The Shemale As A Figure in Art

She is both immersed in sex and gender and, paradoxically, at the same time, transcendent to them. She is, as it were, a third sex. As such, the shemale is a unique, wonderful, fascinating creature whose existence gives the lie to the notion that sex and gender are essential aspects of the human condition, demonstrating that these dimensions of human existence are, rather, accidents of nature and nurture, of genetics and education and that, if nature and nurture sometimes make mistakes, these mistakes can be corrected through human intervention.

Photographers, sculptors, and artists have depicted genetic women and hermaphrodites for centuries and shemales for decades. Therefore, the writer of shemale fiction can also learn from these, their fellow artists in other media, and use the literary equivalents that they employ to enhance their descriptions-and the eroticism of their descriptions-of the shemale characters whom they create in their fiction. A classic Internet text on the techniques that such artists use is Stefan Beyst's The Erotic Eye and the Erotic Senses, to which this article makes extensive reference.

Beyst starts his consideration of the erotic with theoretical accounts of the origin of the erotic. Later, he provides practical tips as to how to depict the naked human form in as highly erotic, sensual, and aesthetic a manner as possible. These practical tips, although directed at men and, especially, women (and, occasionally hermaphrodites), can be adapted to the description of shemales.

According to Beyst, erotic art results from the desire of parents to be always near one another in order to be able to assist each other in the care and nurture of their children. Since they can never actually always be together, their senses conspire, as it were, to keep the other in mind during his or her absence. Likewise, the senses help the lover and the beloved to be emotionally as well as physically close, helping to establish and to maintain physical and sexual as well as an emotional intimacy.