When entrepreneur Lee Hee-tae told his parents he was going into the porn business, he urged them not to worry about social disapproval in conservative South Korea and to think about the money instead.
The financial case, he said, was clear: built-in domestic demand plus a growing global fascination with South Korea, thanks to booming K-pop and K-drama exports.
However, due to deeply conservative social mores, South Korea’s adult industry is a minnow compared to neighboring Japan.
Photo: AFP
It produces around 2,000 adult movies a year, compared with what Lee’s research indicates is 2,000 a day made by Tokyo’s US$36.5-billion-dollar behemoth.
That, Lee said, is not only a lost opportunity but a personal tragedy for many South Koreans who are unable to properly discuss sex, desire and sexuality because of its “taboo” nature.
“I’d like South Korea to be more open about sex,” said Lee, whose adult content company Play Joker recently moved from making movies towards hosting live events.
Photo: AFP
While not illegal, the production of pornography is closely regulated in South Korea, with authorities requiring that images of genitalia be heavily blurred.
The country is also grappling with a molka, or spycam, epidemic of illicitly filmed videos that include everything from women in public restrooms to leaked sex videos from K-pop stars.
Lee argued that the two phenomena are linked and said allowing a thriving local adult content industry would help prevent spycam crimes.
Local women’s groups disagree.
“Their claim that the so-called ‘free sexual culture’ will help prevent the spread of illegal adult content is a blatant fallacy,” the Suwon Women’s Hotline said in a statement last month.
“It is nothing more than an attempt to further spread the culture of sexual violence.”
PORN FOR WOMEN?
Lee said some people might “watch molka because they don’t understand adult content,” and so don’t understand there is a difference between professional pornography and illicit footage, he said.
Lee’s company has produced around 500 adult films so far, the majority of them filmed in Japan using Japanese actors.
The bulk of them target male viewers but he can see an industry-wide trend with companies making more content specifically aimed at women, he said, adding that many Japanese producers have popular female-focused content.
On South Korea’s adult cable channel “a surprising trend has emerged where the viewership from 11 am to 12:30pm has significantly increased,” he said, prompting industry research.
“It turns out women tune in after sending husbands to work and kids to school,” he said.
However, Lee said South Korea has a web of social taboos and regulations that are “keeping the industry from reaching its full potential”.
For example, putting a porn actor in a school uniform violates child protection laws. Or featuring a flight attendant uniform guarantees the production can “expect full-blown protest from flight attendants’ unions”.
“Thanks to K-pop, Korea’s national brand has grown... and there are many countries now looking for Korean adult content,” he said, but the existing industry is unable to meet demand.
ADULTS-ONLY FESTIVAL
Lee decided to focus on live events as a way to change attitudes but his attempt to hold South Korea’s largest sex festival in April encountered online vitriol and legal challenges. Women’s groups branded the proposed festival in Suwon, south of Seoul, a “sex-exploitation event” and decried it as “quasi-prostitution.”
Suwon authorities canceled the event amid the backlash. After he found a new site in the capital, Seoul officials threatened to shut off the electricity and cancel the venue’s licenses.
That eventually forced Lee to cancel, causing what he said were significant financial losses.
Lee is taking both Suwon authorities and some women’s groups to court, seeking damages. The fallout has prompted some new lawmakers to question whether officials were right to cancel.
“What is wrong with hosting an adult-only festival?” incoming opposition lawmaker Chun Ha-ram, who won office last month in parliamentary elections, wrote in a Facebook post. “Authorities should take their hands off this. Unless it’s blatantly illegal, state power has no right to interfere in the cultural sphere.”
Such signs indicate the tide may be turning, at least a little, Lee said. He is planning another, larger event for June and said this time he won’t back down.
South Korea needs to be less prudish about adult content, he said.
“I would like to remind people that we are all created through sex.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS