Gendered Ambivalence
33
jealous of their relationship and killed Pullinga. Itthi buried Pullinga’s body.
Soon afterward, Napumsaka died. Itthi also buried his body. While Itthi made
offerings of rice to her dead husband she avoided Napumsaka*s grave. Seeing
this, the three children asked her why she brought food to the first father and not
to the second father. She replied that she loved the first father, but did not love
the second father. After Itthi died, the three children collected the bodies of the
three parents and buried them, where they daily offered them food.
In the second generation of humans (having the same names as their
parents), Itthi dies and is buried by her husband Pullinga, who plants a tree over
her grave and makes daily offerings. After the hermaphrodite dies Pullinga
buries the body but ignores it thereafter. When Pullinga’s children enquire why
he only made offerings to the mother’s grave, he replies that he loved only the
mother and not the hermaphrodite (202-8212).5
Three interesting points arise in this myth. First, the hermaphrodite
commits the first murder. Second, “negative feelings” towards the
hermaphrodite, leading to its marginalisation, is expressed in both generations of
humans. (Matzner 2002) Third, each generation of children make a symbolic
rapprochement with the deceased hermaphrodite after its initial banishment. In
each generation the hermaphrodite is re-included in the society of humans where
it “rightfully” belongs in order to accord with the primordial design of a threegendered universe.
On this theme, some Buddhist writings refer to four genders (male,
female, hermaphrodite, and sexually deficient) (Winter 2003b). From a Thai
Buddhist perspective, kathoey are the product of sexual misdemeanours
committed in previous incarnations, and are therefore to be treated with
compassion (Winter 2002b). Winter (2002b) and Jackson (1998) note, "That
while being a kathoey is not ideal, her condition is understandable.” The
implication is that all humans have been kathoey in a previous life (Winter
2002b, Winter 2005). As Bunni explains:
i
Because the very people who laugh at kathoey were
themselves once kathoey . . . Absolutely everyone without
exception has been a kathoey- because we have been through
innumerable cycles of birth and death, and we don’t know
how many times we have been kathoey in past lives or how
many times we may be kathoey in the future (Bunmi
Methangkun, reported in Jackson 1998).
Tolerance of kathoey even extends to sexual liaisons with them.
Gearing (2001) points out that, "For many heterosexual Thais, sex with a
kathoey, while not openly approved, carries little of the stigma of going with a
female prostitute.” One reason for this could be that intercourse with prostitutes
being “natural women” compromises the heterosexual role of wives. However,
as I shall discuss later, kathoey are being increasingly represented as paragons of
Thai female beauty.