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Narrative Messages

By: Cal Y. Pygia



The theme of a story is its moral, its message, its meaning. Today, the story's theme is rarely, if ever, explicitly stated. Instead, the writer leaves it to the reader to figure out the meaning of the story for him- or herself. The theme, in other words, is suggested by the story as a whole, especially through the main character's behavior and speech and through the action and dialogue of the other characters with whom he or she interacts. It is implicitly stated.

Because stories express themes, they have depth. A story without a message would be not only very simple, but it also would not be much worth reading. People want to be entertained. They also want to learn about life, about how others view life, and about what their stand-ins, the characters about whom they read, believe about life--or some narrow aspect of it--and why. People are constantly assessing and revising their own attitudes, beliefs, choices, decisions, emotions, ideas, perceptions, reasoning, and situations. Fiction--and the themes it expresses--helps them to do so.

This essay reviews my stand-alone transsexual stories that Literotica's readers have found most popular to date:

At Risk

Beefy Buns

Best Policy, The

Boy Meets Girl

End of the Line

Film At Eleven

Pygmalion

Triptych

I have also written BDSM, gay, and incest stories. If the essay proves popular. I may follow this survey with a sequel or sequels in which I discuss the themes of these other types of erotic fiction.

I've decided that the simplest approach is an alphabetical one, so I will consider the stories according to their sequence in the alphabet. Unlike Literotica, though, I am alphabetizing them according to the first major word of their title, meaning that I'm not counting definite or indefinite articles, such as "A," "An," or "The" as part of the titles. I won't summarize the stories in detail, assuming that the interested reader will already have read them or will read them before he or she reads my analyses of their themes.

With this approach in mind, the first story whose theme I'll discuss is "At Risk." Diane, the protagonist of this story, is a shemale. Let me explain what I mean by this term. Although many consider this noun a synonym for "transsexual," I limit its meaning, in my use of it, to what some refer to as a male-to-female "pre-operative transsexual," that is, to a man who has had all the transformational procedures performed except actual sex-reassignment surgery. This individual has completed psychological counseling, has had hormone therapy, has had breast augmentation surgery, and has had all the other complementary training and behavior modification, such as electrolysis, the shaving of the larynx, instructions on how to apply makeup, how to talk like a woman, how to walk like a woman, how to dress like a woman. All that is left is his male genitals, and these, for whatever reason, he has decided to retain. I understand that others use the term "shemale" without any such restrictions. Some may be offended by my own definition. Be that as it may, this is how, for my purposes as a writer, I define the term.

At the outset of "At Risk," Diane has low self-esteem. In fact, she hates herself. She intentionally withholds the information from her dates that she is a shemale, despite her knowledge that many men, feeling duped, react in a hostile manner, beating her, at times savagely. She doesn't accept the truth about herself. She doesn't admit that she is self-destructive or that her self-destructiveness stems from the hatred and contempt that she feels for herself. She is a masochist, but she has no idea as to why she enjoys being subjected to pain and humiliation. In fact, she thinks she is "proud to be a shemale." It is only after she meets Eric, a loving man who treats her with kindness and respect, that she realizes that someone else may value her just the way she is, cock and balls and all. At first, she hopes he will react as all the other men she's deceived about her true condition have reacted, by physically brutalizing her. Despite the fact that they have several dates, Eric remains a man of honor, treating her lovingly and kindly. Even after she springs her "surprise" on him, and he discovers that she is a shemale, he considers her to be beautiful and continues to treat her with respect and compassion. A year later, he is still treating her with the tenderness and gentleness of love.

The story's theme is expressed in the next-to-the-last paragraph of the story:

"She'd found her salvation in the arms of a strong, virile, tenderhearted man who loved her for herself, and she knew that she was luckier than millions of others who settled for less because, like her, they feared that there was no one else for them but some loser who would rather beat them than to love them. Really, truly loving a woman, whether she was a genetic girl or a shemale, took a strong man who was sure of his own manhood and who loved women, whether the woman was equipped with a cunt or a cock and pair of balls."

The story's last line (and paragraph) declares, "Diane had been at risk, but she wasn't anymore."

