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So who is responsible for Korea’s modern day sex industry?  As I mentioned before, the names of some of the facilities here in Tongyeong (Hong Kong Massaji, Turkish Baths, Thai Massaji) would have you believe its anybody but Koreans themselves.  In the media, blame is frequent cast upon The United States and Japan.  Its not unusual hear stories like this one bemoaning the worsening sex trade near US military “camp towns,” or editorials blaming Korea’s sex trade on Japanese imperialism.

But finding a culprit to blame for the present state of the ROK sex trade is more complicated than simply pointing the finger at Japan or the US.  Japan, the USA, and Korea each share some level of culpability.  So let me take you through, country by country, some of the most frequent targets of the blame game.

The case to Blame Japan

In the editorial I linked above, Andrei Lankov, the Russian born Korea scholar, outlines the role Japan played in creating the sex industry in Korea as we know it today. 

It began, he tells us, in the 1850’s, when a freshly opened to foreign exchange Japan was looking to secure foreign capital and found success in doing so via “export” prostitution.  Prostitutes from Japan were sent all across Asia, Korea included, in order to ply their trade and send capital back home.  Around the dawn of the 20th century, the sex trade was Japan’s 3rd leading source of foreign capital.

Yet, according to Lankov, prostitution remained illegal.  It was Japanese migrants who were used to such services back home that fueled the political push for legalized prostitution in Korea.  And after it was legalized, and as the industry grew, more and more Koreans became players.

After opening up to foreign trade, Japan flooded Asia with sex workers as a means to collect foreign capital.

In Yuki Tanaka’s book, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation, the author explains the way in which Koreans became widely involved in the sex trade:  As colonial minions of Japan, Korea’s economy underwent massive changes as a result of radical reforms in the land ownership system.  One of the consequences was widespread poverty.  Families, in turn, sold their daughters into prostitution to make ends meet, drastically changing the demographics of the peninsula’s sex industry.

Eventually the war ended and the Japanese and their atrocities left.  But prostitution continued.  Why did it not disappear with the rest of the Japanese evils?

The Case to Blame the USA

Takata’s book makes the case that the United States took advantage of a ”comfort woman” system in Japan similar to that of the one with which Imperial Japan victimized its territories (including Korea).  She points out that the Allied forces failure to prosecute Japanese responsible for the comfort women crimes at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal is an indication that they did not view the sexual exploitation of non-western women as much of a crime at all.  In fact, Takata makes the case that the prosecution of these criminals would have seemed hypocritical, given the United States’ own role in establishing a similar system during the occupation of post-war Japan.

Takata cites reasons to support the notion that the US supported a “comfort woman system” similar to the one Japan established.  One is that the US set up stations to monitor prostitutes for vanerial diseases (something not officially allowed by the US military, but reported to have happened in numerous places, including Korea, in the past).  Another is that the War Department granted millions of dollars for condoms (something used primarily by those visiting prostitutes at the time). 

And why do I tell you about Japan?  Because after the Korean war, a similar relationship with the South Korean government was established.  In both cases the economies of the respective countries were in disarray, and prostitution helped bring in the foreign capital so desparately needed.  In both cases, the US is said to have established ”safe houses” for disease free prostitutes for the GI’s to choose from.  And in both cases, prostitutes were used to keep GI’s and beaurucrats happy, so that the idea that they might want to leave, or devote their military funds to another country, might never surface.

Today the US military is stepping up efforts to prevent US servicemen from taking advantage of some of the worst aspects of prostitution here in Korea.  USFK officials, however, maintain that there is only so much they can do to stop the tide of the sex trade here as their hands are tied by the need to respect Korean sovereignty.  It other words, they want to leave it up to Koreans themselves to put an end to the problem.

What can we say about Korea’s own culpability?

One thing that none of these scholars make much of (though Lankov mentions it) is that Koreans were the primary consumer of the original Japanese prostitutes exported to Korea back in the 1850’s.  And despite the Korean media’s focus on the “worsening sex trade” in US military camptowns, the percentage of prostitutes in Korea servicing US military personnel is just a fraction of those working throughout the country.  The survival and prevalance of the sex industry here must, at least partially, have its roots in homegrown causes.  In fact, there are historical precedents for prostitution, prominent opinions regarding the need for a sex industry, and a dominant gender ideology of Joseon Dynasty Korea that can bear testiment to Korea’s own responsibility.

 The Kisaeng

The sexual exploitation of women was not unprecedented in Korean society before the Japanese prostitutes arrived in the 1850’s.  Kisaeng are Korea’s most famous medieval sex workers.  Despite the glamourization of the Kisaeng lifestyle in Korean hagiography, the fact is that these women represented a hereditary class of slaves owned by the government whose primary purpose was the entertainment of men… entertainment that included sex. 

A Painting of a Kisaeng, women trained from an early age to cater to the desires of men in Korea.

