Category: Sex Work

“Japan is Famously—or Notoriously—Known for its People Not Being Able to Say No.”

Turning Boys Into Men? The Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 8

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Photo (cropped) by Jim Flores on Unsplash.

Am I just projecting when I say Koreans too? Or that it’s mostly Korean and Japanese women, and especially young women, that suffer from this “involuntary consent”?

In a moment, I’ll share a passage about that from a recently published, thought-provoking book that you should totally buy, because it brought home to me just how gendered this stereotype was.

But first, I want to acknowledge that, of course, everyone has had the experience of being asked by bosses, relatives, and/or professors for unseen, undervalued, and usually unpaid labor, which social pressure prevented them from refusing.

There’s nothing specifically Korean or Japanese about this. Nor is expecting it of women the exclusive purview of Korean or Japanese men.

Photo by Valentin Fernandez on Unsplash.

But it’s also true that in this part of the world, that pressure is compounded by deeply hierarchical social relationships, gapjil, and long working hours combined with an expectation of unpaid overtime. And, with “superiors” generally doing the “asking,” Korean women’s relative lack of economic and political power means they do indeed get asked

Korean academia, for instance, remains notorious for all the verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and demands for personal errands professors inflict on their grad students. I want to convey my curious mix of relief and rage too, over learning that it’s not just me that notices it’s mostly female students that have to run those errands. And, as discussed in Part 2 of this series, I’ve already noticed the welcoming of prospective students that my female students are expected to do in the freezing cold every winter.

Which is why the following passage from Involuntary Consent: The Illusion of Choice in Japan’s Adult Video Industry (2023) by Akiko Takeyama, a professor of women, gender & sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, resonated so strongly. So strongly in fact, I didn’t even notice she also says “especially women” until I posted it here:

In Japanese society, where people are conventionally inclined to avoid conflict and prioritize social relationships over their own self-interest, the attitude that can lead to unforced but involuntary consent is ubiquitous. Japanese American anthropologist Dorinne Kondo has captured how Japanese people, especially women—herself included, as she became enmeshed in Japanese society as a “daughter” of her host family over the course of a two-year homestay in the 1980s—avoid saying no in their day-to-day lives. Similarly to the young Japanese women who become involved in AV, Kondo was not overtly coerced but nevertheless pressured to involuntarily agree to do things for others such as teaching English, fulfilling her duty as a filial “daughter,” and taking on the role of a ‘proper’ Japanese citizen. Her frustration grew as she felt herself becoming “trapped by social convention.” Kondo then realized that there was a profoundly different way of thinking about the self in Japan: individuality was valued only insofar as social relationships were not compromised. Under such circumstances, she “had no choice but to comply.” Kondo’s ethnographic moment vividly recaptures why [former AV actress Kozai Saki] could not say no or walk away when she faced her won dilemma. Her resistance would have deeply upset relational others at the filming site. Each time she convinced herself that everything would be fine if she would only yield to their demands.

(page 51; italics in originals)

But really, it released a cascade of thoughts. Next was that the biggest problem for vegetarians and vegans in Korea is not so much finding ingredients or suitable restaurants, but all the pressure bosses, coworkers, and family members will inflict on them to eat meat for the sake of avoiding causing awkwardness and inconvenience for everyone. And then, all the parallels with how to determine consent in the K-pop industry.

But if you’re still reading, I’m guessing it resonated with you too, right? If so, please do take a moment to let me know what it reminded you of, either in the comments or on social media. But I’ll be glad to have just gotten you thinking. And thanks for reading!

p.s. (My bad that the titular quote actually comes from a must-read interview of the author!).

The Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts Series:

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

In Just Two Minutes, My Eyes Were Opened to Why Resolving the Comfort Women Issue is so Necessary for Japan’s #MeToo

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Image by Jr Korpa on Unsplash.

For sixteen years, I’ve maintained a strict policy of never covering anything related to the “comfort women” issue. I already have my fair share of trolls, thank you very much, so don’t need to add Japanese and Korean ultra-nationalists to the mix.

With this convenient out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude though, I recently realized I’ve been missing a crucial connection to present discourses about sexual violence today, especially in Japan.

It just took two minutes, taken from the New Book Network’s podcast interview of Robert O’Mochain and Yuki Ueno about their book Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows (Routledge, 2022):

“The fixation with depicting comfort women as fake victims has repercussions for survivors of sexual assault today. Even if victims of abuse are not aware of comfort women issues, they are aware of the danger of being labeled a higaisha-buru (“fake victim”), and in the book we show how the association of ideas between ex-comfort women, and fake victims, and contemporary women who report sexual assault, is still a factor in the silencing of women, who have a right to report sexual assault, but…they remain in the shadows.

And, I think a good illustration of how this is relevant still today, is something that happened in 2020. There were prominent members of the main political party, the LDP, and there was an event there on a program that was looking at (unintelligible Japanese term?) through comfort women issues, and when the issue was under discussion a member of the House of Representatives, Sugita Mio, she made the comment “Women can lie as much they want.” Now she did issue an apology later for saying [that], but she wasn’t censured by her party for the comment. They actually refused to receive a petition against her then, when it came to the LDP headquarters…she is still around—she continues to exert influence as a lawmaker in the Diet. And the comment [about the refusal?] was “Why do you report it?”, so it’s part of public discourse. So I think it indicated there’s a determination there amongst ultra-conservative groups to depict ex-comfort women as fake victims, to cast doubt on their oral evidence, and that will affect all sexual assault survivors. I think that’s an important question that we’re exploring in the book.”

(Robert O’Mochain speaking,16:24-18:33)

Unfortunately for those of you who likewise now want to get their hands on said book, I think I speak for most of us when I say US$160–$204 is slightly out of our price range ㅠㅠ. So too, even US$44–$50 for a copy of Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist Movement edited by Emma Dalton and Caroline Norma (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) that I’ve long had my eye on, when you realize it’s only 141 pages long!

I therefore recommend the podcast interview again then, for more on links to the relative failure of Japan’s #MeToo movement (also Lile Otaki Donohue’s article in Trinity Women & Gender Minorities Review for an excellent 8-page summary and comparison with other countries), and the Daiwa Foundation’s video below for short interviews of the contributors to Voices:

Finally, it’s my birthday next week on—yes, really—International Women’s Day(!), so I think one source on Japan’s #MeToo movement even I can indulge myself on is the self-explanatory Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement by Ito Shiori :)

Has anyone read any of those books? Or have any other recommendations? Can any Japanese speakers please help with the term I couldn’t make out in the podcast at 17:25? Thanks!

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Pornography Actors are People too. Greater, not Less Access to Their Work Will Help Remind the Korean Public of That.

In response to a former Korean pornography actor’s shame preventing them from dating, I like to think that if they were monogamous with me, and didn’t behave in real life the ways they’d been required to in their videos, then I wouldn’t mind their past at all. But that’s all very easy to say when an opportunity to meet is so unlikely to ever occur. If it did, would I turn out to be a hypocrite? Would you?

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Source left, Namu Wiki. Source right, Joshua Gandara on Unsplash.

In Korea, something pretty big was cut from Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic portrait of the 1970s LA porn industry. But it wasn’t what you might think.

Instead, it was the three-minute scene where Julianne Moore, playing pornography actor Maggie/”Amber Waves,” tries and fails to get visitation rights to her son. Not only is it an extraordinary performance by Moore, but it also shows a very human side to the industry, providing a profoundly dark, thoughtful counterpoint to the glamour, sex, drugs, and tension that defines the rest of the movie. It was easily the most memorable scene from when I first watched the movie in New Zealand in 1998, and why I was virtually apoplectic when I suddenly realized it was just not there at all when I watched it again in Korea two years later.

Seeing the headline “Adult actress Seo Ha-hee looks for genuine love through tears” the same day as tributes to 25 years since the release of Boogie Nights then, I felt a duty to highlight her story. Yet it’s not really a news item per se, but rather a few slides from Insight’s Instagram account about her appearance (and lamentation) on a new Disney+ show; as Netizen Buzz has already translated the comments, the least I could do is translate the captions in a moment below.

But if felt insufficient.

Looking ahead then, eventually I’d like to cleave through the mass of (contradictory, hypocritical, patronizing, completely ineffectual) censorship laws in an attempt to determine exactly how South Korea remains one of the few developed countries where pornography is largely illegal. In particular, considering just how simple it is to download pornography from overseas, I’m especially intrigued by how the legal domestic Korean pornography industry continues to exist at all, when even pubic hair may not be shown on it (let alone genitalia) and the sex is so obviously simulated. Is the hospitality industry literally its only consumer, given that even in 2022, Korean hotels, motels, and yogwans still invariably have a few cable Korean pornography channels available on their TVs?

Either way, as Kelsey the Korean points out in her recent video above (from 6:08), while there’s a great deal about mainstream pornography that’s objectionable, it’s not like Korean censorship laws are achieving their stated aim of protecting the sexual morals of Koreans from it. If anything, she alleges, they may in fact be no small factor in their utter corruption and distortion. The lack of healthier homegrown options, I tend to agree, may indeed play no small role in channeling many young men to what (illegal) Korean pornography has become notorious for instead—an ongoing spy-cam epidemic.

Yes, healthy feminist pornography does exist—provided you’re prepared to pay for it, to help ensure the working conditions and salaries which make it such. And, seeing how much damage Korean censorship laws seem to have done in promoting unhealthy alternatives, then why not unblock access to other options?

In that sense of changing hearts and minds about pornography, would you say Seo Ha-ni’s “confession” below is a step in the right direction? Or do you think her shame about her former profession, so great that she hadn’t been prepared to date at all in the last five years, merely perpetuates stereotypes? Please let me know in the comments!

Source, all images: Insight @Instagram.

“I’m looking for a man who can understand what it’s like [/not worry about] to be [dating] a [former] pornography actor.”

A woman sheds tears in her quest to find true love.

[Insight reporter Gwon Gil-yeo]

Many people claim their loved one’s pasts are not important.

But if it were you, to what extent would that be true?

An interesting new dating reality program tests whether you can really fully understand/[not worry about/forgive] your true love’s past.

Released on Disney+ on 5 October, Pink Lie is a show in which one cast member each episode confesses lies they’ve been living under, in order to find true love from people who accept them for who they are.

