Shemales: An Appreciation

From a psychological point of view, shemales imply that a bisexual theory of human personality is correct: there is a female component to masculinity, just as there is a masculine dimension to femininity. Sex and gender are not the neat polar opposites that unsophisticated analysts of human nature and observers of human behavior perceive and believe. There is more complexity to human existence than a set of genitals or secondary sexual characteristics alone suggest, and, as a rule, people tend to prefer the simple to the complex, the black or white to the gray. Men want men to be men and women to be women, and women want women to be women and men to be men. That way, things are straightforward, and there is no room for confusion concerning actions, attitudes, beliefs, feelings, personal identity, social expectations, roles, and a thousand other areas related to individual and collective existence and behavior. Life is hard enough when the rules are clear. Shemales threaten the definitions, understandings, and riles that not only regulate behavior but also allow meaning.

Why, then, the question persists, do some people (mostly men, it seems) find shemales irresistibly attractive and preferable, even, to females?

There's more to them than meets the eye-initially, at least. They are a "surprise," some say. They represent the "best of both worlds," others declare. They are not women. They are apparent women. They are the sort of "women" whom men prefer who do not want real women, who want only men who look like women. However, these men do not want to admit that they prefer men to women. They do not want to admit, even to themselves, that they are homosexual, because, to them, such an admission, means that they are less than men themselves and presents them with the emotional and psychological quandary of both loving and rejecting their own masculinity, of feeling ambivalent about who and what they are. When the object of one's desire has long hair; a beautiful face; wears makeup and feminine attire; has round, womanly buttocks; has shaved legs, and is equipped with breasts, it is easier to accept the male genitals.