But what does a girl with few job skills (L. has worked in a convenience store, but little else) do? No college or decently-paying workplace would accept her -- her ID card says "male" but she's obviously not. She can't survive on her parents' incomes, as she's already 20-something, her mother is divorced and struggling and her father, well, she hasn't seen her father in twenty years. She could probably get a job as a gas-station attendant, but honestly, who wants to consider a career of that? Especially since, if she got into the management, they would start to speculate pretty hard about her exact sex status. She could always live as a boy, but that would be basically the same as committing suicide -- a complete denial of what she is, utterly giving up on her most fundamental self.
So what, then, does she do to pay the bills? She works as a so-called "third sex hostess," to translate from the Chinese term. This job is one of the harder ones on the planet, in terms of physical toll and mental strain. I know, I've experienced it first-hand. What does a "third-sex hostess" do? They get all dolled up, then go to work at some fairly dingy, certainly illegal bar or karaoke club which accepts their presence. They flit from table to table, at which sit clients of all sorts -- closeted gay men, thoroughly drunk gangsters, loud-mouthed school teachers, curious teenagers and probably any other kind of client you can think of. These clients pay a minimum charge for their drinks, and then the rest of the night's fees are very flexible. You see, the hostesses don't get paid a salary, or even a wage. They make what you might call a commission on entertainment.
A hostess sits down next to you, toasts you with whatever alcoholic concoction you've chosen for the night, and introduces herself (although more likely than not, you can't hear what she said, and she can't hear you when you introduce your own self). If you don't say anything else, she starts chatting with you -- where are you from? What do you like to do? First time here? Is she beautiful? How did you hear about the place? But of course, more likely than not, you've got your own agenda.
Maybe you came here to "play," so you ask her to come over and sit next to you. She tries to walk gracefully towards you, but of course the tables are all so densely packed with drunk warblers and bottles of tea-wine and flailing arms and knees and legs that she more than likely spills something on somebody, and gets cursed for it. Or maybe she's brave or experienced at this, and she makes it a game, sitting in the lap of each person between herself and you and planting a kiss on the cheek of each one. Or whatever. So she sits next to you, and chats a bit, but your hands are already at work. If you're a typical customer, amazed or enchanted or simply bamboozled with her beauty, your hands are probing to answer your Big Question -- does she have one or not? If she's a sweet girl, she'll be squeamish and push your hand away, but after all, you're paying for this, right? You push harder and start doing your thing, whatever that is.
Or maybe you're just curious. You wonder what it's like to be a hostess, and you ask her how it feels. Well, she knows better, no way is she going to tell you the truth, unless you're dressed in a Red Cross outfit. She tells you it's okay, business has been slow lately (which it always has -- that's the truth), but it's fun overall. She asks you what song you want to sing, and eventually pushes you up to the podium where she elegantly accompanies your painful screeches, much to the delight of the friends you came here with. Then she regales you with some anecdotes that make your boring life seem like a king's career. You're feeling pretty good about yourself now.
Or maybe you're a pro -- you know this whole scene, so you want to play a drinking game with her, see if she really is as good as they say. You play a few rounds with her, and she really is good, but you don't believe you could lose to a "shemale," so you leave without so much as a good-bye.
Whichever type of client you are, you finally dig out your wallet. At the sight of this, a dozen hostesses buzz around like bees to honey. You're so drunk, you can't remember who you've been talking to for the past hour. But no matter, you give a couple big bills to your friend who passes out the money for you. Of course, your friend got spilled on by the hostess you've been talking with, so he stiffs her (maybe even literally). But you don't care, you're here to feel good about yourself, not to help some shemale weirdo.
But that shemale weirdo, you see, has a life of her own. She dreams, of being a woman, of having a job that gives her a sense of meaning, of having a relationship with a man who doesn't just want her for what's between her legs, of living a peaceful life where she can see a sunrise or two without it reminding her to go to bed. Where she doesn't have to drink gallons of alcohol every night to make her clients happy. Where she doesn't have to get propositioned by some lascivious criminal who's just been rejected by ten prostitutes on the street and who considers her the last resort for some hot action tonight. Where the boss doesn't make her sleep with that client because he's the boss' friend or criminal associate. Where the boss of the place doesn't demand she sit with some boring asshole for two hours and pour his drinks while he rattles on about his military victories in some war that doesn't even exist and then remembers that she needs to be paid and gives her a dollar for a cab home. Where her entire income, her whole life doesn't depend on the drunk whims of a class of people who almost universally despise her on some level, who only value her as an object of scorn and pity.
She wants to live her life, maybe as a housewife, or as a secretary. But this society won't let her. If she maintains herself as an object of scorn, she'll get her little modicum of toleration, though of course never acceptance. But if she dares to brook the bounds society sets for her, she'll be beaten back down, the nail that sticks up. If
she ever gets money enough to do something for herself, it'll naturally
be implants or a facelift, or more implants and facelifts (because the
last ones have already begun to leak or been reabsorbed into the body).
If she gets her surgery and becomes the woman she wants to be, the law
won't recognize her change of status, so she's into triple-jeopardy rather than just double. Or she could always fight, but then everyone in
the entire country would immediately know her as a "shemale freak" (actually, the Chinese term really connotes "monster"), the newspapers put it that way), and she'll never be able to find a job again. Of course, maybe, just maybe, she might get lucky and find a rich client who's willing to pay for her surgery in exchange for a lifetime of servitude. Ah, but that's just an unrealistic dream. She'll probably just aim for being as beautiful as she can, and having sex with one or two boys who know her name, and trying to survive till 30. Yes, that would be everything L. needs, or at least all she can allow herself to dream of.
L. doesn't have a computer, but you can go back to my
main page or my gender page.
