A glance at today’s newspaper reveals that the Korean Institute of Criminology recently published a rather embarrassing report, indicating that Korean men are by percentage the most prolific whore mongers in at least four South East Asian countries. Adding insult to injury, the report goes on to state that Korean men are the “primary” customers of under-aged prostitutes in at least three South East Asian countries. Unfortunately this particular distinction doesn’t (yet) come with any type of award. Perhaps the Ministry of Gender Equality is working on it? To anyone who has lived in Korea for any period of time, this report will perhaps not be so surprising, considering the shear magnitude of Korea’s sex trade.
Seldom does one single country manage to be a significant source country for both overseas prostitutes AND sex tourists. In fact, I’m willing to wager that Korea is the only advanced country that holds this dubious distinction. Korea is a significant source country for prostitutes working in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan and New Zealand, while at the same time, according to the above mentioned research, being the largest single source country of Asian sex tourists in South East Asia. Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. Look at what a colossal country China is, and how many Chinese have recently gained the financial power to travel. How do Korean sex tourists outnumber Chinese sex tourists? Look at how rich Japan is, and how well traveled the Japanese are, combined with their proclivities towards all sorts of twisted sex. How are the Koreans outnumbering the Japanese when it comes to sex tourism in S.E. Asia? Is that even possible? Is that even economically logical? Under what circumstances does one single country become a source of export for both the supply and demand sides of the sex industry equation?
Then consider for a moment that Korea also holds the distinction of being the largest destination country for mail-order brides in Asia. Wait, what? They’re bonking Korean whores, importing foreign whores, AND traveling abroad to screw under-aged third-world whores? So Korea is a major source country of overseas prostitutes, the primary source country of Asian sex tourists, while at the same time being the largest destination country for Asian mail order brides? What the fuck? And all while maintaining perhaps Asia’s most highly organized, low priced, highly visible flesh trade on it’s own home turf? Sweet suffering Christ, how much Viagra are they selling annually daily in Korea?
So Korea, what the fuck is going on exactly? Let’s consider a few things:
The relative price of a prostitute’s services in Korea is much lower than it is in most developed countries. I’ll venture to guess that the low cost of prostitution in Korea is related to an oversupply of women and girls willing to engage in prostitution, as one would expect in a typical supply/demand situation. If the number of prostitutes declines, the prices increase. If the number of prostitutes increases, the prices decrease. The demand is always there, and is always steady. The demand is only a relative function of the supply when it comes to prostitution. Demand might seem low at some points, but in reality, the supply has simply increased a great deal while demand has remained steady. In other words, if girls are suddenly getting fewer customers, it’s not because ajeossis are suddenly no longer horny; it’s because more girls have entered the market, and ajeossis are exercising their power as consumers to pick and choose.
A great deal of the girls working in Korea’s prostitution industry aren’t the people you’d expect to see working in the prostitution industry. They are students, models, entertainers, and girls you’d otherwise not expect to be selling their bodies for $100-$200. They are girls whom if they worked in Western countries (and many, many, many of them do) could command $700-$1000 for the same services they are selling for $100-$200 in Korea. In other words, the price to quality ratio for whore mongers in Korea is pretty good. So, why do Koreans outnumber all other Asian sex tourists? They’ve got a good deal at home, they can bang a wannabe pop starlet for $150.
Well friends, that question requires some further deep thinking. It’s logical for Korean prostitutes to seek work overseas, because they can earn significantly more money, for less work. It’s also fiscally logical for say American or British men to travel to other countries to engage in paid sex, as the cost/quality ratio for these types of services in their home lands are disadvantageous. That is to say, there aren’t any cute little 20 year old wannabe TV starlets prostituting themselves for $100 back in the UK or New York. In fact, $100 will probably just get your dick nibbled on by a toothless crackhead in New York or London.
