"truth must be spoken of as it is"

South Korea has a reputation for being a sexually conservative society, but it's also one where secret cameras in women's bathrooms are a rampant social problem, and the drugging and gang-raping of women in a nightclub leads to very little consequence for the (famous, wealthy) perpetrators.  So it's a shame that small steps towards balanced, comprehensive sex education have once again been shot down by the government:

"Contrary to parents’ belief that sex education will lead to their children having more sex, earlier, a survey on the aftereffects that CSE [comprehensive sexuality education] demonstrated on sexual behaviors revealed that 37 percent of 87 countries that were surveyed said its students had delayed initiation of sex after education, 31 percent said the frequency of sex was reduced and the use of condoms increased in 40 percent of the countries. 

 

Rather than lingering on the ministry’s already-made decision, Nam Yoon-jeong, the president of Think Sing Together who led the Nadaum project, hoped that this incident could be turned into an opportunity to talk about sex education and how sex is dealt with in Korea.

 

'Korea had been lacking proper sex education and any discussion on sex or human rights has been shut down whenever it began,' said Nam. 'We are exposed to sexual consumption and imagery everyday and everywhere, but an ironic stoic sentiment forbids us from talking about it publicly or officially. The ambivalent culture leads to children wondering about something they are exposed to, but getting twisted ideas of it because they’re not taught properly about what it is exactly. The truth must be spoken of as it is.'”

Nothing good can come of a hyper-sexualized society that can't talk openly and plainly about sex, contraception, homosexuality, sexual violence, and gender equality.  And if you click through for pictures, you'll notice that these so called "controversial" books are about as tame as can be.

Why I Love Living In Korea

What a country:

"South Korean football team FC Seoul has apologized after fans accused the club of using sex dolls to fill empty stands at its second game of the K League season.

On Sunday, the club played at home against Gwangju in South Korea's top football championship, which was due to start on February 29 but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic."

Click through for pics.

To paraphrase an old South Park, "He's not the chicken fucker -- he's the chicken lover."

And that's all I got.

Let's Talk About Sex (Or Not)

In a country as culturally conservative as South Korea, some people are demanding better and more widespread sex education for young people.  The current national curriculum is pretty terrible:

"In 2015, the Ministry of Education unveiled the National Level of School Sexual Education Standards as a compulsory nation-wide curriculum for teachers to follow. 

But the guidelines, which took the ministry two years to compile and cost 600 million won ($540,000), were met with backlash for its outdated and biased content. 

According to the material published, a possible reason for sexual violence is that 'women do not pay dating expenses and men want something in return.' It also stated that men have strong and impulsive sexual desires, and therefore, it is important for women to appropriately cope with the situation, putting the responsibility to prevent sexual assault on women. The material also advises victims of sexual violence to 'control their negative thoughts and to try to think positively.'

After backlash from the public, the ministry was forced to edit the material after a little more than a year, but organizations are still demanding that more revisions are made."

I mentioned to my students that while in high school and dating my first girlfriend, my mom drove me to the drug store to show me where and how to buy condoms.  And this wasn't out of any amount of sexual open-mindedness on her part, it was simply because she was terrified I'd get somebody pregnant.

A student responded with "that's a very American story."

Enough said.