[KS] Re: Public awareness of homosexuality in South Korea

[maliang at wolmail.nl]

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Young Kyun Oh wrote:

> Since Nam-(male-) sadang, as opposed to YO- (female-) sadang, did not allow 
> any female member, it was more of an initiation and a forced life style, not
> by one's free will.  Namsadang was a group of entertainers who performed
> puppetry (Kkoktu kakshi norUm) and other circus-style shows (tightrope
> feat, plate spinning, etc.), whereas YOsadang was a group of itinerant
> prostitutes who sold alcohol, along with singing, dancing, and sex.  The
> Namsadang interviewee in the article described how he was "initiated" by
> one of his senior members when he was young.  Such homosexual activity
> was called 'namsaek [male
> lust],' in contrast to 'yOsaek [female lust],' a general term for
> heterosexual desire/activity of men.  The party that assumed the role of
> a male (usually a senior) was called 'sut-tongmo [male companion],' the
> other party was called 'amdongmo [female companion].'  (I hope this is
> not too graphic.)
 
Odd. I have never come across the term Yeo-sadang. Sadang, I believe, is
the 
more common (right?) term for the itinerant female entertainers, who are
the 
"older sister" of the namsadang and were initially connected to a
Buddhist 
temple. Yi Neunghwa and Song Seokha have performed the research on which
- so 
it seems - later folklorists, including Shim Useong (see his book on
Namsadang) 
and Yi Pohyeong, base their ideas. In none of this one finds any proof
of your 
claim that the sadang were primarily prostitutes. It is unfortunately
not an 
area many people have written about in the past. Shim Useong (author of
the 
only book on namsadang) once told me namsadang used to be gay, and
sadang 
lesbian, but I think their outcast-status will have been an important
(though 
perhaps not prime) incentive for the choices they made. The young
namsadang-
member you mention may have been one of the young dancing kids,
"tongmu", who 
were initially employed, so it appears, to replace the women. They later
became 
an integral part of the groups. 

Roald
Maliangkay