I’m going to venture a few wild guesses here. (1) Perhaps Korean men are tired of bonking Korean prostitutes. It’s so natural, and so normal, and so absolutely routine for them, that they actually crave something different. Going whoring with friends and co-workers is so shockingly normal in Korea that it’s actually a non-event. Having some K-pop flunky suck you off in front of your friends at a room salon is the status quo. It’s a normal Friday night. (2) Perhaps Korean men go to other countries to have sex with children, because children in Korea are too busy studying to be involved in the sex industry. (3) Perhaps Korean men travel to S.E. Asian countries for actual real vacations and golf trips, and prostitution is just expected to occur as it would back home. Perhaps prostitution is as natural as breathing air for them, and the thought of a week without prostitution is simply unthinkable.
Or perhaps the surveys are flawed. Maybe they went to Cambodia, and surveyed 200 prostitutes, asking “Which country’s men visit you the most often?” and when most of the girls replied “Korea”, they thought “Well, this can’t be right, let’s go over to Vietnam and ask the same question.” And then when the Vietnamese girls mostly answered “Korea”, the researchers thought “Well, we have a little problem here. We can’t possibly publish these results……this can’t possibly be right, there must be some mistake here”. And so they went to Thailand, asked the same question, and got the same answer, and are still standing around scratching their heads thinking “Hey, wait a minute, this can’t be right, these hundreds of prostitutes from four different countries all must be making a mistake or conspiring against Korea…” or something.
Or maybe it’s something in the water, something that causes a type of medical condition whereby men who drink Korean water suddenly need to blow their load every six hours with a different woman. And why are so many women engaged in prostitution when the wages are relatively low? (Well, the minimum wage in Korea is still less than $5 an hour) Let’s imagine that the average girl can work around 24 days a month. She charges $120 for straight sex. She sleeps with one client per day. She’s making about as much as an English teacher, or entry level company worker, or maybe slightly more. If you took a random survey of university aged women, asking them if they would fuck 24 strangers a month for $2880, I’m willing to bet that almost none of them would answer “yes”. And the sad truth is that they aren’t working for that $2880 a month, because it’s not enough. It’s not enough for the hair salon, the nail shop, the clothes, the shoes, the handbags and rent. It’s not even close. So they fuck three, four, five guys a night. What does that do to their psyche? Maybe they blow the money on silly, status trinket crap and in the end, after thousands of guys, they have nothing to show for it, except maybe a few cigarette burns, an STD and a virulent, life-long hatred of men. Or maybe they enjoy it? Maybe they put their money into a hedge fund.
The Korean sex industry puzzles in terms of both Korean sex tourism abroad, and the domestic sex industry as it currently exists in Korea. Korea’s sex industry is so well run, that it actually makes the Korean government look embarrassing by comparison. Korea’s sex trade is logistically so well organized that it actually puts major global companies to shame. I mean, imagine all of the trouble you have to go through to have a prostitute delivered to your house in a western country. Unless your name is Charlie Sheen, you’re going to have to jump through all sorts of hoops, and screening, and headaches, and worries that it might be a police sting, and that you are going to be a registered sex offender even though you haven’t actually had sex. In Korea it’s as simple as picking up a flyer from the ground and dialing the phone number. A girl will be dropped off at your apartment 15-30 minutes later, at almost any time of day. In fact, in the 3 block walk between my house and the major subway station I take to work, I’ll probably see at least 6 different flyers advertising such services.
If the people who ran the Korean sex industry ran the Korean government instead, the entire country would be whipped into a well oiled cash-earning machine. Have Korean politicians created new jobs for women? No? The sex industry has. Have Korean politicians addressed the growing income disparity and come up with a realistic means of wealth redistribution? No? The people who run the sex industry have; wealth is passed down from upper class males to lower class females on a massive scale, every single night in Korea’s countless brothels. Does the Korean government provide free transportation for all of its workers? No? The fine folks who run Korea’s sex industry do. They have big black vans that pick the girls up, drop them off at work, and then take them home after work. They even wait around until the girl gets inside her apartment to make sure she is safe. Does the government do that? Does Samsung? Has the Korean government come up with a viable plan to support single mothers? No? The folks who run the sex industry have. Does the national pension plan stand up to economic turmoil? No? The sex industry does. Decentralization? Check. Deregulation? Check. Internationalization? Check. Structural reform? Check. Vertical supply chain integration? Check.
