UPDATE: 7/17/2013
Reports state that the two men in the video have come forward, explaining that the horrible footage (see below) was part of a series of “edgy” horror films that was supposed to demonstrate how people react to “physical deformities.” Apparently, in this video, that deformity was supposed to be the woman’s teeth. (For more on this, click here.)
Though it is still up in the air whether this video is “real” (since the director of the film/clip has not stepped forward and many people are still contesting the idea that this was staged), here are some issues that still remain:
(1) Does the video’s credibility change the fact that U.S. soldiers and expats have historically and continue to not only engage with sex workers, but abuse them, traffic them, and shame them?
(2) Does the video’s credibility change the incredibly disturbing response from Koreans, who felt this woman was embarrassing her country? ( “She went crazy over white guys, lived at a club, and ran into trouble,” one Jagei.com commenter explained. Another wrote, “After that, I think she’s going to go clubbing to meet white guys again.”)
(3) Why on earth would anyone think this clip, even if it is part of a larger film with more context, is on the cutting edge?
Regardless of whether or not the events in the video were staged, the history and relationship between the U.S., S. Korea, and women’s bodies is very real, and the anti-American and anti-woman responses in Korea (all towards feeding a gigantic Nationalist boner) are very real.
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What U.S. Americans know about S. Korea and its history is pretty limited. They seem to know that Koreans make great manicurists; that there is a North and a South (sometimes); that PSY is hilarious and sometimes anti-American; and that kimchi is pretty stinky. It’s time to learn more. If not because you should, then because of this:
TRIGGER WARNING: Extremely disturbing video of two white expats objectifying, humiliating and assaulting a Korean woman
This terrible, gut-wrenching, and vomit-worthy video that has been circulating in the Korean webisphere (and now in the U.S.) is expository, and it opens this cruel and terrible world up to have public discourse on issues of gender, racism, modern forms of imperialism, and oppositional, reactionary, and masculinist creation of nation in response to colonialism. Aside from the obvious, that these “Western” (read: white) boys are humiliating, debasing, and nearly torturing the woman this woman with sadistic and entitled pleasure, it is important to note the type of nationalist and anti-American rhetoric Koreans are using in response to this horrible video (click here for more on this). And also the ways in which Koreans have been debating whether or not this young woman was, you guessed it, asking for it. And to understand that, some history:
WWII: Between 1932 and 1945, Japan was involved in an imperial war with many Asian countries and the United States. During that time, the Japanese government mobilized a large number of Asian women to military brothers to “comfort” Japanese soldiers stationed in Asian and Pacific countries—most of these women were from Korea. Confined to filthy shanties, the sexual slaves were forced to have intercourse with Japanese soldiers anywhere from 10-30 times a day.
Comfort Women Returning to Korea: Gender hierarchy in Korea played a key role in the suffering of Korean comfort women after their return home. Most Korean victims of Japanese military sexual slavery spent less than five years in military brothers. Yet they had to hide their humiliating stories for more than fifty years. The Korean government’s desire initially to mute/silence these stories, and then vocalize them came from the ambition to appear strong and defiant in the face of colonialism at the expense of those who suffered most: the women.
Development of Nationalist Discourse: In many ways, nationalist and anti-colonial discourse redeployed the patriarchal norms of female sexuality demonstrated by the colonizers. In the male-centered code of sexuality embedded in the nationalistic assumptions, the nation became gendered, and women’s sexuality became nationalized. Nation was equated with the male subject position, and women’s sexuality was reified as property of the masculine nation. Chastity involved not virginity as such, but rather that there is always a proper place where female sexuality belongs.
Becoming a ‘Client State’ of the U.S.: The authorship of Korean nationalism was predicated on the ownership of women’s bodies. After liberation from Japan in 1945, Korea was divided into North and South, and the two Korean states turned into ‘client states’ of the US and the Soviet Union. The U.S. played a major role in the modernization of postcolonial South Korea, and reinforced a form of dependent development in South Korea, making its desire to become a major modern nation-state in the global arena one filled with ambivalence.
Kijich’on (Campsites) and Sex Work: Six million American soldiers served in Korea between 1950 and 1971, and upward of one million South Korean women worked as “sex providers” for them in the kijich’on (camptowns) that sprang up around U.S. bases, Katharine H. S. Moon tells us in Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations. Conflict over sex work played an especially pivotal role in U.S.-Korean relations in the early 1970s, when the authoritarian rulers of South Korea feared withdrawal of U.S. troops under the Nixon Doctrine. South Korean leaders, in rhetoric that eerily recalls the suffering of the “comfort women” who served the Japanese during World War II, sought to mobilize these prostitutes as “personal ambassadors” to Americans, seeking to instill in them the idea that they were performing patriotic acts in meeting the sexual needs of foreign soldiers and thus encouraging the U.S. army to stay in the country.
A sign posted on one of the “juicy bars” in The Ville, outside Camp Casey in South Korea. These bars host (and own) sex workers who cater specifically to U.S. soldiers. KSTA bars get tax breaks from the Korean government, but must cater primarily to U.S. soldiers and abide by rules set out by the U.S. military. Photo from Stars and Stripes article.
Who Were These Women?: According to the kijich’on work within a system that is sponsored and regulated by both Korean and American governments. The women who typically sought work in the camptowns that served American soldiers were from poor families in Korea’s countryside. Often these women had one or both parents missing or came from a family that could not provide for its other members. Moon describes how these women refer to themselves as “fallen women” even before they enter into sex-work.
Offering “Fallen Women” as Sex Ambassadors: A “Necessary Evil”: While sex work is frowned upon in the Korean public imagination, many ignore it, or see it as a “necessary evil” that mitigates the relationship between the United States and the Republic of Korea. Additionally, most of those who find it a necessary evil also ultimately blame the women rather than the foreigner or the pimps and club owners for such prostitution. The kijich’on is the physical manifestation of the destruction, sacrifice and ugly, brutal, sexual history of Korea as a new international power. They are, according to Moon, “living testaments of Korea’s geographical and political division into North and South and of the South’s military insecurity and consequent dependence on the United States”
So, it is within this context that I view this video. It is in this context that I demonstrate rage against many misogynistic White American expats. It is with particular sadness that I criticize the fragmented and masculinist nationalist identity of South Korea, and the ways in which many of its women are dispensable in life and indispensable as “ambassadors” to keep U.S. soldiers happy. It is with confusion that I understand S. Korea as a postcolonial state, with a desire to articulate and assert its heritage before U.S. presence (incidentally, the Koryo dynasty had strong elements of matrilineal and patrilineal elements .)
Somewhat related: sometimes, people ask me if I am afraid of being a woman in an almost exclusively black and brown neighborhood. Of course, their assumption is always that black and brown men are animalistic predators. I always take the time to tell them that I have never feared for my life or for my body around them-in fact, I have created a community with many of them, and they have stepped in when I’ve needed help and support. I do often fear the presence of drunk, privileged, affluent, lacoste-wearing, white men, because I have been smacked, grabbed, squeezed, slapped, and cupped by their pasty and entitled little hands. But let’s leave race and sexual/street harassment for another blog post.
walking our boundaries 
