive doctor of all, and we weren't inclined to commit to someone who wouldn't even finish answering our questions, skilled or not.

"Yes, I'm always more expensive than Bumrungrad", he'd said with pride when I noted that fact.

It was at this point we realized why he had been smiling when he met us and during our short discussion. He was very rich.

We marked another "X" on our scorecard.

At the end of our quest we came to the conclusion that there was no reason to think the best doctor was the most expensive. Dr. Thep was a friendly, nice man, and with no doubt, had produced very natural looking, soft breasts on many a Ladyboy that we knew. He was also honest and had only one rate for all patients, giving him somewhat of a moral high-ground versus his peers. All this at the lowest price of all five doctors we visited.

However, we ultimately decided to use Dr. Kamol Pansitrum, of the MtF Aesthetic Surgery Center, in the east end of Bangkok. The reasons were a combination of several factors. First, we felt very comfortable with Dr. Kamol, which, for us, was very important. Second, we also wanted surgery under a general anaesthetic, in a hospital, which eliminated many doctors who used their own clinics. And finally, we liked his friendly staff and immaculate clinic for post-surgery follow-up.

How much? With the implant we selected and a hospital room for one night, the cost was 68,000 Baht ($1,800 USD), a local rate. The results were excellent, and we remain happy with the decision we made.

Our recommendation for other breast seekers is to be aware of local and foreign rates, don't exclude the need to feel comfortable with your doctor, understand local vs general anesthetic, clinic vs hospital, and make sure you ask for two breasts, not one or three! Also, there are several other very good clinics in Bangkok which we did not see that our friends are telling us about, so don't think this list is in any way representative of all your options. Also, prices may vary!

As for May's breasts, she now is more comfortable in a bikini and wandering on the beaches of Phuket, however, a new quest as started...

"Ziggy, I have to buy new clothes now!"