How was she at risk? Physically. She was often brutally beaten. She could have been killed. However, she was at risk emotionally, too. She had low-self esteem, and she hated herself, despite her self0deceptive insistence that "she was proud to be a shemale." She was suicidal, which is why she liked to "surprise" men with the true nature of her sexuality. She was also spiritually at risk. She was likely to live the lie she told herself (believing--or trying to believe--that she was "proud to be a shemale"). Living a lie is self-destructive on a spiritual as well as an emotional and physical level, this story implies, for, in living a lie, one is destroying oneself. One never allows herself to be what she is, and, therefore, in any true sense of the word, to live. One may kill one's spirit as well as one's flesh.

This story also shows that true love, not mere lust, is the key to one's salvation. As long as a person "settles" for less than true love, she need not hope of finding the one thing that really matters--love itself.

People learn to love and accept themselves, to be tender and gentle, kind and compassionate to themselves, "At Risk" suggests, the same way that they might learn to hate and reject themselves, to be harsh and violent, cruel and callous toward themselves: by how others treat them. People's self-images are more dependent on the perceptions and statements and treatment of others than they might like or know. That's all the more for people to someone who is loving, respectful, kind, and compassionate.

"Beefy Buns" takes place in a fast-food restaurant. Brad, the chauvinistic manager, is eager to see up Mona's skirt. However, she puts up with his boorish behavior until she is able to turn the tables on him, making him admit that he has homosexual feelings because he is fond of her, a shemale with both breasts and a cock and pair of balls. Since he is willing to accept her the way she is, she accepts him, too, telling him, "you're actually kind of cute when you're not being revolting." He proves he cares about her by letting her move into his place and taking care of her financially so she can quit her job at Beefy Buns. This story is about demanding respect from others because one respects herself. Unlike Diane ("At Risk"), Mona likes herself; she accepts herself and demands respect from any with whom she will be friends--or, in the case of Brian--more than friends. Although she is young, Mona knows what she's worth and demands the same respect from others as she has for herself. She's the one who learns, rather than teaches this lesson.

"The Best Policy," of course, is honesty. The characters in this story, Bill, and Jamie, are both honest people. Each is rewarded because of his or her honesty. Bill finds the bracelet that Jaime loses and returns it to her. A reward is offered for its return. The reward, he finds, is Jaime. Ironically, Jaime is also the reward for her own honesty, as symbolized by the bracelet, which her father gave her, as a "coming out present," when she publicly announced her identity as a shemale. The ring also represents her father's acceptance of her as his daughter. This acceptance (and the recognition, or reward, that followed it) came as a result of pain, of suffering, but had Jaime been afraid or unwilling to undergo this pain and to be honest with herself and her father as to who--and what--she is, a real relationship wouldn't have been possible with her father or herself: "He thought me a freak of nature, a perversion and a fraud. But I had to take hormones. I had to undergo electrolysis. I had to have surgery. I had to have breasts. I had to become who I am inside. I had to be a woman--in all details except my genitals. . . . Daddy got used to the idea that her son, James, was born to be his daughter, Jaime. When I turned sixteen, he flew me to Europe, so that I could begin my transformation. Two years later, I returned here, to his home, and he gave me the bracelet that you returned to me to mark the occasion of my coming out party. That's why it means so much to me. It's my father's expression of acceptance and love."

It is best to be oneself, this story suggests, even if it is painful to do so, for being true to oneself is its own reward. Honesty about oneself enables one to live an authentic life. It also allows one to be honest to others. As Shakespeare's character Polonius says in Hamlet, "Above all, unto thine own self be true,/For then it follows, as night follows day,/ Thou cans't not be false to any man."