In the first episode, Seo Ha-ni (36) drew attention for having formerly worked as a pornography actor.

For the last five years, she has run a candle manufacturing workshop. She describes herself as a candle artist, never revealing her past as a pornography actor.

She has performed at a high level in the industry, appearing in such movies as The Purpose of Reunion 2 and Private Tutor: Advanced Course (NSFW). [James—Rather confusedly, the former has no sex or nudity, and indeed is even available on YouTube.]

Seo Ha-ni, who cried while talking about her past, said “[Because of my former job], men [constantly] send me photos of their genitals or nude body shots on social media.”

This has meant she’s never been comfortable in romantic relationships.

Source: Insight

“I’m always worried that someone will recognize me in public,’ Seo Ha-ni said. “So, I’ve never held hands with a boyfriend while walking among the cherry blossoms. I’ve never had fun in water with a boyfriend in the summer, never walked together in the Autumn leaves, and never gone skiing with someone in the winter.”

In fact, Seo Ha-ni has [been so nervous she has] avoided men completely, confessing she has not been in a relationship in a whopping six years.

There is a lot of interest in her case, and everyone is anxious for her to find true love with someone without prejudice.

[James: The remaining two slides just explain a little more about the show.]

Meanwhile, three other women and four men appeared in the first episode.

They were: Han Ba-reum (33), a researcher at Samsung Electronics’ Future Technology Research Center; Han Da-on (31), a beauty company marketer; Kang Da-hae (26), an intern at a fashion company; Hong Ha-nu (32), CEO of Hallyu Entertainment; Park Han-gyeol (25), a wedding video company CEO, and Mo Chan-sol (29), an elementary school gym teacher.

Although they disclosed their age and occupation, in fact, just like Seo Ha-ni [at first], they were all lying.

According to the rules of the show, they must not reveal their lies [until their turns in later episodes].

MCs singer Kim Hee-chul, actor Lee Sun-bin, and YotuTuber RalRal all expressed their curiosity about what truths were hidden by the cast.

Episodes 1 and 2 of Pink Lie were released on 5 October, which single episodes to be released once a week on Wednesdays. (END)

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Why I Choose the Term “Sex Work” Over “Prostitution”—and You Should Too

Because most sex workers themselves do (duh). But if you’re looking for a deeper explanation, Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights, just out in a Korean translation, would be a great place to start.

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes. Sources: Aladin, mikoto.raw Photographer from Pexels.

Once upon a time, I lived with male sex workers in a red-light district in New Zealand, shortly before sex work’s decriminalization there. Truthfully, the experience was no great eye-opening introduction to LGBTQ politics and sex workers’ rights. They were under no obligation to provide one, and were much too busy working, taking drugs, and partying to care anyway, even when they saved time by doing all three simultaneously. Mostly then, what I did learn was how to dance half-naked to Cher’s latest hit on the DJ equipment in our living room, which also happened to have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Eastern Orthodox iconography of saints hanging on its walls. (It’s a long story.) Under their judgmental eyes, I’d hear a great many confessions from my newfound friends and flatmates over the next 18 months, including letting go of their tough, affected exteriors for a moment and letting me know how much it bothered them that I—who should know better—called them “prostitutes.” Of course I stopped immediately, just like it’s basic respect to automatically defer to people’s preferred pronouns today.

Sadly, since moving to Korea and settling down, I only occasionally dance half-naked in the living room now. (My teenage daughters are somewhat less sad about that.) Also, recent events notwithstanding, I’m a lot less likely to find amphetamines lying around on the floor than I did back then too. Which is a pity, because I needed the energy. For a long time, I was just too sleep-deprived and focused on nappies and piggy-backs to give much thought to sex work. Just between you and me, I may even have been too tired to remember to use the s-word for a while.

Then I started this blog. Although I can’t claim to have personally met sex workers and activists as a result of my eye-catching, shamelessly stolen byline, I have met people who know many well. Again, I learned that worldwide, terms that focus on the job, rather than historical terms that stigmatize with their connotations of criminality and immorality, are generally preferred by sex workers themselves. So I’ve been at pains to use “sex work(er)” ever since. (In Korean, “성노동[자],” rather than the generic “성매매.”)

You may be surprised then, to learn at the visceral reaction you can receive at calling members of a profession what they actually want to be called, as recently explained by Hankyoreh columnist Han Seung-eun:

성노동이라는 단어를 쓸 때면 손끝에서 미세한 진동이 느껴진다. 오랜 시간 성매매를 둘러싼 긴장과 대립을 간접 경험하며 생긴 반응이다. 성매매가 아닌 성노동이라고 표현하는 순간, 이어질 문장들은 사라지고 납작한 메시지만 수신된다. ‘당신은 성매매가 얼마나 성차별적이고 폭력적인지 인정하지 않는군요. 어떻게 성을 사고파는 일을 노동이라 표현하죠? 그 현장이 얼마나 참혹한지 몰라서 하는 말인가요? ’나는 금기가 된 단어를 사용하는 일보다, 그 금기로 인해 더 많은 논의가 이어지지 못하는 현실을 두려워하기로 했다.

When I use the term “sex work,” I feel a slight tingling in my fingertips. I get this physical sensation as an indirect reaction to the tension and confrontation I’ve been feeling for a long time whenever I choose how to discuss the selling of sexual services. You see, as soon as I choose the term “sex work” instead of “prostitution,” all nuance gets lost and I get these dogmatic, stock responses of “Don’t you know how sexually discriminatory and violent it is? How can you describe the buying and selling or sex as just ‘work’? Don’t you realize how horrendous and gruesome it is?” The word was so taboo, that I was scared of using it at all lest it just close the conversation down completely.

Of course, things are more complicated than that. It’s no secret that that those who support the abolition of the sex trade generally prefer the p-word instead. To use the s-word is to declare your politics.

Are things really all that more complicated though? Just on its own objective merits, the p-word has very little to recommend it, as that last link makes clear.

More to the point, I feel compelled to reiterate that if sex workers think of themselves as workers, then I’m inclined to believe they have good reasons for that. Not so much, to listen to sex work abolitionists—or anyone else—who claim to know the wants and needs of a group better than members of a group themselves.

I stress I’m no expert. But I’ve just found an opportunity to learn more. Through Han Seung-eun’s column (actually a review) appearing in my feed today, I learned of the book Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights (2018) by Juno Mac and Molly Smith, which by all accounts provides a very balanced, nuanced argument for decriminalization (alas, Nordic Model Now! disagrees). Now updated in a 2020 edition, I’m glad to have been made aware of it and to have learned that a Korean translation has recently been released, and the least I could do is to also let you know about it too.

Please check out publisher Verso for ordering information. Unfortunately for Korea-based readers, even with a sale on at the moment the time and cost of sending a paperback from the UK are prohibitive. However, it is very cheap to buy on Aladin.

What are you waiting for?

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

How does military conscription affect Korean gender relations and attitudes to women?

The vision of male-female relations that conscription engenders—that men’s role is to do important work for the nation, while women’s is to remain on the sidelines offering their support through youthful looks and sexual availability—is pervasive in Korean daily life.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes. Photo (modified) by Berwin Coroza on Unsplash.

Last week, came the monumental news that Korean men were going to be offered alternatives to mandatory military service. So, CNN reporter James Griffiths asked me for some input into the Korean military’s background, specifically conscription’s effects on Korean gender relations. Little of my email could make it to his final article though, so here’s my full response for some context and further reading:

1) How does the military conscription issue affect gender relations and attitudes to women?

It’s difficult to overemphasize the role of the military as a socialization agent. Consider their ages: most Korean men choose to do their military service after their first year of university, barely out of high school, and Korea’s education hell means most would have had very little time for dating previously. Ironically though, new recruits can face being ostracized if they don’t have sexual experience, so many Korean men’s first sexual experience is with a sex worker just before enlistment. Visiting sex workers during their service is also considered normal. This is not wrong, but it is combined with frequent sexualized K-pop girl-group performances on bases, their ubiquitous messages of support for the troops in the media, and their being prominently featured on the military intranet (there are even military K-pop charts). This vision of women and male-female relations that the combination engenders—that men’s role is to do important work for the nation, while women’s is to remain on the sidelines offering their support, especially through their youthful looks and sexual availability—is pervasive in Korean daily life.

Military Manpower Association (MMA) endorsement models Apink saying “Thank you for choosing to enter the military. You are Korea’s REAL men!” (MMA Facebook page).

That may sound like hyperbole, but it is telling that Korea is the only country in East Asia where it is customary to use superiority-based titles in place of names in the workplace, and that even the Samsung Economic Research Institute once said that mistreatment by superiors in Korean companies is so pervasive that “many workers…take it for granted that they have to tolerate anything in return for getting paid.” In other words, when hierarchical military culture has had such a profound effect on the Korean workplace, and indeed much else about Korean daily life, then it is not unreasonable to see its role in shaping Korean gender relations too.

2) As regards the anti-feminist backlash from men’s rights groups, how driven is this by perceived unfairness of military service?

It is overwhelmingly driven by this perceived unfairness. But the media has done much to fan the flames, especially by encouraging the scapegoating of young women by exaggerating their economic successes in relation to men, and by perpetuating many negative stereotypes of them. In particular, that of the kimchi-nyeo (kimchi bitch), which refers to an economically successful woman who exploits her female privilege in not having to do military service, but who still expects men to pay on dates, who (always successfully) cries sexism when a man is promoted over her, and so on. Korea’s grossly skewed sex ratio among 20-somethings has a huge role to play in this backlash too, consequence of Korea’s sex selective abortions in the 1990s.

That Korea has the highest gender gap in the OECD however, is conveniently ignored by men’s rights groups. One can argue that it exists simply because women lose experience and rank after taking time off to have children, which is indeed crucial in what are such hierarchical, seniority-based companies as explained. But the gap also very much exists because doing military service comes with a host of indirect benefits, including taking advantage of their old boys networks created during their service, and of the widespread attitudes that men are more deserving of jobs (explicitly enshrined in government policy during the 1997 and 2008 financial crises), and that women, if no longer youthful and and sexually-available, should again step aside and support men from the sidelines by quitting their jobs by staying home to raise the children.

