So, basically, we wanted to spend this TL;DR to talk about how widespread prostitution is in Korea, and how the language of it versus the reality of it are at loggerheads. Supposedly 1 out of every 25 women in the country is selling their bodies for sex. Prostitution here is big. Some people are shocked by it. If anyone else in the industry gets busted, well…no shit. And, yes, prostitution is illegal, but as to how much the police uphold the law is another discussion.
The lax nature towards prostitution is not even subtle. Another thing we skipped out on talking about in this video is Kissing Rooms. We just found out about these today from Soo Zee when we asked her about prostitution. The shop provides PCs for you. The shop provides them for you. Supposedly also outside of Kiss Bangs you can order coffee to your home late at night.
A girl will bring you a coffee and some sex as well. The other problem we have with the sex industry in Korea is — in the face of how omnipresent it is — the lack of legalization seems to be a harmful factor. Korea has a thriving sex industry, which — whether Korean people want to admit or not — is still happening.
I read about legal brothels which provide testing for STDs for both clients and staff, provide condoms, conduct background checks, have managers rather than pimps, and set up alarm bells for sex workers in the case of a client becoming abusive. There are also issues of women from other Asian countries being forced into the sex trade by being promised modelling or waitressing jobs in South Korea, and upon arriving, experience having their passports taken from them by their agents, and in turn are forced into sex work.
The point of all of this is, if Korea is going to have such a rampant sex industry which the Korean government is doing nothing to stop, apart from stigmatizing it by outlawing it and protecting nobody from it, the government should at least take steps towards making the industry a safer place for women to work. Also, doing this topic was very worrisome for us, because we know that the topic of sex-working is a sensitive topic for some, and so we apologize if we used language here that people find offensive.
