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Korean crackdown could upset balance of sex trade with Japan
By Masuo Kamiyama
October 10, 2004
What have the South Koreans done! cries Asahi Geino in anguish. What were the
authorities thinking when they made sex a criminal offense? Will the same thing
happen in Japan?
Well, itv's not actually sex per se that's been declared illegal, but
prostitution -- which technically has been against South Korean law since the
nation came into being in 1948, though you'd never have known it. An unenforced
law is to all intents and purposes no law at all, and South Korea's skin trade
generated an estimated 24 trillion won (2.4 trillion yen) a year. Foreigners,
Japanese prominent among them, flocked to Seoul's world-famous red-light
districts and, judging by the amount of money they spent, had themselves quite
a time.
Alas, those days are gone. The crackdown began on Sept. 23 under a strengthened
anti-prostitution law aimed at combatting human trafficking. Brothel owners now
face up to 10 years in jail. Clients too have lost the innocence once conferred
upon them by a notoriously male-dominated society, and as Asahi Geino's
exclamatory headline notes, "onna-asobi", literally "playing with women," is
newly punishable by imprisonment of up to a year.
The industry "is not taking this lying down," the magazine is pleased to
observe. Brothel owners and prostitutes -- the supposed exploiters and
exploited respectively -- have joined forces in massive demonstrations
protesting the abrupt deprivation of their livelihoods.
Asahi Geino, for its part, rises up in defense of the client, the partaker of
"onna-asobi." First of all, it demands, where precisely is the fine line
between sex and sex play? The gray zone includes oral sex, masturbation,
massages, and so on. The law, of course, has all that covered, defining sex as
any activity aimed at inducing ejaculation.
Secondly, the magazine wonders whether a vice (if that's what it is) so deeply
rooted in human nature can be legislated out of existence. Making prostitution
illegal, it argues, won't eliminate prostitution, any more than Prohibition in
the U.S. eliminated drinking in the 1920s; if anything, it fears, it will only
drive it into hidden corners -- suburbia, the Internet -- where it will be even
more difficult to control.
Meanwhile, the weekly argues, innocent men who mean no harm and are merely out
for a good time will end up in jail. "There are rumors," it hears from a
Japanese travel agent, "that the law is really aimed at foreigners, Japanese in
particular."
That is far from having been proven, but in the meantime there is another
concern. Japan too, following an embarrassing reprimand from the U.S. State
Department, is developing a firmer stance with regard to human trafficking.
Asahi Geino foresees an alarming possibility arising from this: "Will it get to
the point where sex will get you arrested in Japan too?
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