The supposedly temporary division of Korea into the US-occupied South and the USSR- occupied North that began in 1945 when Korea gained its independence from Japan continues almost seventy years later. In this section, I discuss how major political, economic and cultural upheavals during this period have contributed to the new construction of sexuality in South Korea (for North Korea, see Kim in this volume). I focus on three political phases: the division of the nation within the context of the cold war and the presence of US military bases in South Korea; the dictatorial military regimes that governed in South Korea until the 1980s; and the gradual political democratisation and new social movements advocating for sexual minorities and marriage migrants from the 1990s.
During the period of direct rule from September 1945 to August 1948, the US Armed Forces in South Korea ‘developed an unofficial but consistent system of regulated prostitution’ to manage the sexual desire of US male soldiers (Moon 2010: 41). This regulated prostitution system proliferated during the Korean War (1950—53) and continued after with the deep involvement of and support from the South Korean government. Thousands of sex workers, called ‘yanggongju’ (Western princess), have worked in ‘camp towns’ to provide US soldiers with sexual gratification in a system that is highly racialised and class-based (Kim 1998: 175—202). The camp town sexual economy has also expanded within the context of the US—South Korea political alliance and the construction of militarised hegemonic masculinities (Moon 2010; Lie 1995).
This hegemonic masculinity was further reinforced under the South Korean military regime of Park Chung Hee (1917—79) from the early 1960s to the late 1970s against the background of Korea’s entanglement in the Cold War, the military threat from North Korea, the ferocious drive for economic development, and the rigid sense of nationalism (Han and Ling 1998). Family roles became distinctively gendered, with men projected as family providers and women as domestic helpers. A stark example of state intervention in the family and women’s bodies was the government-led program for family planning and birth control in the 1960s and 1970s, which was presented as an integral part of economic development. Unlike the 1950s, when a higher birth rate was considered to be an important resource for the future prosperity of the nation, proactive birth control policies were adopted by the Park Chung Hee regime from the early 1960s as part of long-term economic development plans. Rather than encouraging safe methods, such as the use of condoms or the rhythm method, the government distributed the Lippes loop and birth control pills (a form of foreign aid provided by Sweden) in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the government focused more on permanent birth control via vasectomy. This method, however, was not popular among men, and tubal ligation for women became the most common alternative, especially from the late 1970s when more advanced surgical technology for tubal ligation became available (Pae 2005: 269—79). During this period, the birth rate dropped dramatically from 6.3 children per family in the early 1960s to 1.6 in 1988 (Moon 2005: 85). As sociologist Pae Ungyhng points out, it is important to recognise that the rapid fall in the birth rate cannot be attributed solely to state policies and campaigns. Women’s own desire to control their own body and reproduction also played a significant role in the decline in the birth rate in South Korea (Pae 2005: 269—70). Indeed, the attitudes and decisions of women on matters of contraception and reproduction may have been the most crucial factor in the steep decline seen in South Korea’s birth rate.
The low birth rate in South Korea continues. In 2009, South Korea’s birth rate was the world’s lowest for the second consecutive year (Korea Times, 22 May 2009). Policy makers and pundits consider the low birth rate to be the ‘biggest threat’ to the country’s economy and future prosperity. This ongoing trend has to do with the new realities facing families, especially from the 1990s. The steady increase in the cost of living in South Korea and the extreme growth in the costs associated with educating a child make it challenging for average families to have a large number of children. As a result, more and more women are no longer stay-at-home wives and mothers but rather work outside the home as wage earners. In addition, the perception of sex as primarily a means of procreation has changed dramatically. Many regard sex not as a duty of citizens in order to repopulate the nation but simply as an act that offers physical pleasure for both women and men. As sociologist Shim Young-Hee puts it, there has been a significant shift in perspectives on women from sexual object to sexual subject (2001: 143—45).
The ramifications of this perspectival shift are two-fold. One is that the longstanding ideology of chastity has been losing ground. The younger generation does not place a high value on maintaining chastity before marriage. Furthermore, sexual compatibility is considered vital to the health of a marriage. A widely publicised divorce in 1995 is a case in point. The couple was in conflict because ‘the wife wanted to have sexual relations every day, but the husband could not satisfy her due to his busy and tiring work’. The family court approved the divorce (Shim 2001: 141).