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Korean Students Challenging Slut-Shaming and the Madonna-Whore Complex

ewha-madonna-whore(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

Today’s post is a collection of encouraging images and words from the incredibly woke students of the Ewha University Women’s Committee (이화여성위원회/@ewhalovewom), which were used in their 16th Feminism Festival.

I hope you’re inspired by them, and I’d love to hear of any similar examples, and/or of anything else you’d like translated. Especially if they’re related to my birthday International Women’s Day that is coming up in a couple of weeks, and will help spread the word about Korean events :)

ewha-16th-feminism-festivalThe title of the festival poster reads “Becoming a slut.” (Lit. “The technology/method of weaving/making a slut.”)

(Source: @ewhalovewom)
ewha-madonna-whore-2(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

From a noticeboard at the event.

ewha-madonna-whore-3(Source: @ewhalovewom)

It reads:

A word for a “male slut” doesn’t exist. If you search for it on Google, you’ll only find “transvestite.”

“Slut”: there’s no more powerful word for criticizing women. It has the power to destroy them. In practice, it is used in so many ways to attack women.

We are going to think about that at this festival. Everyone’s situation is different, but we need to talk more about the words “slut” and “prostitute,” and to redefine them. When even the most trivial things about women are used to attack them as sluts, rather than avoiding the word shouldn’t we instead reconsider the images the word evokes?

Although what we have written is not eloquent, please enjoy reading it.

Let’s begin the 16th Feminism Festival!

ewha-madonna-whore-4(Source: @ewhalovewom)

ewha-madonna-whore-4aIf you don’t look naturally at the many varied forms of women’s lives, but only look at them through one twisted lens, then that is a form of misogyny. In the end, it’s not that people hate women living alone or studying abroad per se. I think it’s more that people look suspiciously at women who are not under the protection of their families, calling them sluts.

“Nobody can avoid being accused of being a slut.” (Hee-da)

ewha-madonna-whore-4bHow can it be convincing when you say that “The cause of sexual violence has nothing to do with women’s exposure” on the hand, but on the other hand say to women “Don’t wear such revealing clothes”?

“DON’T DO THAT. Don’t do that!” (Yeol-mae)

ewha-madonna-whore-4cIf you talk about women working as tenpro* by just using that label, as if they were just numbers rather than real women with real names, then you’re dehumanizing them and indirectly criticizing them. Instead, we can talk about why they became tenpro, and how come that kind of profession exists.

“Even if they are numbered, their names are not numbers.” (Bam-cha)

*This means “high class prostitute”; am embarrassed to say this was the first time I’d ever heard of this surprisingly common word.

ewha-madonna-whore-4dA teacher and a prostitute. Or, a prostitute and a teacher. I hesitate at the point where these two subjects meet. But the more I hesitated, the more I thought I should write about this. This is about my fear and insincerity when I met a prostitute.

“This is about those things.” (Sung-hyeon.)

ewha-madonna-whore-4eTo victims of sexual violence, people commonly recommend saying that they were virgins. They have to prove that [they didn’t deserve it a little by showing that] they are not bitches, they are not women who exploit their sexual attractiveness, they are not women who just play around and don’t listen to people, and that they are not the kind of women who deserve to get raped, and so on.

“Our society’s S-line.” (Rumble.)

ewha-madonna-whore-4fTo a woman, labeling her a “prostitute” is like a warning to other women, which forces those other women to act modestly and appropriately. Ultimately, it functions to control women.

“A phase of the university festival.” (Yeon-o)

ewha-madonna-whore-5(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

This one, a test for whether you’re a saint, a kimchi-girl, or a slut, looks like a lot of fun, but formatting it for this post looks a little difficult sorry. But I’ll happily try if anyone asks.

Underneath, people are encouraged post about taboos and unwritten rules they’ve heard. The three examples at the top read:

  • “Don’t go on a working holiday to Australia, people might misunderstand [your reasons for going].”
  • “Isn’t that lipstick shade too slutty-looking?”
  • “Don’t wear that short skirt!”
ewha-madonna-whore-6(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

Apologies that the festival was actually held two years ago BTW, as eagle-eyed readers will already have spotted. But those images still resonate, which is probably why they somehow surfaced in my Twitter feed last week. So too this tweet below, which I think is speaking about stereotypes of passive Korean women, but am not sure if it’s critiquing them or perpetuating them sorry (even my wife struggled with its meaning). Hence this post, just in case in was the latter!

asian-women-western-women-false-dichotomyRelated Posts:

Radio Interview on Australian Immigration Tonight, 7pm

White Australia Policy(Source)

Tonight I’ll be on Busan e-FM’s Let’s Talk Busan again, this time talking about Australian immigration, working holidays, and multiculturalism, prompted by the recent, possibly racially-motivated murder of a Korean woman in Brisbane. You can listen live on the radio at 90.5, online here (please note that you’ll have to download Windows Media Player 10 first), or via an archived version here later in the week.

Unfortunately(?), there are precious few links to Korean feminism, sexuality, or pop-culture to explore, except perhaps in so far as Australia has become a destination for Korean sex-trafficking. As The Joongang Daily explains, “some data say that about one-sixth of all women providing sex for money in Australia are Korean,” a surge in 2012 “largely attributed to legal loopholes in the working holiday visa system and a lack of administrative monitoring” according to The Korea Times. From experience though, probably there’ll be little time or opportunity to cover that angle, especially as the emphasis will be on racially-motivated attacks.

One personal link however, is that by coincidence my last job was teaching English to and preparing students for working holidays in Brisbane, just like the victim was doing. Teaching them for 4 to 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, I got to know them very well, and read the recent news with wide-eyed alarm, before remembering that they’ve all long since returned.

Another link is that as a former immigrant there myself, Australian immigration policies and multiculturalism have long been big interests of mine, and I devoured Stephen Castles’ books on the subjects as an undergraduate. Likely, many readers themselves have heard of the White Australia Policy (1901-1973), which figures prominently in Australia’s history. So, in keeping with the themes of this bog, let me pass on an interesting Australian ABC podcast about how its contradictions coalesced in a national “rapture” over Chinese-Amercian Anna May Wong’s visit in the late-1930s. Fascinating in her own right, I’d appreciate any suggestions for how and where to watch her movies:

Annie May Wong Australia(Source)

Anna May Wong was Hollywood’s first Chinese-American star. Her career started in the silent movie era, peaked in the interwar talkies and faded in the early years of television. Racist censorship laws meant she could never be cast as the romantic lead, instead she shone in sinister vamp and villain roles alongside the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Douglas Fairbanks. It’s a little known fact that this icon of Hollywood’s golden age spent three months in Australia on the eve of the Second World War.

Anna May Wong was at a crossroads in her career when she came to Australia to appear on stage as the star attraction in a vaudeville show on the Tivoli circuit, Highlights from Hollywood. She was sick of the typecasting and wanted a chance to reflect on her career at a distance from Hollywood. As it turned out, Australia was her last taste of the high life.

Since Federation, Australian national identity had been formed around the exclusion of the Chinese, but for Anna May Wong the red carpet came out. This feature traces the vivid details of her time in Australia and explores the contradictions of White Australia’s rapture over Anna May Wong.

Naturally, as Koreans’ experiences of racism in Australia will be very different to my own, and as I haven’t actually lived there since 1990 (my father still does; my last visit was in 2008), then during the show itself I’ll be deferring to other guests for most of time, particularly one who has just returned from a working holiday in Australia. Here’s looking forward to learning some new perspectives tonight!

URGENT: International Day of Protest against Violent Abuse and Murders of Sex Workers

Korea Prostitution Violence Protest(Source)

I’ve just been asked to pass on the following. The organizers apologize for the last minute notice:

International Day of Protest against violent Abuse and Murders of Sex Workers
세계 성노동자 폭행 및 살해에 대한 항의의 날

On July 19th, 2013, people are gathering in 35 cities across the globe to protest against violence against sex workers.

Following the murders of Dora Özer and Petite Jasmine on the 9th and 11 of July 2013, sex workers, their friends, families, and allies are coming together to demand an end to stigma, criminalisation, violence and murders. In the week since the two tragedies occurred, the feelings of anger, grief, sadness and injustice – for the loss of Dora and Jasmine, but also for the senseless and systemic murders and violence against sex workers worldwide – have brought together people in 35 cities from four continents who agreed to organise demos, vigils, and protests in front of Turkish and Swedish embassies or other symbolic places. JOIN US on Friday the 19th at 3 pm local time and stand in solidarity with sex workers and their loved ones around the world! Justice for Dora! Justice for Jasmine! Justice for all sex workers who are victims of violence!


Main Website: http://jasmineanddora.wordpress.com/

Seoul: http://jasmineanddora.wordpress.com/seoul

Meet at Yeo-i-yean Office (Center for Women’s & Cultural Theory) from 1pm
여이연(여성문화이론 연구소) 오후 1시

Bring pink roses and red umbrellas!
분홍 장미와 빨간우산도 준비해주세요!

Contact:  밀사 @Milsa_

Visit the Facebook Event Page

English-to-Korean Translator Needed!

English-to-Korean Translator Wanted(Source)

I’ve been asked to pass on the following:

Research Project Korea is urgently looking for an English-to-Korean translator for a one-off translation job.

In May, leading German news magazine DER SPIEGEL published a deeply flawed and heavily biased cover story about the alleged failure of the German prostitution law. (see here) The article, published in German and English, is since being used by anti-prostitution activists and politicians as “evidence” that the German prostitution law lead to an increase in human trafficking in Germany, although official statistics by the federal criminal police (BKA) show the opposite is true.

A Korean sex worker has informed me that several Korean newspapers recently published articles about the SPIEGEL report, which jeopardises the ongoing review of Korea’s Anti-Sex Trade Law by the Korean Supreme Court. We are therefore looking for a translator who will translate a detailed critique, written by Sonja Dolinsek and myself, in which we debunk the claims of the SPIEGEL report, to make it available to Korean audiences.

Does legal prostitution really increase human trafficking in Germany? | Feminist Ire
The text has 17,382 characters (with spaces), equalling 316 lines. You can view the article here.

Please contact Matthias Lehmann at yongsagisa[at]gmail[dot]com and include a sample of your work and a quote of how much you would like to be paid. We are planning a fundraiser to be able to pay for the translation.

Research Project Korea examines the impact of Korea’s Anti-Sex Trade Law on sex workers’ human rights. If this is the first time you visit our blog, please read the About page or our guest post on The Grand Narrative.

Korean Sociological Image #72: Girl-group performances for the military

In the commercial above, a conscripted soldier is happy that his girlfriend is coming to visit him. What really gets him and his buddies running though, in a play on the faster downloading speeds of KT’s 4G LTE network, is the arrival of a girl-group on his army base.

With 300-350,000 new conscripts annually, one of the longest conscription periods in the world, and a grisly — but improving — record of bullying and abysmal living conditions, keeping the troops entertained can safely be assumed to have long been a big concern of the South Korean military. Accordingly, televised visits by girl-groups and entertainers have become a recognizable part of Korean popular culture (although they originally performed for US soldiers). Here’s an example with actress Shin Se-Kyung (신세경), performing on an army base as part of the very popular Infinity Challenge (무한도전) show last year (episode 269, aired October 1):

For those many more conscripts not lucky enough to have pretty female celebrities come to their own base though, the blog Sorry, I was drunk provides an interesting, *very frank* insider account of what they thought of girl-groups, as well as prostitution, cheating on partners, Caucasian girlfriends, and marriage. Here’s what the author wrote about the former:

…I knew Korean guys, especially sexually deprived conscripts, liked female celebrities (duh, right?), but I didn’t know how bad that affection was. I learned that Korean conscripts in general are obsessed with K-Pop girl groups, in particular Girls’ Generation. By obsessed, I mean really obsessed. A good example of this is rapper Psy’s description of his military service.

In this show, Psy says he was made to stand guard while watching the TV so he could alert senior conscripts that Girls’ Generation was on it. While it wasn’t that extreme in my unit, it was quite normal to see guys flock to the TV whenever GG or other good looking female celebrities were on air. Every Friday and Saturday, when the major networks have those “music” shows parading group after group, entire units would stay glued to the TV. Guys would watch the same music video or performance repeatedly so they could oggle at the girls. Their bare legs exposed, sexy dancing, and terrible music (not a secret among conscripts either), it was pretty obvious there was only one reason for these “musicians” to exist. These girls are glorified strippers, covered in the thin veil of “music” so it doesn’t seem as creepy and sad as going to a strip club. For conscripts, it’s usually the only form of sexual gratification they’re allowed while on base.

See also:

(For more posts in the Korean Sociological Image series, see here)

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Workshop: “U.S. Military Camptown Prostitution in Korea: 1945-Present”

I’ve been asked to pass on the following:

As you may or may not know, the House of Sharing International Outreach Team has recently regrouped under the name, Women’s Global Solidarty Action Network. Our new expanded goals include focusing on issues of sexual slavery, trafficking women and the “comfort women” issue. This Saturday (June 9th), we will be hosting a workshop under the title “U.S. Military Camptown Prostitution in Korea: 1945-Present”. The workshop will be given by Professor Nah Young Lee.

To get to the center, take line 4 to the Sungshin Women’s University Entrance (성신여자대학교입구) stop. Go out exit 4 and a building with a traditional Korean roof (hanok) will be in front of you. Go into the building and up to the second floor. Please note the center is very close to exit 4, and not on the University’s campus.

For more information, email womens.global.solidarity@gmail.com, visit the Facebook event page, or contact Shannon at 010-4534-1553.

“Good women need our help, bad women need to be punished” — Learning about Sex Workers’ Rights in South Korea

Caption: South Korean women working in the sex industry stand on a stage during a rally in central Seoul on September 22, 2011 in protest at frequent crackdowns by authorities. About 1,500 women wearing masks to conceal their identities chanted slogans such as ‘Sex work is not a crime, but labour!’ and called for the abolition of a special law enacted in 2004 to curb prostitution. [Photo: Jung Yeon-Je — AFP/Getty Images]

[James] — Since September 2011, German-born researcher Matthias Lehmann has been conducting an independent research project to investigate the impact of South Korea’s Anti-Sex Trade Laws on sex workers’ human rights and livelihood. In this guest post for The Grand Narrative, he outlines key events that led to the adoption of the problematic law and the motivation for his research:

Korea’s Anti-Sex Trade Laws

In September 2000, the notorious Gunsan Brothel Fire killed five women who had been held captive. Their tragic deaths exposed the conditions in Korea’s sex industry and triggered a campaign by women’s rights activists to reform the country’s prostitution laws. Their proposals became the blueprint for the Special Laws on Sex Trade (성매매특별법, Seongmaemae Tteukbyeolbeob), enacted in 2004, which include a Prevention Act and a Punishment Act. By passing these new laws, the government vowed to eliminate prostitution and protect victims of exploitation and violence in the sex industry.

The laws drew inspiration from the Swedish Violence Against Women Act (the Kvinnofrid law) from 1999, which criminalises the purchase of sexual services but aims to protect women working in the sex industry. The success of the Swedish model remains heavily contested. In 2010, the government issued an evaluation report that found that the law had achieved its objectives, to which government member Camilla Lindberg and opposition member Marianne Berg responded by publishing a bi-partisan article stating that the law had not only failed to protect women but instead hurt them, and thus had to be repealed.

In Korea, the Special Laws on Sex Trade remain a subject of debate. The Ministry of Gender Equality celebrated the legislation as a milestone achievement that would “vigorously strengthen the protection of the human rights of women in prostitution”. However, others criticise the legislation’s discriminatory attitude towards sex workers, who remain criminalised unless they claim to be victims. This “distinction between victims and those who [voluntarily] sell sex is actually one between protection and punishment” and categorises women into “good women who are worthy of help” and “bad ones who need to be punished”, thus continuing the stigmatisation of women who sell sex.

The Criminalisation of Prostitution Has Failed

Surveys have shown time and again, that despite being illegal, prostitution remains widespread in South Korea. Most recently, a state-funded survey found that 53 per cent of Korea’s sexually active senior citizens bought sex at brothels. A 2005 study found that “only 6 per cent of crimes occurred through the intermediary of a brothel, compared to 34 per cent via the internet, 26 per cent in massage parlours and barber shops.” The same study stated that the Anti-Sex Trade Laws had simply forced prostitutes further underground and overseas, as well as resulted in an increase in Korean sex tourists, a development very similar to that in Sweden.

According to the recent Report of the UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work, “the approach of criminalising the client has been shown to backfire on sex workers. In Sweden, sex workers who were unable to work indoors were left on the street with the most dangerous clients and little choice but to accept them. … [Criminal laws] create an environment of fear and marginalisation for sex workers, who often have to work in remote and unsafe locations to avoid arrest of themselves or their clients. These laws can undermine sex workers’ ability to work together to identify potentially violent clients and their capacity to demand condom use of clients.”

Caption: Screenshot from a short film by Istvan Gabor Takacs, Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and the Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network

Research Project Korea

Conducting research into the human rights situation of Korean sex workers is of particular importance because, while Korean sex workers have some links to the global sex workers’ rights movement, too little is known about their everyday experiences.

Since 2004, Korean sex workers have repeatedly staged organised protests against the Anti-Sex Trade Laws and police harassment, most famously in May 2011, when pictures of sex workers dousing themselves in flammable liquid made global headlines.

Caption: South Korean prostitutes in underwear and covered in body and face paint, douse themselves in flammable liquid in an apparent attempt to burn themselves after a rally in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 17, 2011. Hundreds of prostitutes and pimps rallied Tuesday near a red-light district in Seoul to protest a police crackdown on brothels, with some unsuccessfully attempting to set themselves on fire. [AP Photo/Lee Jin-man]

But despite an even bigger protest last September, the human rights situation of sex workers remains grim. While I cannot yet estimate the frequency of such occurrences, it is evident that verbal and physical abuses against sex workers are common features of police raids in the Korean sex industry, as is corruption.

Human Rights become Collateral Damage

Through my previous research and work in the field of human trafficking prevention, I have gained a deeper insight into the negative side effects of anti-trafficking policies. Research by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women found that some of them are undesired or unexpected, while others result from problems related to the implementation of new legislation, such as the lack of knowledge, training or aptitude of law enforcement officials.

But there are also desired side effects, resulting from policies that are intentionally worded vaguely and do little more than to satisfy what international human rights standards require. As a result, human rights quickly become the collateral damage of urban redevelopment projects, such as in Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo district, or efforts to curb unofficial migration and undocumented labour.

The conflation of anti-trafficking measures with campaigns to eradicate the sex industry has resulted in uneven policies that do not help the majority of trafficking victims, but instead drive the sex industry further underground, cutting off sex workers from their usual support networks.

Improving sex work-related legislation is a hotly contested issue that deserves to be discussed on the basis of sound knowledge, which I like to contribute to through my research. However, my project is not just meant to add to academic or legal discourses.

Graphic Novel about Sex Work

Sex workers often rightly criticise researchers, politicians or the media for distorting the reality of the sex industry. We are therefore developing a graphic novel entirely based on experiences shared with us by sex workers in Korea. It will be made available in both English and Korean, with the publication planned for the second half of this year.

Many Koreans have a keen interest in supporting humanitarian causes abroad. Yet, I have found that they are often quite surprised to learn that the hardships that sex workers endure in Korea can be quite different from their expectations.

Through the graphic novel, we would like to help making the situation of Korean sex workers known to a wider audience, both in Korea and abroad, in order for people to better understand that sex workers are part of their communities and deserve the same rights just as everyone else.

Research Project Korea + You!

Research Project Korea is an independent research project, unaffiliated to any university or organisation and exclusively funded by private donations. We publish regular updates on the project’s website, where you can also learn more about my team, and you can follow us via Facebook and Twitter. A Korean language section will be added to the website shortly.

Please visit our website to learn how you can support us and how our funds are spent.

WordPress: http://researchprojectkorea.wordpress.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Research.Project.Korea
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/photogroffee

Further information and highly recommended viewing/reading

[VIDEO] “We want to save you. And if you don’t appreciate it, we will punish you!”
Swedish sexworker Pye Jacobsson on the criminalization of clients
http://swannet.org/node/1512

[ARTICLE] Wendy Lyon “UNAIDS Advisory Group condemns Swedish sex purchase ban”
http://feministire.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/unaids-advisory-group-condemns-swedish-sex-purchase-ban/

[VIDEO] South Korean sex workers rally | Reuters News Agency
http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/09/22/south-korean-sex-workers-rally?videoId=221848792

[IMAGES] South Korean Prostitutes Protest Closing of Brothels
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2072487,00.html

[ORGANISATION] Giant Girls – Korean Sex Workers Union
http://www.ggSexworker.org

[ORGANISATION] Hanteo – National Sex Workers Union
http://www.han-teo.co.kr

63 Years On: Free Screening in Seoul this Sunday

With thanks to Shannon Heit for letting me know, this Sunday at Jogyesa Temple in Seoul there will be a free screening of 63 Years On, an award-winning documentary about the Comfort Women (with English subtitles). If you’re interested in attending, please see the press release (an MS Word file) for further details, and note that it actually starts at 2pm, not 3pm as stated in the poster (which I’ve confirmed is a mistake).

What’s going on in a Gangnam Host Bar at 2am? (Part 2)

( Source )

Part 2 in the series from the Seoul Shinmun, kindly translated by Marilyn; for Part 1 and a wider discussion of what “Host Bars” are exactly, see here. Meanwhile, yes, I realize that those are actually Japanese hosts above, but then I’m afraid images of their less brazen Korean counterparts are rather harder to come by!^^

새벽 2시 강남 ‘호빠’선 무슨 일이… “누나, ‘민짜’ 원해? 있기야 있지”… 여성 탈선 ‘무법지대’ / What’s going on in a Kangnam ‘ho-bba’ at 2 a.m…“Noona, do you want ‘minjja’? Of course we have it!”…A lawless area of female deviance

지난달 말 서울 논현동 유흥가. 새벽 2시 무렵 우성아파트 사거리 일대를 지나 한쪽 골목으로 들어서자 현란하게 네온사인을 밝힌 유흥주점이 줄지어 나타났다. 이 중에서 룸살롱과 호스트바가 ‘1, 2부 형식’(저녁에는 룸살롱, 새벽에는 호스트바)으로 운영된다는 K업소를 찾았다.

At the end of last month in Seoul’s Nonhyeon-dong adult entertainment district, after passing the area around the Woo-seong Apartment Complex intersection at about 2 a.m. and entering an alley to one side, adult entertainment bars with flashy neon signs appeared in rows.  Among these, we went to ‘K’ business, which was being operated as a room salon and host bar in a ‘1, 2 part form’ (room salon in the evening, host bar late at night).

(Photo caption: Entrance to Seoul Samseong-dong host bar at 1 p.m. on the 18th.  Four young men who look like hosts are saying goodbye to two women)

내부로 들어서자 문 열린 객실 틈으로 40대 중년 남성들과 업소 아가씨들이 섞여 앉아 술잔을 기울이는 모습이 눈에 들어왔다. 바로 옆방에서는 20대 초반으로 보이는 앳된 남성들이 30~40대 여성들에게 입으로 안주를 먹여 주거나 윗옷을 벗고 춤을 추는 등 낯뜨거운 광경이 펼쳐졌다. 같은 공간에 남녀 접대부들이 섞여 있는 모습이 낯설었다. 이 가게의 1부 영업을 관리한다는 한 실장은 “1, 2부를 확실히 구분지어 영업한다. 업소 아가씨들이 남성 접대부들과 같이 일하는 것을 불편하게 여겨 그만두는 일이 잦기 때문”이라고 귀띔했다.

Upon entering, through the crack of an opened door middle-aged men in their 40s and the business’ young women sitting together and pouring drinks could be seen.  In the very next room, baby-faced men who looked like they were in their early 20s feeding snacks to women in their 30s or 40s or taking off their shirts and dancing, and other embarrassing scenes could be observed unfolding.  Male and female hosts mixing in the same space was unusual.  A director who runs this business’ first part said “We run the two parts very separately.  It is because the business’ young women consider it uncomfortable to work with male hosts and so often quit.”

(Map of host bars in Gangnam-3-Gu)

팁은 시간당 3만원 안팎 / Tips around ₩30,000 per hour

이곳에서는 양주 한병에 기본 18만원을 내야 한다. 고급 호스트바에 비해 상대적으로 저렴해 일부 주부들과 회사원 사이에 ‘부담 없이 놀기 좋은 장소’란 입소문이 난 곳이다. 5분 남짓 기다리자 ‘모델’, ‘보이’ 등으로 불리는 ‘박스’(10명 안팎의 호스트들로 꾸려진 팀)가 일렬로 들어왔다. ‘선수’(호스트를 지칭하는 은어)들은 업소에 상주하지 않고 손님이 찾을 경우 다른 곳에서 대기하다가 전화를 받고 오는 일명 ‘보도’ 형태로 운영되고 있었다. 남성 호스트에게 지불되는 팁은 시간당 3만원. 비교적 ‘저렴한’ 가격 때문에 오후 9시 이후에는 주부와 회사원, 새벽에는 여대생부터 유흥업소 종사자들까지 다양한 부류의 여성들이 찾는다고 했다.

Here, one must pay at least ₩180,000 for a bottle of Western alcohol.  Compared to top-level host bars, this is relatively cheap so it has gained a reputation among ordinary housewives and office workers as a “good place to have fun without a burden.”  After waiting over 5 minutes, a “box” (a team of 10 or so hosts) called “Model”, “Boy”, [Marilyn – I guess these are names of different box –?] and so on entered in a row.  “Seonsu” (the designated slang term for hosts [lit. “players”, as on a sports team]) who aren’t stationed at a business but are standing by so that when customers visit they receive a phone call and come, are managed as “bodo.”  Male hosts receive a tip of ₩30,000 per hour.  Because of the comparatively “cheap” price, housewives and office workers after 9pm, and at dawn, diverse types of women from university students to adult entertainment business professionals said they come here.

선수들 가운데는 고교생 티를 벗지 못한 앳된 얼굴도 보였다. “화끈한 준이에요.”, “끝나게 노는 현우예요.” 이런 투의 자기소개가 이어졌다. 두 명을 ‘초이스’한 뒤 이야기를 나눴다. (source, below)

Among the seonsu, there were babyfaces who haven’t yet shed their high school student look.  “I am Wild Joon”, “I am Hyeon-woo who plays hard.”  The self-introductions continued in this kind of tone.  Two people talked with us after “choice” [Marilyn – choosing ceremony?].

“더 어린 친구는 없나?”

“You don’t have any younger friends?”

누나 ‘민짜’(미성년) 좋아해? 있기야 있지. 아까 두 번째 애도 올해 수능 봤어.”

“Does noona like minjja (underage)?  Of course we have it!  The second kid just now also took the college entrance exam this year.”

4년째 호스트 생활을 하고 있다는 20대 남성 A씨는 “미성년자는 주로 업소보다 보도에 많다.”면서 “간혹 여자 손님 중에 미성년자도 있다.”고 털어놨다.

Mr. A, a man in his 20s who has been a host for four years, confessed, “There are usually more underage at bodo than at businesses.”

이른바 ‘2차’가 가능한지 물었다. “에이, 알면서…. 누나가 맘에 들어 해서 좋아. 근데 이게 시간당 계산되는 거라서….”

This reporter asked if the so-called “second stage” were possible.  “Come on, you already know … I like noona so that’s fine. But it’s an hourly-calculated thing, so…”

(Source)

일부 룸안에서 즉석 성매매까지 / As far as prostitution on the spot in some rooms

한 20대 선수는 눈치를 살피며 말꼬리를 흐렸다. 2차 비용에 대한 이야기인 듯싶어 “50만원 정도면 어때?”라고 물었더니 고개를 끄덕였다. 간혹 룸 안에서 즉석 성매매가 이뤄지는 경우도 있다고 했다.

A seonsu in his twenties trailed off while watching for a reaction.  It seemed to be talk about the price of a second stage, so this reporter asked “How about ₩500,000 or so?” and he nodded.  He said there are sometimes cases in which on-the-spot prostitution occurs in a room.

그는 이어 “경찰 단속이 뜨면 내가 웨이터라고 말하거나 누나랑 아는 사이라고 하면 돼.”라며 손님으로 가장한 취재진을 안심시켰다.

He then gave comfort to the reporter disguised as a customer, saying, “If the police come in, all I have to do is say I’m a waiter or that noona and I know each other.”

한참을 ‘놀다’ 일어서려는 취재진에게 한 선수가 투정 부리듯 말했다. “누나, 단속은 걱정 안 해도 돼요. 다 방법이 있어요.”

To the reporter who had “played” for a good while and was standing up to leave, a seonsu complained, “Noona, you don’t have to worry about a crackdown.  Everything has a solution.”

(Links to be provided as posts go up: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4)

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What’s going on in a Gangnam Host Bar at 2am? (Part 1)

(Source)

Host Bars? I’d always assumed they were one-off novelties, largely created for the purpose of perpetuating Westerners’ sexual stereotypes of the Japanese. Any Korean versions would surely be even more rare and exotic.

It turns out, actually they’re a booming industry, in both Japan and Korea. There’s hundreds of establishments just in the wealthier parts of Seoul alone.

Not to be confused with the unfortunately named “Ho Bar” chain in Hongdae, they’re known as ho-bba (호빠) in Korea (“host clubs” in Japan),  which translator Marilyn strongly suspects the name is a play on obba (오빠) or (lit. “older brother”, but often used romantically).  Just like a friend of hers said the jeong (정) in the more upmarket jeong-bba (정빠) version is short for jeong-teong (정통), or “authenticity/legitimacy”.

(Source: Urbantofu)

Intrigued, I was a little disappointed that the following article in the Seoul Shinmun, the first in a series of four, provides little more than basic statistics. Fortunately however, a quick search produced:

In light of that last, perhaps the current boom isn’t quite as recent or as unprecedented as the following article suggests. What do you think? Have any readers been to themselves?

Update: with thanks to commenters for passing them on, From Noona With Love has a mini-interview with a former Busan host-bar worker here, and the drama Jungle Fish (정글피쉬) also featured a character that worked at a host-bar.