The Koreans recently took an entire Ramada Hotel in Gangnam and turned it into a massive brothel. How many other countries on earth could achieve that? I mean, could you imagine a Ramada Hotel in New York, LA or Frankfurt being turned into a brothel? How do you take a major international hotel chain, and turn it into a brothel? How do you then forget to pay off the police, whom traditionally have taken a cut from the clubs/pimps/girls in exchange for not raiding them?
Remember all of those newspaper articles from last year, where tourism authorities were griping that busloads of Chinese tourists were unable to find accommodation in Seoul because there weren’t enough hotels? Remember all those unfortunate Chinese tourists who had to settle for hotels miles outside the city center, because most major hotels were fully booked? Dear Korea; I think I’ve found the problem. You’re using your tourist hotels as ajeossi brothels! Obviously re-renting one room to 7 or 8 different girls a night is going to be more profitable than renting the same room to a single tourist. Brilliant business idea, and very entrepreneurial, but you’ve also managed to become the only country in the world whose prostitution industry is actually hindering tourism! The Korean sex industry boggles the mind with both its scale and its efficiency. When it comes to the sex industry, the Koreans blow everyone else out of the water.
Ugh, as a Korean myself living in New Zealand, I’m honestly pretty embarrassed heavily on many things about Korea and the sex industry is one of them. Glad I decided to leave in 2009 and from that point on, only visited during winter seasons.
This is the greatest piece about Korea ever written.
It’s one of them. For the others, check the rest of the blog.
I think the sex tourism is explained by Korea being a closed country for so long in the past. now that some have money they want to go golfing and hit casinos outside of the country and just have an international experience. fun fun fun
Foreigner prostitutes, so that you may better understand the unique culture of the 2-3-4′s (two minutes, three inches, four-hundred dollars) visiting your country here is a handy phrase book you shall find invaluable to better fleece them:
“Yes oppa, my age 12. I have 10-year-old sister. You li-kee?”
“No oppa, you no worry. I never go with the foreigner.”
“Long time? You mean 5 minute? Oh oppa, you strong man.”
“Plant your Taegukgi, oppa.”
“Oppa! Please stop beating me! I’m human too.”
HAHA! I just saw your 2-3-4…..I know them as 123
Same shit really
In all honesty the Korean, Japanese and Chinese mongers are killing the SEA industry. Go to Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia……a growing number of the prostitutes there are starting to cater for East Asian men exclusively.
Affectionately known as 123 men (1 inch penis, pays 2X the going rate, cums in 3 seconds), these guys are known to blow the same amount of cash they do in their home countries just for one session, a blowjob or sometimes even no sexual encounters whatsoever.
Most seasoned mongers know (or at least have an idea of) the going rates in these zones, but not our East Asian cousins! Where people with common sense pay $30, $40 for 4 hours of fun, 123 men offer to pay $100 for 30 minutes.
The fact that Korea’s such a grubby little promoter of women prostituting themselves and has a brothel on just about every corner, even right next to elementary schools in some cases when civilised countries have zoning laws and way less hypocritical atittudes to prostitution, is down to 2 things.
The low status of women is the first. That includes the good ol double standard where ‘good’ women are for wives and baby makers, other women are there to sexually service men including their husbands.
This is the country that only removed the legal submssion of single/widowed females to the oldest male relative under President Ro in the 21st century. When women do have some actual equality in a society, it’s accepted that they have the right to a sex life unmarried or married.
Koreans still have that hypocritical attitude that men do what they like sexually while women have to ‘be careful’ and worry about their rep. I heard some whacked out views on women my first time in Korea and I thought the Koreans who held them were joking but they weren’t. It’s made worse by the Korean version of Christianity which mostly seems about maintaining the same kind of hypocritical image without being too bothered with ethical behaviour.