The other is that sexual minority groups’ movements have emerged and developed as part of the human rights movement in South Korea, especially since the early 1990s. The prevailing heteronormative attitudes and patriarchal gender relations in South Korea have marginalised sexual minorities for a long time. However, beginning in the early 1990s, sexual minorities started to organise openly. For instance, in 1994, ‘Kkiri kkiri’ (Birds of a feather flock together), the first lesbian organisation in South Korea, was established to advocate for the rights of lesbians. It provided counselling, publications and various forms of outreach through the Internet, social media, and group meetings. It has also tried to create alliances with other social movements (Kim Song 1999: 43—50). It is noteworthy that the alliance between sexual minority groups and the labour movement stems from the intellectual critique of the patriarchal family in the capitalist system, which depends on heterosexual relations for the production and reproduction of labourers and consumers (Mun 2001). Along with organised social movements of sexual minorities, the visual media, in particular, have played a role in increasing awareness of the issue of homosexuality (Kim and Hahn 2006: 59—65). Deeply-rooted prejudice against gays and lesbians persists, but sympathetic portrayals in TV dramas and films have emerged. For instance, the inclusion of gay and lesbian individuals in the popular TV drama called Insaeng йn ammdawo (Life is Beautiful [Chong 2010]), the documentary film, Chongno ui kijok (Miracle on Chongno Street; Yi Hydksang 2011) and the feature film, Ch’in’gusai? (Just Friends?) (Kim 2009) have provided the public with opportunities to understand sexual minorities and the challenges and discrimination they face in society. In South Korea same-sex partnerships are not legally recognised, let alone same-sex marriages. There have been ongoing efforts to protect gays’ and lesbians’ human rights through the implementation of legislation that bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (Ch’adolbau 2012), although to date all such efforts have been in vain. Under these circumstances, Korean gays and lesbians have tried to create various forms of cultural and social space for themselves through film festivals, social networking and educational programs. Marriages of convenience between a gay man and a lesbian woman (also known as contract marriages) have become an option for some as a way to negotiate their roles in and expectations from the overwhelmingly heteronormative society (Cho 2009: 401-22).
If sexual minorities challenge the predominantly heterosexual marriage and family system, the increasing number of international marriages poses an important question about ‘pure-bloodedness’, an ideal that many Koreans have taken pride in. The idea of pure-bloodedness was historically constructed in the modern period as part of the building of the nation-state beginning in the late nineteenth century (Duncan 2000: 99-113). There is, however, a strong popular perception of pure-bloodedness among Koreans. Despite that perception, since the 1990s the growing imbalance in the ratio of men to women, particularly in rural areas, has led local and regional governments to create opportunities for bachelors in rural communities to find brides in China, Mongolia and Southeast Asia (Kim 2006: 10-37). The peak in the number of international marriages came in 2005 when there were 42,356. Of those, 67 per cent were marriages between Korean men and women from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Cambodia (e-Nara chip’yd 2012). According to the 2007 statistics on the ratio of genders among foreign residents in Korea, women constituted 91 per cent of those who came to Korea as marital partners (Yi An 2009: 35). Thus, it is quite apparent that marriage migration has been heavily gendered. Foreign brides used to be given Korean citizenship upon marriage, but the 1998 law on citizenship revised that rule and granted foreign brides citizenship only after they had been married for two years and only with the agreement of their Korean husbands (Citizenship Act [Kukchok pop] ch. 6, art. 2; see also Kim 2006: 19). These unions are sometimes based on deception. Korean grooms have been known to make exaggerated claims of their own wealth or social position, which has resulted in many immigrant brides feeling cheated, trapped in circumstances that are more modest than had been described to them. Further problems ensue after marriage, because of difficulties in communication, domestic violence, abuse by in-laws, and the imposition of Korean patriarchal expectations on foreign brides (Kim, Kim and Kim 2008: 121-55). In this vein, new social organisations have emerged to create legal, occupational, and cultural programs to assist immigrant brides and ‘multicultural families’ (tamunhwa kajok) (on marriage migration in East Asia, see Nakamatsu in this volume).
Conclusion
Since the early 1990s, South Korea has been undergoing major transformations in the system of marriage, family and sexuality. After decades of military dictatorship, democratisation has nurtured a culture of ‘difference’ and a wide range of civil society organisations which advocate human rights for women, sexual minorities, immigrants and the poor. The establishment of the Ministry of Gender Equity in 2001 and the abolition in 2005 of the family-head system (hojuje), a prime example of the patriarchal family system, are some of the most important legal and institutional changes that have helped to create a more open and democratic social environment. At the same time, the relentless power of neoliberal capitalist development has begun to reshape intimate relationships as it creates greater class disparity. The younger generation tends to postpone romance, marriage and childbearing under the increasingly stringent economic realities of contemporary Korea. The rapidly increasing ratio of international marriages is contributing to the construction of the ‘multicultural family’. At the same time, the birth rate in South Korea is one of the lowest in the world. Under such circumstances, the government enacted the ‘Framework Act on Healthy Homes’ (Kon’gang kajong kibonpop) in 2004, which urges citizens to ‘recognise the importance of marriage and childbirth’ (ch. 1, art. 8). In the midst of these dynamic changes one can see incremental tensions between the persistent power of conventional notions of marriage and sexuality and the various new forms of intimate partnership and body politics. Furthermore, such tensions and the new possibilities therein are firmly rooted in the ever-growing transnational flow of people, ideas and capital that has contributed to more fluid ideas and practices in the realm of marriage and sexuality. In this vein, investigations into sexuality and gender politics have led to strategic alliances with other social movements, such as labour and environmental activism, as sex and sexuality is understood as a key platform for our understanding of everyday life, national and international politics and global capitalism (Ko Chong 2011: 14-58)