(Source)

새벽2시, 강남 호스트바에선 무슨일이(상) / 여성 고객 하루 1만명… 주부, 10대 급증 ‘탈선’

What’s going on at a Kangnam host bar at 2am? / 10,000 female customers daily… housewives, teens rapid increase is “deviation”

서울 강남에 독버섯처럼 돋아난 호스트바(속칭 호빠)가 탈선의 온상이 되고 있다. 18일 경찰 및 업계에 따르면 강남 일대 최소 100곳의 합·불법 호빠에 하루 평균 1만여명의 여성 손님이 오고, 이들 가운데 상당수는 성(性)을 구매한다. 이는 지난해 11월 24일부터 지난 17일까지 호빠 밀집지역인 논현·서초·청담동 등에 대한 본지의 탐문 취재에서도 확인됐다. 복수의 업소 관계자의 증언을 종합하면 강남지역 호빠의 전체 매출액은 연간 3000억원 이상으로 추산된다. 하지만 대부분의 업소들이 무허가 영업이나 속칭 ‘2부 영업’을 하고 있기 때문에 세무당국에 매출이 포착되지 않고 있다.

Kangnam, in Seoul, is becoming a hotbed of deviation in which host bars (popularly known as ho-bba) sprout like poisonous mushrooms.  According to police and the industry on the 18th, in the Kangnam area at least 100 ho-bba, legal and illegal, are visited daily by an average of 10,000 female customers, a considerable number of whom purchase sex.  This has been confirmed by this paper’s investigative coverage of areas with many ho-bba like Nonhyeon-dong, Seocho-dong, Cheongdam-dong, and others, from Oct. 24 of last year through Jan. 17.  Putting together the testimony of several industry sources, the total yearly sales of Kangnam-area ho-bba are estimated at ₩300 billion.  However, because most businesses operate without a license or are “two-part businesses”, these sales are not being detected by tax authorities.

(Table caption: Progress of crackdown on female sex-purchasing   * Purchasing of sex and procuring of prostitution  {unit: people})

(Source)

100여곳 성업… 年매출 3000억

Around 100 places thriving … 300 billion in sex sales

업소 관계자들은 강남·서초·송파구 등 ‘강남 3구’에만 100여곳의 호빠가 성업 중이라고 입을 모았다. 탐문취재 결과 ‘정빠’(고급 호빠)는 D, P, B 등 5곳으로 조사됐고, ‘일본식 호빠’(일명 아빠방·정빠에서 밀려난 25~30대 후반 남성이 고용된 호스트바)는 R, V, B 등 10여곳 정도 파악됐다. ‘디빠’(덤핑 바·저렴한 가격의 호빠)와 ‘퍼블릭’(성매매까 지 이뤄지는 호빠)은 M, S, G 등 각각 3곳이었다. 특히 현장 확인 결과 무허가나 업종을 바꿔 불법 영업을 하고 있는 곳도 5곳이나 되는 것으로 드러났다. 이처럼 업소가 늘어나면서 지하철 2호선 강남역 일대에만 1300~2000명의 남성들이 정빠 등 호스트바에서 일하는 것으로 조사됐다. 호스트바의 인원, 매출, 위치 등 구체적 실태가 확인된 것은 처음이다.

Industry sources unanimously said the hundred or so ho-bba that can be found just in “the three Kangnam boroughs” – Kangnam, Seocho, and Songpa – are thriving.  Investigative coverage found five jeong-bba (high-level ho-bba), including “D”, “P, and “B”, and it is estimated there are about ten “Japanese-style ho-bba” (also known as “dad rooms”; host bars that hire men ousted from jeong-bba, from the ages of twenty-five to late thirties), including “R”, “V”, and “B”.  There were three each of “D bba” (dum-ping bar – a low-price ho-bba) and “public” (ho-bba in which prostitution occurs), including “M”, “S”, and “G”.  The results of the special site check revealed that there are also five businesses without a license or that have changed their type of business into an illegal one.  It was found that, as this type of business increases, between 1,300 and 2,000 men work at jeong-bba or other host bars just in the Kangnam Station area on subway line 2.  This is the first time the specific, actual conditions of host bars, like the number of people involved, sales, location, and so on, have been confirmed.

지난 17일, 20대 일반여성들이 자주 찾는다는 논현동의 S호스트바에서 5시간 동안 여성 고객 숫자를 세어 본 결과 시간당 평균 5명 안팎이 업소를 찾았다. 보통 오후 10시부터 다음 날 오후 2시 무렵까지 문을 여는 점(16X5)을 감안하면 하루 80명 안팎의 여성들이 이곳을 찾는 것으로 추산된다. 경찰 관계자는 “개인적으로 알고 있는 업소만 100곳이 넘고, 고객도 1만명이 넘는다.”면서 “여성 손님의 30% 정도가 2차를 나가는 것으로 알고 있다.”고 전했다

On the 17th at Nonhyeon-dong’s “S” host bar, where average women in their twenties often go, counting the number of female customers for five hours showed that about five people per hour visit the business.  Considering that it is usually open from 10pm to 2pm the next day, it is estimated that around 80 women visit this place every day.  A police source said, “Just the number of places I personally know exceeds 100, and there are more than 1,000 customers,” and added, “I know that about 30% of female customers go out for a second stage.”

(Source)

10% 이상 ‘2차’… 적발 매년 급증

More than 10% [go to] “second stage”… every year rapid increase in number caught

업계 관계자들 역시 “업소당 하루 평균 100명 안팎의 손님이 찾아오고, 10명 중 한두 명은 2차를 나간다.”며 “2차는 고급 호빠인 정빠보다 보도(전화로 부르는 접대부)와 디빠 등에서 주로 이뤄진다.”고 털어놓았다. 이를 반영하 듯 돈을 주고 성을 사다 적발되거나 성을 알선한 여성 성매매 사범의 숫자도 2006년 2636명, 2007년 7161명, 2008년 9411명, 2009년 1만 3414명으로 해가 갈수록 증가하고 있다. 특히 유흥업소 여성들이 주요 고객이었던 이전과 달리 최근에는 가격이 싼 ‘보도방’과 ‘아빠방’을 위주로 10대와 가정주부 고객이 급증한 것으로 드러나 심각성을 더하고 있다. 경찰 관계자는 “물증찾기가 힘들어 단속이 어렵다.”고 말했다.

Industry sources also said, “Every day an average of roughly 100 customers come to each business, and one or two out of every ten people go on to a second stage,” and confessed, “The second stage usually takes place with a bodo (a host contacted through the phone) or at a D-bba, rather than at a high quality jeong-bba.”  Reflecting this, the number of sexual commerce offenses in which women are caught paying for sex or procure sex for others is increasing every year – from 2,636 people in 2006 to 7,161 people in 2007, 9,411 people in 2007, and 13,414 people in 2009. The seriousness grows as it is revealed that, different from most female customers of adult entertainment businesses in the past, currently the number of teenage and housewife customers, mainly at low-priced “bodo rooms” and “dad rooms”, is quickly increasing.  A police source said, “It is hard to find evidence so crackdowns are difficult.”

(Source)

(Links to be provided as posts go up: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

 

Rubber Soul 2010

( Sources: left, unknown; right, Rubber Soul 2010 )

Apologies for the late notice, and also to Roboseyo for swiping his own post on the event:

December 4 is World AIDS Day.  Starting at 9PM, in Hongdae, at Ting Tings, Club TA, Club FF and DGBD, you can attend parties at all four spots for a 15000 won cover.  All the cover fees go to Hillcrest AIDS center in South Africa.

You can learn more at the Facebook event page, or at the Rubber Soul Blog.

And don’t forget that there’s a prize for the best condom costume!^^

Yes, Old Korean People Have Sex Too…

( Source )

But perhaps as you’d expect, they’re generally not using protection. A quick report from The Daily Focus on Wednesday:

Number of STD Cases Among Old People Rising

While the national total number of STD cases has dropped overall, the numbers of people aged 65 and over contracting STDs has risen sharply, it emerged on the 28th.

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service presented its “Current Situation Regarded STD Treatment Recipients” report to Assemblywoman Son Sook-mee of the National Assembly Health Welfare Committee, according to the data of which the number of cases of people aged 65 and older receiving treatment for STDs was 44,000 in 2007 and 64,000 in 2009, a rise of 43% in just 2 years.

In 2007, people 65 years and older accounted for 4.0% of all cases of people treated for STDs, but this has risen to 5.5% as of March this year.

Little information to go on unfortunately, but Seoul residents may be interested in placing that into the context of the prostitution culture around Jongmyo Park in Jongno, which caters to the thousands of male retirees that spend their days there. From story #13 in a “Korean Gender Reader” post from March last year:

Prostitution Answers Sexual Needs of Senior Citizens?

The first time I visited in Jongmyo Park in Seoul in 2000, naturally I remarked on the hundreds of mostly male retirees there to my friend visiting from Japan, who rightly pointed out that they “didn’t particularly have much to do nor anywhere in particular to do it,” so why not play Korean chess all day there? In hindsight though, many would much rather be doing something else, and it’s almost surprising that it took so long for prostitutes to encroach on this captive and – let’s call a spade a spade – somewhat desperate market.

Here, the Korea Times reports on the ensuing problems of unsafe sex, the sale of fake Viagra and “men’s stamina” products, and the general increasing seediness of the area. You can also read discussions about it at ROK Drop and The Marmot’s Hole.

One surprising omission in the Korea Times article though, was the fact that the area between Jongmyo and Tapgol Park is also “packed full with gay bars and hotels catering to gay clients”, as noted by regular commenter Gomushin Girl.  Still it does end with the pertinent point that:

…the social atmosphere of viewing senior citizen’s sexual desire as a nasty matter has worsened the situation. “Sexual desire is a desire not only shared among young people but also old people. But our society is sill stuck in the obsolete Confucian-based perception that labels desire as an undesirable state, playing a major hurdle in setting a sound sexual culture for the aged,” said Prof. Lim Choon-sik at Hannam University’s social welfare department.