Korean men are still privileged over women in every way and their tendencies to prefer male company also keeps women in that low status category. Many middle aged/older Korean men seem to actively dislike the company of women except as fussing around attending to them or ‘entertaining’ them in the numerous places of prostitution, and in some cases it seems a closet homosexual thing.
Korean men generally are homosocial and there’s a lot more active bisexual behaviour among them than you’d think. I used to see apparently straight men cruising for other men in my local convenience stores or bus terminal more times than you’d think.
The second thing is the backwardsness of Korean society in the 19th century, its forced introduction to 19th century development from both western countries and the Japanese colonisation, then the militarisation by Japanophile Korean military dictators and the Korean War.
Korea had progress imposed on it without socially developing and its women were not only used by the foreigners who took over – Korean families in some cases encouraged their females to bring home money by prostitution. Military presences always result in lots of demand for prostitutes and this culture is very much present in Korea today.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2013/01/399_129663.html
This article explains A LOT on Korean prostitution (at least in the context of modern times)
I bet the guys conducting this research had a great time.
Only a few changes needed to make this a sensible essay advocating legal prostitution.
Less seedy underground stuff here. Less girls going overseas. Less men going overseas. The current plan is not our problem, it’s illegal.
It’s not just young women. Out in the 군 there are plenty of middle-age ones, too.
I remember once debating a Japanese guy re: which country had more women in the sex / sex entertainment industry. We both made a very good case for our countries of residence but at the end remained unconvinced by the other’s argument.
One of your best pieces of writing, btw.
Fantadtic writing. The Korean sentry boys will be crying a bit.
Makes you wonder about the genuine seriousness of the comfort women argument.
Why would anyone be angry at me? I’m just referencing a Korean article, in a Korean paper, written by Koreans. It’s not like I made the whole thing up.
I found the particular comment about the ‘reason’ for this type of peadophillic behavior within this study somewhat interesting:
“The KIC report speculates that the main cause of the situation is a lack of guilt among Korean tourists about paying for sex. A survey on 900 people by the institute in October last year found that 77.7 percent were not aware that paying for sex overseas is an offence under Korean law, and 78.5 percent thought their chances of getting punished were low.”
This paragraph is far more telling than they are just doing something wrong. The mere fact that Koreans simply don’t view the sexual exploitation of children as a problem is shocking. BUT, far more telling is the fact that those who actually know that having sex with kids is wrong…do so regardless because they dont’ feel they will get caught. Compile this with the sheer number of Korean men who do this behaviour overseas coupled with the sex industry here in Korea and you can start to realize the level of how Koreans truly value those who do not share with the Han, yet absolutely crave Western acknowledgement. I’m surprised the gov’t and Ministry of Tourism have managed to fool so many tourists by feigning ignorance to outright denial of the reality of this society around them.
Why work on your feet, when you can work on your knees?
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/01/2013020100760.html
“It’s not enough for the hair salon, the nail shop, the clothes, the shoes, the handbags and rent. It’s not even close. So they fuck three, four, five guys a night. What does that do to their psyche? They blow the money on silly, status bobble crap”
Aren’t these the same kind of misogynistic 된장녀 tropes that conservative Korean dudes level at young women who have the audacity to spend their money however they please? You sound quite similar to the kind of guys you purport to be criticizing. Also, it seems like you worked yourself up into such a colonial-feminist lather that you forgot the spelling of “bauble.”
“and in the end, after thousands of guys, they have nothing to show for it, except maybe a few cigarette burns, an STD and a virulent, life-long hatred of men.”
This is a pretty square viewpoint, seemingly rooted in a puritanical view of how women should behave (i.e., “If you took a random survey of university aged women…”). Why would they hate all men? What if some of these women actually like sex? Why wouldn’t a woman want to have sex with 24 strangers per month for $2880? I’d do it easily, at night, after my 9-to-5 … but I’m a man. Should men and women have inherently different sexual roles?
