On the prowl with Mr Tiger

People often struggle to find a polite way of referring to their fellow citizens who are LGBT, the most popular choice being “the third sex”. It sounds appropriate on the surface, but gay activists have long pointed out the implied hierarchy in the term: Who is “the first sex”? It the third sex a new sex? 

And yet I still hear even scholars using the phrase “third sex” as if it explained everything. So today I would like to introduce Mr Tiger and ask where you would like to categorise him.

Mr Tiger was quite famous among gay men and kathoey at my college, not because he was handsome but because of what happened one night when he was drunk. He “streaked” through the dormitory naked and knocked on several doors, exposing himself to the residents. 

He had romantic relationships with both kathoey and women in college, but I never saw him courting any gay men and never imagined he would.

I met him again by chance at a recent wedding, where he was among the groom’s friends. I was surprised to see that he evidently remembered me. He glided toward me and swooped in with a stare, but I felt still haunted by his college reputation and turned my back without giving him a chance to say hello. I went off to a distant corner.

I was quite shocked by his eyes. Have you ever looked in the eyes of a starving tiger? His eyes were hungering for sex and he was ready to jump on me and tear me apart. So much for my assumption about Mr Tiger not lusting after gay men. 

I soon learned that a friend of mine worked with Mr Tiger and had once gone on a business trip with him, both of them sharing a hotel room. He said Mr Tiger was almost naked the whole time they were in the room and had tried to seduce him, even though he knew my friend was straight. 

The story made my skin crawl. He wanted sex with anyone he could!

Back to my question. If you believe that men should only have sex with women, count Mr Tiger in. If you believe the third sex only has sex with people of the same gender, count Mr Tiger in again. You might want to call him bisexual, but remember that he also likes kathoey. It gets confusing.

My friends and I would call him “multi-sexual”, but it’s an overly informal term, with no academic support. He could be called “queer” to indicate unclear orientation – but, on the other hand, does it need to be clear?

We naturally strive to categorise sexuality, creating fresh genres as needs be, but I have to agree with the academics that it’s an endless pursuit, and thus mainly pointless. Human sexuality is diverse to the point of unpredictability. 

So let’s not be strict about first sex and third sex and fourth and 16th sex. Let’s just watch the meadow bloom in all its colours.