( Source )

And accordingly, probably the most notable if not the only “recent” Korean film to depict the sexuality of the aged – Too Young to Die (죽어도 좋아; 2002) – was heavily censored. As noted at KoreanFilm.org:

The filmic career of this independent digital feature about an elderly couple in love has followed an unusual arc. It began at the pinnacle of respectability, being selected to screen in the Critics’ Week section at the 2002 Cannes International Film Festival. After receiving a number of very positive reviews, it went on to be selected for the Toronto International Film Festival’s showcase of Korean cinema, and then received a special grant from the government-supported Korean Film Commission to help finance the film’s transfer to 35mm film for a release in Korea. Then, alas, the film was submitted to the nation’s Media Ratings Board, where it was judged unfit for public viewing and banned from release in ordinary theaters.

Too Young To Die is based on the true story of Park Chi-gyu and Lee Soon-ye, a man and woman in their early seventies who met, fell in love, and then rediscovered sex. The couple, who play themselves in the movie, seem little different from a couple in their twenties. They tease each other, fret about their hair, take snapshots of themselves, argue over trifles, and leap into bed with unabashed frequency. Indeed, watching them forces you to rethink all your stereotypes of what it is to be old.

In particular, as Gomushin Girl mentioned in the context of the excessive censorship of women’s sexuality in general:

…the key scene of fellatio was darkened and shortened significantly before it could be released. I would suggest that it was not just the fact that the couple was elderly that made the sex scenes so controversial, but the gusto and relish that the woman took in the acts.

Which raises the question of if there have been any other depictions of aged sexuality in Korean popular culture in the past 8 years (positive or otherwise), as perhaps that experience put directors off? If you know of any, then please let know, but regardless I’d wager that we’re likely to see more soon; after all, with Korea rapidly becoming the most aged society in the world, then audiences (and rating boards) can only become more sympathetic to the subject over time.

In the meantime, can anyone think of any areas in other Korean cities where retirees and prostitutes regularly meet?

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“Want to Sleep With a Foreign Girlfriend?”

A provocative article title from Yahoo! Korea yesterday, yes?

Alas, actually it’s only about one lawmaker’s concern over the growing number of “lewd” internet advertisements these days, among which presumably that’s a common slogan. But that does underlie some of the street harassment and groping that many foreign women experience here, so it’s interesting in its own right.

As is the irony and hypocrisy of Yahoo! Korea posting such an article in the first place too. For Korean portal sites are virtually like The Sun newspaper in their content, tone, and adherence to journalistic ethics, like I said of them last year:

Unlike their English-language counterparts, you have roughly a 50% chance of opening Naver, Daum, Nate, Yahoo!Korea, and kr.msn.com to be greeted with headlines and thumbnail pictures about sex scandals, accidental exposures (no-chool;노출) of female celebrities, and/or crazed nude Westerners.

And indeed, scroll to the bottom of Yahoo! Korea as I type this, and just today’s “image galleries” below include lingerie photoshoots and “beautiful Russian news anchors”, let alone the links on the rest of the site.

Not that I mind those in themselves of course. But if they’re the standard for Korean portal sites, then you can just imagine what it’s like for the rest of the Korean internet.

Take those of “serious” newspaper websites for instance, the main focus of the orginal article, and which are already notorious for posting pictures of women in bikinis or even middle-school girls in short skirts:

‘외국인 여친과 잠자리?’ “인터넷 음란광고 강제 퇴출해야”

‘Want to Sleep With a Foreign Woman?’ “Lewd Internet Advertisements Should be Forced to be Withdrawn”

[아시아경제 김성곤 기자]인터넷 광고시장이 급성장하고 있지만 법적 장치의 미비로 선정적인 내용의 음란광고로 홍수를 이루는 등 부작용이 심각한 것으로 나타났다.

While the internet advertising market is experiencing rapid growth, its legal oversight is imperfect, and there has been a flood of lewd advertisements with suggestive contents, with serious side effects.

김성동 한나라당 의원은 27일 방송통신심의위원회로부터 제출받은 자료를 분석한 결과, 인터넷 광고시장은 2004년 4800억원 규모에서, 2005년에는 6600억원, 2009년에는 1조2978억원 등으로 매년 크게 늘고 있지만 성적 호기심을 자극하는 광고가 난무하고 있다고 지적했다.

On the 27th, after analyzing data submitted by the Korean Communication Standards Commission, Kim Seong-dong, an assemblyman from the [ruling] Grand National Party, concluded that the Korean internet advertising market was worth [at today’s exchange rate] US$419 million in 2004, US$576 million in 2005, and US$1.132 billion in 2009, rapidly expanding every year. However, he pointed out that this is also true of advertisements stimulating sexual curiosity.

이 자료에 따르면 국내 종합 일간지의 인터넷판 광고에는 ▲ 외국인 여친과의 술자리에서 헉 ▲ 그녀가 원하는 건 크기·힘! ▲ 보통여자 명기 만들기 등 선정적 광고가 전체 광고의 11.8% 수준에 이르렀다. 특히 스포츠 연예지는 선정적 광고의 비율이 20.6%에 달해 전체광고 5개 중 1개는 음란 광고였다.

According to the data, if you look at all the internet advertisements of national newspapers, sexual advertisements with lines like “At a bar with a foreign girlfriend…Wow!”, “She wants size and power!”, “Make a normal woman a famous kisaeng (Korean geisha)”, and so on make up 11.8% of the total. In particular, the rate is 20.6% in sports newspapers, or 1 in 5.

문제는 이러한 인터넷 광고는 다른 광고에 비해 소비자 피해가 즉각적으로 발생하고, 피해 범위도 광범위하다는 것. 특히 피해가 발생해도 광고주의 이동과 은닉 등으로 피해구제가 어려운 것이 특징이다. 아울러 판별능력이 부족한 어린이, 청소년에 대한 무분별한 광고의 노출은 부작용이 심대하기 때문에 규제의 필요성이 절실한 형편이다.

The problem is that compared with other advertisements, consumers instantly suffer a wide range of damages from them. In particular, the producers of the ads can move and conceal themselves easily, making relief and help for the damages difficult (James – I think what these “damages” are exactly should have been made more specific). Accordingly, because the side effects of children and teenagers seeing sexual advertisements is serious, as their ability to understand them properly is lacking, then there is an urgent need for their regulation.

김 의원은 “이러한 현실이 인터넷 광고에 대한 내용 규제가 제도적 미비로 인해 제대로 작동하지 않은 것에서 기인하고 있다”며 “정부, 인터넷 사업자, 민간단체 등 모든 주체가 참여하는 공동자율규제 도입을 고려해야 할 때”라고 주장했다.

Assemblyman Kim claims that “This problem is caused by a lack of and/or poorly-functioning regulation of internet advertising at present,” and that “this issue of regulation needs to be considered by all participating and/or concerned parties, including the government, internet businesses, NGOs, and so on.”

한편, 현재 인터넷광고는 2007년 발족한 한국인터넷광고심의기구가 자율규제를 하고 있지만, 법적 구속력도 없고 비회원사의 참여를 강제할 수도 없는 구조적 모순 아래 놓여있는 형편이다.

There has actually been an organization to regulate Korean internet advertising since 2007, the Korean Internet Advertising Deliberation Organization, but its authority is insufficient as its decisions have no legal binding, nor can it force non-members to participate. This undermines its role as an advertising relief(?) organization. (end)

(Another wholesome ad from October last year)

Meanwhile, observant readers will have noticed two other links in the original screenshot: the first, a Korean blogger’s opinion piece saying that if you’re a Korean woman and want a foreign [male] friend, then you’ll have to get over everyone’s suspicions that you’re with them just for the sake of English and/or sex.

Which may well be true, but unfortunately my wife says it reads like it was written by a 16 year-old.

The second however, another blogger’s advice about getting a foreign girlfriend, actually looks rather interesting, but unfortunately is several thousand words long. I’d still consider translating it though, probably as a 9-part series, but only if readers are interested. If so, please let me know!

Groping in Korea: Just How Bad Is It?

(Source: leftycartoons)

I never did think that women should consider street harassment as flattering of course. But still, this cartoon is eerily effective in getting that message across. It’s no wonder that’s it’s received nearly 300 comments over at Sociological Images.

Most of those dealing with the US though, now I’m curious as to how bad street harassment is in Korea in comparison. And in hindsight I realize that I’ve largely overlooked that in favor of covering workplace discrimination previously, most recently the landmark sexual harassment lawsuit against Samsung.

I did know about bbikkie (삐끼) though, or men that literally drag attractive women into nightclubs to encourage men to spend their money there (see here also); that Korean dating culture actually condones stalking; that this sometimes affects foreign women (see #12 here); and that Caucasian women especially are hypersexualized by the Korean media and/or often get confused for Russian prostitutes; and so on.

But groping? I’d never really thought about it, except in passing. After all, what guy does?

Hence my surprise and naivety at discovering that it’s not a problem confined to subways, and in fact was a pervasive problem among crowds during the World Cup, as the following report I’ve translated makes clear. And, even in broad daylight today too, as Krista of Salt City Girl wrote in her email to me that I’ve posted after that.

(Source: Sinfest)

“골인” 환호 순간에 웬 남자 손이…/ In the Moment of the “Goal in!” Cheer, Some Man’s Hand…

Kim Shi-hyeon, The Chosun Ilbo, June 26 2010

서울의 한 고교 2학년 최모(17)양은 지난 17일 강남구 삼성동 코엑스 앞 영동대로에 월드컵 길거리 응원을 나갔다가 봉변을 당했다. 아르헨티나 에 0 대 2로 뒤지던 전반 막판 이청용의 만회골이 터지자 시민들은 일제히 소리를 지르며 서로를 부둥켜 안았다. 최양도 친구와 손을 붙잡고 팔짝팔짝 뛰었다. 소리를 지르며 정신없이 뛰고 있던 중 갑자기 뒤에서 한 남자가 어깨동무를 하며 다른 손으로 가슴과 엉덩이를 더듬었다. 놀란 최양이 뒤를 돌아보자 20대로 보이는 남자 1명이 순식간에 군중 속으로 사라졌다. 최양은 “남자 얼굴을 제대로 보지 못했고 사람들 속으로 숨어 버려 경찰에 신고도 못했다”면서 “월드컵이라 부모님이 특별히 밤 외출을 허락했는데, 완전히 기분을 망쳤다. 앞으론 절대 길거리 응원은 안 나갈 것”이라고 했다.