I don’t understand the point of your comment. Offering free spelling advice? I suppose this is what English teachers do in their spare time; proof read other people’s blogs.
You’re looking for sexism in a post that is justifying prostitution instead of criticizing it. No one is debating what women should or shouldn’t do, nor how they should spend their money. In fact, no one here is judging prostitutes.
If you can make the mental leap required to liken this posting to Korean netizens criticism of Beanpaste girls, you have been in Korea, among Koreans, without outside contact for far, far, far too long.
If you think that any significant number of these young whores ‘enjoy’ sleeping with men in their 50s and 60s for money, perhaps you’ve lost touch with reality. Some might, maybe you should take a survey? Perhaps some of them DO enjoy laying under sweaty, huffing, puffing, chubby, pasty, drunk, cigarette stink breath ajeossis. Who knows? Perhaps they like being slapped around a bit, or burned with cigarettes. I’m not judging.
Maybe they use the money to fund their masters degrees. Maybe they use it to buy handbags. Maybe it is survival prostitution, and bellies go hungry when tricks aren’t turned. Maybe the Korean economy really is THAT fucked. Not really important or relevant.
“No one is debating what women should or shouldn’t do, nor how they should spend their money.”
This doesn’t square with this:
“If you took a random survey of university aged women, asking them if they would fuck 24 strangers a month for $2880, I’m willing to bet that almost none of them would answer ‘yes’.” (your presumptions about what women should do)
“bobble crap.” (criticizing prostitutes based on your perceptions of how they spend their money) If the sex trade were legalized, would you still care whether the workers spent their money on “bobble crap”?
“If you think that any significant number of these young whores ‘enjoy’ sleeping with men in their 50s and 60s for money, perhaps you’ve lost touch with reality.”
In a country where so many men and women suffer from daddy issues, it is plausible that many young women might like having sex with guys who remind them of their fathers. And what about the old whores?
Why do you keep bringing up cigarette burns? I think the reality of the sex trade in Korea is largely much more mundane than your prurient, huffing-puffing projections.
“If you took a random survey of university aged women, asking them if they would fuck 24 strangers a month for $2880, I’m willing to bet that almost none of them would answer ‘yes’.” (your presumptions about what women should do)
No, this is actually just an assumption on my part that in a modern society, with large numbers of Christians, where women now receive education to the same extent that men do, most Korean women wouldn’t whore themselves for $2880 per month. Again, it’s just an assumption, as mentioned in the post, and not some kind of statistical fact. Perhaps most Korean women WOULD prostitute themselves for just $2880 per month. We wouldn’t know unless we conducted a survey. So I’m open to the idea that most women would be whores for money, and I’m not even against the idea. I’m not religious; I think that women should be allowed to sell their bodies, and that men should be allowed to buy women by the hour. I think it is a wonderful system of wealth redistribution, and a great way for girls and women to earn extra tax-free, illegal money.
“bobble crap.” (criticizing prostitutes based on your perceptions of how they spend their money) If the sex trade were legalized, would you still care whether the workers spent their money on “bobble crap”?
Wrong, this is criticizing the status trinket industry in general. I’m not concerned with how prostitutes spend their money. In fact, I like the idea of them spending it on expensive foreign goods because it further keeps the money out of ajeossi hands. They are, in a sense, liberating ajeossi money from Korea, and sending it overseas when they buy status trinkets. It’s actually brilliant, and as a Western person, I fully support Koreans removing money from the Klown economy and sending it overseas in the form of profits generated from the sale of status trinkets. I support whores, and the freedom of whores to spend money as they please.
Further more, I support single mothers, and women in their 30′s, 40′s and 50′s who want to peddle pussy instead of work 9-5 in an office. Who would want to work 8 hours for an ajeossi, and when you could flat-back with the same ajeossi for just an hour, and get MORE money?
Nemesis: President Roh died in the 20th Century. I think you meant 20th Century.
Um, from what I can recall President Roh died in 2008 or 2009, whichever it was the same year as President Kim Dae Jung. It was the 21st century then and it’s the 21st century now. The years of the 20th century start with 19 and the years of the 21st century start with 20.
