Jizz around the world…

I’d like to take a moment away from my stories about the creepy Mankato whack shack to talk a little about other porn stores. I’m kind of the “porn expert” within my social network, but have really only been to a handful of other stores.

From my experience, I can say that around the United States, porn stores are pretty much the same. They range from disgusting places you’d never want to visit to incredibly upscale places that have an atmosphere more appropriate for jewelry than dildos. You can usually get a feel for the store just by driving past the parking lot. If the store has windows, chances are it’s more of an upscale, couple’s store. If the parking lot is filled with rusted out, windowless vans covered with 70s fantasy murals… just keep on driving.

My international porn store experience took place while I was living in Seoul, South Korea, teaching rich kindergarteners how to speak English. (I’ll wait while you make your jokes about a Jizzmopper being allowed to teach a  classroom full of children.) This time of my life was focused on drinking, hashing (see previous entry) and not much else.

Korea was interesting because, like Japan, it has huge Lolita fetish bubbling just under the surface of its society and any nudity in the media is blurred out. I thought it was hilarious that a country that had prostitution readily available wouldn’t allow adults to purchase magazines or videos of nude people without penises and vaginas pixelated out.

From what I understand, prostitution is illegal in Korea, but generally not prosecuted and is something most people just accept. There were even red-light districts with the workers displayed in glass windows for all to see. (They didn’t service any Westerners. AIDS is seen as a foreigner problem, so to protect themselves, sex workers in the red-light districts only work with fellow Koreans.)  

While I was there, and several times since, the police implemented special initiatives to crackdown on the sex industry in Seoul. They accomplished this by listing a very specific time frame that they would be walking through the known sex districts and arresting anyone suspected of prostitution. Once this program was completed, things would pretty much go back to normal.

From my perspective, I saw this crackdown as something the police felt pressured into doing by conservative groups and the fact that they announced the dates they’d be enforcing this program showed they weren’t very serious about it. However, the sex industry saw this as an attack and fought back hard. Thousands of sex workers and their supporters protested at the capital and demanded this harassment end. The grounds of the capital became a sea of people as they sat in non-violent protest for weeks against what they saw was an unjust action.

Support for the sex industry came from all over. Amnesty International and a large number of women’s rights groups provided financial and political support. The ACLU sent a delegation and spoke in front of the capital during one of the most heavily attended rallies of the protest.

But the most unexpected (at least for me) support came from the Korean Men’s League. They appealed directly to lawmakers to stop their attack against the sex industry and revoke all anti-prostitution laws. They argued that if prostitution was illegal, many young men who were serving in the army (which is required of all male, Korean citizens) would become depressed an inefficient soldiers. I followed their efforts on the English Armed Forces Network and the Korean Men’s League appeared sway quite a few lawmakers.

Eventually, the crackdown ended (precisely on the date they had announced it would) and everything did go back to normal. The once empty red light booths were now filled with friendly faces and Korean men were no longer in danger of developing depression.

While the running club ran through the red light district quite often, I can honestly say I only went into one Korean sex shop. It was located in Itaewon, the international district of Seoul located near the army base, and was well hidden on the second floor of an alley storefront. A small group of us went in together, unsure of what we’d find, but drunkenly enthusiastic at the same time.

We were disappointed to find the small store almost empty of customers and products. There was a small rack of foreign, plastic-wrapped magazines that were priced at $50 each (my best guess is that they were Thai). There were a few, incredibly cheap-looking dildos and vibrators that ranged in price from $80 to $550. I was thrilled and ready to buy some items from the tiny bondage section, until I saw the prices. My fantasies of how to utilize the eye-less gimp mask ended when I saw they were charging $1,200 for something that would be available in the U.S. for $50. They also had some scary looking whips and paddles, and I couldn’t help but wonder who they were selling this hodgepodge of sexual items to. The store probably wasn’t legal and had disappeared the next time I walked through the area.

To put this all into perspective, the country that doesn’t allow frontal nudity is filled with arcades that feature animated nudity and sex scenes. You can easily pay for a blow job, but it’s illegal to sell or buy a pocket pussy. You can get 30 years in prison for getting caught with a joint, but alcoholism is a completely accepted social norm.

I expect all of this is less of an issue now that we have the internet to beam all manner of pornography to anyone with a high-speed router, but I still find myself thinking about the strange sexual social customs in Korea.

Even a Jizzmopper can be shocked.