"Boy Meets Girl" features a double date between two sisters, Stephanie and Jenny, and two brothers, Brad and Dave. Brad dates Stephanie, and Dave dates her younger sister. Stephanie, a transsexual who has completed sex-reassignment surgery, and Jenny, a shemale who has not come out concerning her sexuality, share common ideas about the nature of their sexual identities. Both are happy to be transgender. Brad and Dave contrast in their attitudes toward the girls, once they discover their dates' secrets. Brad, who is homophobic and chauvinistic, is aghast to find that Stephanie and Jenny are male-to-female transsexuals. However, Dave falls in love with Jenny just the way she is and is content to continue to date her. It is only because Stephanie blackmails Brad that he agrees to keep the nature of Stephanie's and Jenny's sexual identities secret. The two boys' attitudes represent the polar opposites that males have toward transsexuals. One finds them disgusting; the other, alluring. Jenny is supported by Stephanie, but she is loved by Dave. She comes to learn that some will reject and abhor her, whereas others will accept and adore her. This story shows that what matters is how one sees oneself. A shemale can accept either view that society, as represented by these teenage boys, has of transsexuals. Jenny decides to see herself as her sister and her date see her, rather than as Brad views her. How one sees oneself is just as much a matter of choice as one's sexual preference, if not one's sexuality. A boy may be born a girl, but she must also choose to embrace her feminine identity, as Jenny does. Otherwise, she'll be doomed to an existence similar to Diane's was, before she met Eric. She will be and remain "at risk."

This story also suggests that homophobia, chauvinism, sexism, and other such attitudes are also choices that people make. Although society may have taught that transsexuals and shemales, like homosexuals, are inferior, subhuman monsters, one need not believe this allegation. After one reaches the age of reason, he or she is free to reject such notions or to retain them. Brad decides to remain a hate-filled, sexist, homophobic, chauvinistic person; Dave chooses to embrace love, justice, and fairness. Where his brother remains a tormenter and a tyrant, Dave becomes a truly heroic, open-minded person. In every case--Stephanie's and Jenny's, Brad's and Dave's--attitude, belief, emotion, thought, and behavior are matters of choice to be decided once and for all time and to be expressed in everything one says and does each moment of his or her life.

In "End of the Line," an anonymous shemale is caught masturbating. This--an activity that is performed in secret and is often associated with shame, admitted or not--symbolizes her attitude toward herself. She wants to enjoy pleasure, but only secretly, furtively. It is as if she fears sharing herself intimately with someone else. Although pleasant in its own way, masturbation does not lead to intimacy with others; in fact, it can, by definition, exclude others. It suggests that a person can be self-sufficient, even when it comes to sexual intimacy, which many would argue is a fallacious notion. At best, masturbation is a temporary stopgap. It is intended to relieve one of his or her frustration only when a partner is unavailable.

The shame that often accompanies masturbation is clearly revealed by the shemale's reactions to being caught in the act by her seatmate: "Beside me, she froze, sitting motionless and silent. . . . She said nothing. . . . e still didn't say anything; she still didn't move." It is only after her fellow passenger takes over for her that she relaxes. The solitary act becomes a sharing: "She'd closed her eyes, looking as lovely as a sleeping angel as she breathed deeply, her whole body relaxed and still." 

Shemales know that they are not "normal." They know that they transcend sex and gender. They know that, like hermaphrodites in the ancient and medieval worlds, they are regarded by others, by "normal" people, as freaks of nature or, worse, as monsters. Although they can never be what they are not (normal), they long to be accepted, to belong, to be respected, to be valued and to be esteemed. They long, in short, to be loved. The seatmate tells the shemale, "You're beautiful" as he performs an intimate sexual act on her behalf, helping her to attain orgasm. This shemale and her newfound lover are headed for the right destination: Philadelphia, The City of Brotherly Love, and, when they reach their intended stopping place, the driver calls, "end of the line!"

"Film At Eleven" introduces its readers to a shemale exhibitionist who's also a "news hound." What is an exhibitionist? Someone who craves attention. This craving suggests that such a person lacks the very thing that he or she seeks. The exhibitionist is likely to be someone who is routinely ignored. He or she flaunts his or her body to get attention, to be acknowledged, to feel as if someone is aware of his or her existence. When they are younger, males wonder how women must feel to be gawked at by guys. Do they feel embarrassed? Self-conscious? Threatened? Most girls and women admit that, on the contrary, they enjoy being noticed. There are girl watchers because the girls want to be watched. They wear makeup and tight-fitting blouses. They wear skin-tight slacks or jeans. They wear mini-skirts. They wear bikinis. They wear thongs. A shemale is no different than a genetic girl. She also craves attention that she wouldn't get--at least, not to the same degree--were she not to flaunt her body.

Exhibitionists, psychologists say, also want to shock. They want to outrage. This is certainly one of the motives of the protagonist of "Film At Eleven": " I let my wrist brush against the side of my skirt, making sure to lift the hemline enough in the process to offer anyone behind me a good view of my ass cheeks. I usually do this several times, pretending to rub a sore spot on my hip or to scratch a persistent itch, letting only the lower halves of my buttocks show the first time, then half of them the next time, and maybe all of them the third time. Sometimes, I get so turned on that my cock stiffens and swells, and the men and women in front of me may get to see more than they'd bargained for when they'd entered the shopping center--a buxom young woman with shapely legs and a bulge in her crotch!" She is also thrilled at the chance of being "caught": ", I confess, the chance of getting caught is also quite exciting!"

She has developed several "stratagems" for exposing herself, as if by accident. Her boldest is to lose her entire dress while wearing neither bra nor panties beneath this outer garment so that she is "stripped bare, showing my tits, ass, and male genitals!" In confessing her fondness of employing this tactic, the narrator divulges yet another motive for her exhibitionism. She is too afraid to come out as a transsexual, despite her desire to be honest about who--and what--she is: "My secret would be known! Everyone who knew me would know the truth about me--that I wasn't the woman I appeared to be--that I was, in reality, a man with breasts--a chick with a dick--a shemale! Wherever I went, whether to work, to a party, out to dinner, or shopping, friends and strangers alike would know that, despite my beautiful, made-up face, my long tresses, my petite frame, my bouncing breasts, my sleek, tapering legs, and my womanly ass, I had a penis and testicles!" She wants to be honest; she wants to be true to herself. Thinking that she might have been videotaped by a news crew while employing this tactic, she has mixed feelings about her potential exposure on the nightly news: at first horrified by the thought, she then finds the possibility "a relief, actually, to no longer have to hide the truth about myself to family members, friends, and acquaintances. At last, I could be who I am, I thought. I could be myself--my true self. I could be me."

When her naked image is shown during the news that night, and she is revealed for what she is beneath her feminine clothes--a shemale--she realizes that outing herself has always been an unconscious motive on her part for her exhibitionism: " I realized that maybe this is what I'd wanted all along. Maybe I had wanted the world to know my secret. I hit the "Pause" button, freezing my transsexual image on my TV screen as I considered a startling idea. Maybe that was what had motivated me to exhibit myself, piecemeal, as it were, showing now my nipples, now my breasts, now my womanly buttocks, and, finally, my cock and balls along with everything else. Maybe, all this time, in exhibiting my charms, I had wanted the world to know that I was neither male nor female, but shemale--a sexy, hot creature that transcended sex and gender" Now that her secret is out, she finds, "I was glad."

This story, like several others of my more popular shemale stories, is about self-acceptance, about self-respect, about being true to oneself. This theme seems very popular with readers, who, by definition, identify with and relate to the story's main character and her plight, just as readers identify and relate to the protagonist of any other type of story and his or her dilemma.

"Pygmalion" is based on the ancient Greek myth about the sculptor by the same name who creates a statue of a beautiful woman, Galatea, with which he falls in love. Venus takes pity on the sculptor and brings his statue to life; they marry and have a child, Paphos, together. George Bernard Shaw based his play, Pygmalion, on the myth, and the movie My Fair Lady is, in turn, based on Shaw's play. In the movie, the main character is Professor Higgins, just as he is in this story, except that the former is a professor of languages, whereas the one in this story is a professor of art, who teaches Sculpture 101.

The myth of Pygmalion is obviously sexist and chauvinistic. It is a reversal, too, of sorts, on the fact that it is women who give birth to men (and, of course, to other women), for Pygmalion not only creates (fathers) his statue, but he, through Venus, brings it to life (gives birth to it). Therefore, Pygmalion is a member of the transgender community himself, playing the roles of both the male, as father, and the female, as mother.