Interesting to read the other new comments. Korea’s a funny place – foreign men screwing Korean women by mutual consent with no payment involved apparently is something that righteously gets Korean males’ briefs in a knot and is usually categorised under foreign men ‘harassing’, ‘abusing’ etc said Korean women. Then you had Quincy Black who was filming encounters with Korean females who didn’t seem at all like shrinking violets ‘violated’ by filming, secretly or not.
We can conclude in all probability that it’s the nationality of the dick involved that’s the issue with many Koreans.
Nemesis: Yep, you’re right. Oddly, I confused him with Rhee. Sorry about that.
I just found your site. I like it. I would like to know if maybe I could do a guest post or two. I used to have a similar blog here in the Land of the Moaning Clam a few years ago, but alas, it got banned due to an insane stalking ex of a certain nationality and ethnicity. Check out my blog now and see if you think I have what it takes to explain the…uhm…predilictions of our hosts (think host as in invation of the body snatchers, emphasis on sntach). Peace, Love, and Seoul.
BTW…Baek, In-je is a play on words, as well as my nom de plume, as it were. I am somewhat more pigmentally challenged.
An excellent piece!! Just as a general comment, when I’m out with my wife who is Korean and I get the usual “dagger” eyes from Korean males I’m always able to easily blow it off. Why? Because, as this post and related comments have made numerous allusions to, their hypocrisy is simply laughable. I’m happy with my life here for the most part and realize we shouldn’t peg all Korean men this way as they shouldn’t peg us foreign men other ways.. However I wish to send out a big, “Fuck you!!!!” to said Korean male hypocrites. btw I will continue to have glorious sexual relations with my beautiful KOREAN wife as much as humanely possible. Just as I so enthusiastically did with my numerous KOREAN girlfriends previous to getting married.
Think about that you K – guys next time I see you in Thailand cavorting with the two Thai underage freelance hookers you just paid for and are escorting to your hotel. Just one of a multitude of examples of your blatant hypocrisy regarding foreign males dating Korean women. You’re as bad and IMO much worse than most other nationalities in regard to your treatment of women, respect for marital vows etc. But I digress, I’m veering off topic.
Once again an excellent post!! QL
Korean men have pretty much come to own the sex trade in the philippines. its funny and sad to see westerners complaining about them throwing the money at the girls and taking all the good ones. all the locals pretty much seem to hate koreans. They’re exceedingly loud, rude, elitist and stink like god-knows-what.
korean men should be banned from alchohol.
With such a high percentage of women in this shit hole involved in the profession, aren’t you saps that married the Han playing roulette? What’s the stat? 1 of six or ten? Hell, even if it’s as “low” as one in twenty, which it isn’t, those aren’t the odds I’d be betting on. Hate to say it but if there are ten waygooks standing around with their Han wives at least one of those women made some money on her back at some point and the poor waygook doesn’t even know it. Must be some serious denial going on there.
The man raises a good point. Those who have married into the Great Family of Han ought to take a moment to check through their better half’s phone contacts – if there’s a flashy-looking gentleman among them whom she refers to as ‘daddy’ who regularly contacts her in the early hours of the morning asking after his money and threatening that ‘a bitch gunna get cut’, then I’m afraid that you might have married badly.
Limiting yourself to that stereotype tells me you are living in denial. I’m sure a good percentage of the poor waegooks that married into the Han in a moment of weakness have a partner with a past they know nothing about. How many college girls here pay for their designer handbags and whatnot with time spent on their back? Keep telling yourself it can’t be your wife but the statistics are stacked against you. I’d be bitter too if I had a one in ten chance of having married a whore and a ten in ten chance of having a phlem hacking farmer for a father in law. Hope it was worth the visa.
I will have to admit that I had a DNA paternity test done on my kid. I know that she messed around while we were dating, but so did I. I was a huge man slut in my younger days, but hey, I had a great time.
Absolutely no regrets.
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