[KS] Sexuality, homosexuality and sex education in Korea

[Frank M. Tedesco]

koreanctr.KoreanNet.org id QAA15204
Sender: owner-korean-studies at iic.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: korean-studies at iic.edu

REPLY sends your message to the whole list
__________________________________________

Brother Anthony makes a good point about the needless suffering many
Koreans experience due to Korean society's suppression of open and
informed talk about sexuality issues.  There is plenty of Korean
pornography and prostitution on the Internet as well as on the streets,
alleys and hotels in the major urban centers. Sexual services for U.S.
servicemen and wealthy tourists from Japan and other countries are only
the tip of the iceberg. Huge red light districts are still doing quite
well. Knowledge of AIDS is primarily fear of death associated with
posters of the Grim Reaper or his skeletal Asian cousin wielding a
hypodermic syringe. Statistical reports of HIV cases and AIDS mortality
seem to make news on a quarterly basis or so.

As a VP of the 5th Asian Congress of Sexology which was held in Seoul a
few years back, I organized a symposium called "Religion,
Culture and Sexuality in Asia" and did some inquiiries about sex issues.
My own research on Korea's sky high abortion rate led me 
to explore why there are so many unwanted pregnancies to begin with.
(See chapter 7 "Abortion in Korea" in Buddhism and Abortion
edited by D. Keown. University of Hawaii Press, 1999 for background).  I
do not have the time to go into a long discussion at this
time about abortion and family planning and a host of related issues
concerning inequities in Korean gender relations. Sex education
in the schools here is poor and irrelevant and led by joyless,
patriarchal moralists who haven't a clue about the culture of Korean
youth or even their own wives and daughters I fear. Aigu! Heaven forbid
any family member is gay!

One of the presenters at my session was Yi Huso, a leader of the first
gay student movement at Yonsei (and thee entire nation, I think). At
that time he was working on a doctorate in Human Sexuality at New York
University. I remember a few of his family members attended 
the session as well as an editor or two of Buddy, the glossy Korean gay
magazine. I believe his paper- a comprehensive overview of Korean  gay
history and issues & the first ever academic presentation on the
subject-  was to be published in a volume by an academic press 
in the US. I haven't had correspondence with Huso in a while. If a
serious researcher wants more information, please contact me directly. A
good web search will probably come up with useful leads on the Korean
gay scene and its antecedents. WHO did a nationwide study and compiled a
directory of  pages of gay bars by city and borough. I have a copy of
that in my musty archives, too. (Thick mildew covers all things animate
and inanimate at AKS). 

Frank
	

Dr. Frank  Tedesco
Vice Chairman, International Cooperation, Korea Dalai Lama Invitation
Committee
See http://www.dalailama.or.kr
Visiting Professor,  The Academy of Korean Studies
Home Office: #302 Nagwon Villa, 516-90 Suyu 5 dong, Kangbuk-gu, Seoul
142-075 Korea
Tel: (82-2) 993-9892  Fax: (82-2) 997-3954  Cellular Phone: 018-336-9892
in
Korea
USA TELEPHONE CONTACT # (727) 391-1152  Largo, Florida
E-mail: frankmtedesco at yahoo.com 
See Research and Reflections at
http://www.buddhapia.com/eng/tedesco/index.html
and http://www.iarf-religiousfreedom.net 

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and
leave a trail.
 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genocide is a personal matter- Frank M. Tedesco