Choi Mo-XXX, a 16 year-old (western age) second year high school student in Seoul, had a bad experience on the 17th after she arrived at Yeongdong Road in front of COEX in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu to cheer [the Korean team] during the World Cup.

Korea was losing 2-nil, but then at the end of the first half Lee Cheong-yong suddenly exploded back into the game with a goal, and everyone in the crowd cheered in unison and hugged each other, with Choi Mo-XXX too holding tight onto her friend’s hand and jumping up and down. But while she was doing this and not thinking about anything else, a man who was behind her placed one hand on her shoulders and with the other groped her breasts and buttocks.

She turned around, and saw a man who appeared to be in his 20s, who disappeared into the crowd in an instant. She said “I didn’t really see his face, and he disappeared into the crowd so quickly, that there’s really no point in telling the police,” and added that “because this was the World Cup, my parents gave me special permission to come out and cheer with everyone, but now my feelings have been completely ruined. From now on, I’m never going to attend any cheering events like this again.” (Source, right)

월드컵 기간 길거리 응원을 나가는 여성들에게 ‘성추행 경보’가 켜졌다. 남아공 월드컵은 시차 때문에 저녁 8시나 11시, 새벽 3시 30분 등 어두울 때 경기가 열려 성추행 범죄가 일어나기 쉬운 상황이다. 특히 위기대처 능력이 부족한 여자 중·고생들은 성추행을 당하고도 무서워서 가만히 있거나 수치심 때문에 주위에 도움을 청하지도 못하고 있다.

A big “Groping Alert” to women has been issued to women going to the streets to cheer during the World Cup period. Because of the time difference with South Africa, games are played at 8pm, 11pm, 3:30 in the morning, and so on, providing easy opportunities for gropers to strike. Especially women least able to deal with such a situation, such as middle or high school students, may be so scared as to quietly accept the groping and/or through a feeling of shame or disgrace be unable to ask for help.

인터넷 게시판에는 길거리 응원전에 나갔다가 성추행을 당했다는 제보가 끊이지 않고 있다. 네이버 한 카페에서 ID ‘바람’은 “사촌동생이 거리응원 나갔다가 성추행당했다고 그러더라. (이겨서) 너무 좋고 정신없어서 당시엔 잘 몰랐는데 가슴을 대놓고 만졌다고 했다”고 썼다. ID ‘단탈리안’도 “친구가 길거리 응원 나갔는데 계속 가슴에 어떤 남자의 손이 부딪혔다고 했다”는 글을 올렸다.

On internet cafes, there is an unceasing stream of information from women who have been groped during World Cup cheering events. On one Naver cafe, a commenter with the ID “Baram” wrote “My younger cousin said she was groped at a cheering event. Without her realizing at first, while she was concentrating on cheering her breasts were roughly grabbed, with no attempt by the groper to conceal what he was doing”. Another with the ID “Dantallian” posted the message that “When my friend went to a cheering event, a man kept feeling her breasts when she was crushed up against him.”

한 인터넷 커뮤니티에는 “거리응원 가서 생각지도 못하게 여자 가슴 만져서 레알(진짜) 기분좋음 ㅋㅋ” 등 성추행을 한 사실을 밝히는 글도 올라 있다.

(Source)

[But] On another internet community site, there have been messages like “At a cheering event I touched accidentally touched a women’s breasts. But it (really) felt good LOL”, clearly stating that the writers have groped women.

인터넷에는 16강 진출이 확정된 24일 아침 서울의 한 거리에서 남성 5~6명이 핫팬츠를 입은 여성을 자동차 보닛 위에 올려놓고 성추행을 하는 사진이 떠돌고 있다. 지난 21일 경기도 파주에서는 한국과 아르헨티나전 경기 응원 현장에서 여중생 김모(16)양을 성추행한 40대가 경찰에 입건되기도 했다.

And on the 24th, when it was confirmed that the Korea team had made it through to the first round, a picture of 5 or 6 men lifting a woman in hot pants onto the bonnet of car and groping her was posted around on the internet. Also, on the 21st, when Korea was playing against Argentina, a 40 year-old man was booked in the town of Paju for groping 15 year-old Kim Mo-XXX at a cheering event.

26일 열리는 우루과이 전 길거리 응원에서도 여성들의 각별한 주의가 필요하다. 경찰은 우루과이전에 서울광장 15만명, 영동대로에 12만명, 한강공원 반포지구에 12만명 등 전국에서 182만여명이 응원에 참가할 것이라고 예상했다. 서울경찰청 고평기 여성청소년계장은 “월드컵 길거리 응원을 나갈 때는 혼자 가지 말고 어른들이나 여러 일행과 함께 가는 게 좋다”며 “성추행을 당하면 큰 소리로 ‘싫다’고 소리치고 주변 응원객들에게 알려 붙잡도록 하는 것도 방법”이라고 조언했다.

Women need to take special care on the 26th, when Korea plays Uruguay. The police expect 150,000 people to participate in the cheering event at Seoul Plaza, 120,000 at Yeongdong Road, 120,000 at the Han River Banpo Baseball Stadium, and roughly 1.82 million people nationwide. Seoul City Police Women & Adolescent Crime Division Chief Go Pyeong-gi said that “it is better if you don’t go to the cheering events with older people or in groups rather than going alone,” and recommended that “if you get groped, the best method to deal with it is to scream “I hate this!” to the surrounding crowd to make sure they know what is going on and can help catch the groper.”

And now Krista’s experience, whom I’ll let speak for herself. And thanks again to her for giving me permission to print this part of her email (Source, right):

It seems to me that sex, sexuality, gender and race are somehow at more extremes in Korea.

I have never been as groped or inappropriately grabbed at in my life until coming to South Korea. Just a few days ago, I was assaulted by a man in the rainy streets of Chungju in the middle of the day in front of other men. He had no problem at all with putting his hand in my shirt and grabbing my breast. I have resorted to wearing high-necked tops at all times because of the experience. When I shared this experience with a Korean man, he seemed to suggest this was surprising and unlikely to happen because I am “foreign” but then went on to suggest I may be to blame for wearing a low-cut top. I cannot believe either of these instances happened. I did not make that man grab my breast and my low-cut shirt more than covered my breasts. And I certainly expected a more sympathetic ear. But the fact that anyone anywhere thinks it’s okay to grope anyone else is absurd. (I wish I could also explain how demeaning the blatant staring, pointing and discussing of any waygukin woman in the area is.) This hypersexualization of Caucasian women allows an attitude which makes it easier to discriminate against Caucasian women and the people who are willing to help them, work with them, talk to them or have anything to do with them. Obviously the objectification of women everywhere has lead to and continues to allow for misogyny, albeit often in a more subtle form in the US.

It would be a lie to say I haven’t been groped or otherwise harassed in America, but again, it does not compare to South Korea. The behavior is more extreme, bizarre and accepted.  Quite frankly I do not even begin to understand how Korean women tolerate it and I believe it goes a long way towards explaining why it is so rare to find a Caucasian woman who has been in Korea for more than five years. It is something that gives me pause when considering whether or not Korea is a place worth living.

I hope that gives you some insight into how at least one Caucasian woman sees hypersexualization in Korea.

Not to downplay Krista’s experiences in any way, but I had no idea that things were so bad here that many foreign women were persuaded to leave. Do readers agree that it is a big problem here, or has Krista merely been extremely unlucky?

Update: Read about a slightly bizarre 2-hour long case of groping on a train here and here.

Sex as Power in the South Korean Military: A Follow-up

( Source )

As I discussed back in March, the first ever survey on the issue of sexual violence in the Korean military discovered endemic levels of abuse, with roughly 15% of 250,000 conscripts each year experiencing it as either victims or perpetrators. A hugely important socialization experience for Korean men, this had grave implications for Korean society.

On a slight positive note however, I was happy to also read that much of the researchers’ data was obtained by interviews with soldiers in their barracks with the official cooperation of the Ministry of Defense. A sign of changing attitudes towards acknowledging and dealing with the problem?

Alas, I’ve just discovered that that was far too optimistic, as the military still remains one of the least transparent institutions in Korea:

When the Cheonan sank [in March], the initial reaction was shock and sadness, which quickly gave way to rage: with a government accused of dragging its feet, but also with a military that seemed unprepared for a North Korean attack.

But anger with the military runs deeper than over a single event. Mistrust of the institution is widespread because it has failed to open itself up, using the excuse of national security, while the rest of the country has embraced democracy.

South Korea’s military dictatorship may be a thing of the past, but the North’s constant saber rattling in the form of nuclear tests, missile launches, spy incidents and the occasional skirmish continue to give Korea’s men at arms an immediate relevance – and an excuse to conceal things from the public. That right to secrecy is enshrined in the National Security Law, which places restrictions even on regular citizens’ freedom of speech for the sake of preventing enemy subversion, but is even more of a cloak for the armed forces. It’s the legal manifestation of the bubble in which the military operates, isolating it from the massive changes the rest of Korean society has undergone. To date, for example, no civilian has ever been named defense minister.

Every year, a report is quietly released titled, “Military deaths caused by accidents.” In 2008, there were 134 names on that list, including 75 suicides. The suicides are usually explained by a “failure to adjust to military life.”

That explanation is unacceptable for Joo Jong-woo, whose son, Pvt. Joo Jung-wook, committed suicide in 2001 at age 22…

Read the rest at The JoongAng Ilbo, including about “its emphasis on tight ideological control of its conscripts” resulting in its banning of left-wing books like the works of Noam Chomsky, and the expulsion of military legal officers for “arguing that the military’s regulations are unconstitutional”. Meanwhile, the Korean military still refuses to recognize conscientious objectors and so imprisons them (see here also for a podcast on the development of the concept of conscientious objection in the West), the National Human Rights Commission is ineffective, and the maintenance of the conscription system as a whole is one reason why the Korean Military remains  “a 1970-vintage force structure, designed around a 1970-vintage threat, equipped with 1970-vintage weapons.”

( Source: anja_johnson )

As for the images of mascots, please note that I post them not to be facetious though(!), but rather to show how facile such attempts to soften the image of institutions like the police and military are in light of reports like this. But nothing against the mascots themselves of course, and see here, here, and here for more information about Podori (포도리) in the riot gear!^^

Update, October 2010: Unfortunately, this recent incident demonstrates that little progress has been made since this post was written.

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