The role of the Kisaeng sounds, in many ways, like some of the women having sex for money in Korea today.  Kisaeng were traditionally found in large numbers in two places: large crossroads and military bases.  For anybody who has spent long periods of time in Korea, this does not sound all that different from today’s situation, where love motels and other hot spots of prostitution are also located near transport hubs and military installations… 

And although these women were not always mere sex objects, neither are many of the today’s sex workers.  One need only step into a business bar here to see that men will pay handsomely for all sorts of female companionship, often without any sex involved.  

And even though Kisaeng were highly skilled entertainers, producing masterful poems, often the primary purpose of these works was to lure a wealthy man to bed.  And as slaves of the government Kisaeng were prevented from fleeing.   Kisaeng were expected to meet ALL of the needs of their customers. 

However, unlike many of today’s prostitutes, Kisaeng were usually only available the wealthiest men.  But this is not to say that the existence of Kisaeng cannot be an indicator of a generally accepting attitude towards the sex industry in Korea.  Yes, most men never experienced the services of Kisaeng, but most men were never Neo-Confucian scholars either.  Yet it’s fair to say that a neo-confucian mindset permeates Korean society today.  Perhaps the same might be true of the view of the sex trade mindset?

The view of prositution as a social need

Even in Joseon dynasty Korea, at various times officials gave thought to abolishing the Kisaeng system.  But the system was never abolished.  The primary reason given for keeping this system was the same… the absense of an outlet for male sexual frustration could lead to men stealing other men’s wives (since obviously satisfactory sex with their wives wasn’t going to cut it) and erode the foundations of society.

This idea, that prostitution is a necessary part of a sound Korean society, is very much still alive.  A few years ago in the city of Daejeon, a judge ruled that despite being against the law, massage parlors and the like “were also performing an indispensible service to the community.”  In the 1960’s, the Korean parliament itself described prostitution as a necessary institution that met “natural needs.”  And maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t… but either way, it undermines the idea that the sex industry is simply a foreign evil.

The Low Position of Women and Its Neo-Confucian Roots 

Korea's sex industry is reflective of the low position of women in general throughout Korean society.

So if there is some level of acceptance of the sex trade in Korea society, how might we explain this?  Part of the answer can be found in a gender ideology dating back to the Joseon Dynasty in which women have low value relative to men.

The Grand Narrative summarizes a journal article by Taeyon Kim, providing a thorough overview of this gender ideology.  I suggest you check it out.  However, for the sake of expediency, I will summarize the parts that are relevant for the discussion here…

The basis for this gender ideology is Ki.  Ki is a force that links ancestors and descendents.  More than an individuals actual body, it is a family’s Ki that defines one’s personhood.  An individual thus become one with his family. 

The problem, as far as this post is concerned, is that Ki passes through the male line, with women serving as nothing more than ”vessels” for the man’s Ki.  Women cannot have Ki.  In other words, women are only valuable insofar as they are able to pass on a man’s Ki.  From this perseepctive, women who are not suitable to pass on a man’s Ki (reasons might include being biologically related, being of a lower class, being a prostitute, being a foreigner) have little to no value.

This ideology is still making it’s presence felt.  The Hoju system, a family registration system that acted in place of birth certificates and made official the transfer of a woman from her father’s family to her husband’s upon marriage, was only abolished in 2008.  Abortions of undesireable female offspring are so prevalent that it is illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a fetus before birth in South Korea today.  The lack is Ki is the reason women are regarded as inferior to men.

What to make of it all…

Its clear the Japanese presence in Korea influenced the growth of the sex industry in the Korea peninsula.  But despite the fact that the Japanese were the ones providing an influx of sex workers in the 19th century, it was Koreans who were their primary customer.  The Japanese occupation forever changed the Korean economy and drove many women into sex work, but a gender ideology allowing for the sexual enslavement of women, as well as historical precedents for widespread prostitution allowed for its continuation and flourishing.

One can make the arguement that the US is guilty of complicity in the continuance of the sex trade, but it is not ultimately responsible.  Yes, US

A sign banning non-Koreans from Seoul's Miari pink-light district

soldiers are known to patronize establishments with sex workers, some of them trafficked.  And yes, the military is almost certainly aware of this and has enabled it in the past with programs to guarantee clean prostitutes, as well as granting condoms to GIs back when condoms weren’t so common.  But the fact is that Korea’s sex industry had already been established, and that there is a difference between creating a sex industry, and taking advantage of one.  Moreover, the percentage of sex workers catering to US military personnel is just a fraction of Korea’s sex industry.

Ultimately, its Korea itself that bears the most culpability.  Its gender ideology in which women are assigned  very low value, coupled with a view of prostitution as a social need, leaves the country in the position it is in today.  While its popular to point the finger at foreigners whenever something goes wrong here in Korea, in this case at least, the blame primarily rests on Korean shoulders.

And for more in this series on Korea’s sex trade, click below…

• For Part 1 in the series: South Korea’s Thriving Sex Industry
• For Part 2 in the series: Korea’s Prostitutes: Who They Are and Where They’re From