By ANDY JACKSON
Marmot?????s Hole Guest Blogger
The Marmot isn’t the only one around the Hole would can dig up sex stories.
It seems that the desire of many Korean women to maintain the appearance of being a ‘good girl’ continues even after they are married:
It found that a mere 4.4 percent of women thought sex was important in marriage, compared with 77 percent of men — almost as many as the 74.8 percent of women who said it was unimportant. A substantial 20.2 percent said maybe it mattered (compared to 14 percent of men), but only 2 percent of married men said sex did not matter. When asked if prostitutes are needed to satisfy men?????s sexual needs, 20.4 percent of women and 61 percent of men agreed.
I find it hard to believe that almost 75% of women think that sex is not important in a marriage. That really makes me curious about the survey’s methodology. Perhaps someone who can read Korean well can find out at the homepage of the Korean Association for Sexology (which may either be related to, or the same organization as what the Chosun calls the Korean Institute for Sexology).
This also makes it look like they are lying to the survey conductors:
Sphere: Related ContentDespite the views of the women, the study found that sexual satisfaction played a significant role in a satisfactory marriage, with 82.6 percent of women who said they were content with their sex life also saying their marriage was satisfactory. Only 11.3 percent who claimed an unsatisfactory sex life said they were content with their marriage.
24 Comments
It kind of meshes with what I heard adult students say over the years. Marriage would come up, and since most of my students were between the ages of 25-35, and many were in their late 20s and single, there was a lot of talk about “I need to get married!!”
And when we talked about what was important in a future spouse, there really was a very high percentage that said the same thing.
Men said “Glamour” was important, and after about 6 months to a year, someone stayed after class to explain that meant big tits.
I’m serious.
The women also said not far from uniformly, “Hard work.”
And I was always suprised, no matter how many times I saw the same thing repeated, when the women, especially in my mid-afternoon housewives classes said husbands having sex with a postitute was fine as long as the husband didn’t fall in love with another woman. And the almost universal opinion was that 80% of Korean married men will go to a prostitue either for himself or when out with friends/co-workers.
That was one of the few things I came across in Korean society that was fairly alien to my understanding of American society. I just couldn’t picture among American women even half the of the percentage of Korean women who said sex with a prostitute was fine.
“a mere 4.4 percent of women thought sex was important in marriage” Maybe they meant sex with their husbands
“Glamour”=big tits LMFAO
I find these results very hard to believe. I would very much like to have a poke at the raw data and look at the survey and the methods used to conduct it. While the general acceptance of the use of the prostitutes is no suprise to anyone, as foreigner points out, I am sure that Korean women also have needs that need to be met and indeed are met, if not by their husbands. The sex shops that are all over the place certainly don’t cater only to men. There are so many things that are not clear here-once again we see that Korean news media is happy to report anything-I am suprised they have not reported that Chicken little claims the sky is falling. There is no mention of reasons why women are unsatisfied-technique, ideas of husband humping skaggy street walker bringing who knows what disease home etc are all things that come to mind. Moreover, women and men think of sex in completly different ways-to men it is a physical function and to women it is more of an emotional intimate thing and therefore the words used to describe it in the survey could have a substantial impact on the way the questions are answered.
OR Koreans have family lives that are dysfunctional but continue them in order to have legitimate offspring and be accepted in society and private life is a completely separate and unrelated matter. Sometimes it seems that way. If you listen to Korean women talk, they talk about meeting a sugar daddy as the ideal husband. Men, predictably, are looking for someone who has a nice rack, can give a decent BJ and is otherwise starved for ahem.. physical intimacy. I would argue the gold digger attitude (read: just like a prostitute only smarter) has a huge impact on society that helps perpetuate the whole prostitution issue.
??ด??ญ! That’s what it is!
I agree with foreigner. I think the question that was asked was “Is sex with your husband important?”. Or at least that was the interpretation that was running through the wives’ heads.
I for one don’t find the results entirely surprising. Sure 4.4 percent is a little low and yes I agree that some of those women are afraid of sounding interested because they’ve been taught for years that a woman’s not supposed to be, but there are some serious problems when it comes to sex and marriage in Korea, so shocking in fact that when I read this story I find myself thinking that the survey can’t be so off as to make it irrelevant or useles.
What I’d think as I look at that survey is this: the women who say it isn’t important aren’t getting lots of action at home. They might want more, but most of them are not doing it all on the one hand and then pretenting not to on the other. More likely they are trying to convince themselves it isn’t important to them because it’s easier to go without that way, which might be easier if you’ve never really partaken enough to know what the big deal is, which is the case for many, especially women. There really is a shockingly high number of utterly sexless marriages in Korea, especially late among 30’s an onward. I don’t know the stats, but they’re way up there.
Oranckay, you would think the “cabaret” businesses would be booming if things were as dismal for wives as you say…and maybe it is. Maybe some gigolos reading this can fill us in.
Well now…if this doesn’t explain everything about Korea, I don’t know what will.
Related to #8 and completely anecdotal:
Years ago I spent an evening with some friends in Itaewon. The table next to ours at the Kings Club had a middle-aged Korean woman, two of her friends and her young American soldier “boyfriend.” It don’t remember the details but the way they were acting left me with the impression that she was his sugar-momma.
Perhaps the large supply of lonely housewives can provide some USFK studs with a nice source of extra income (or at least free clothes and beer).
The prostitute is accepted by some, but what about the full-time mistress?
Okay now since we’re on the subject, Andy…
School seonbae of mine won a big sum of money with a literary prize she received for a recent novel. So she took the money and went partying with her buddies in Gangnam, spending a lot of it as they went, and everywhere they went the waiters kept asking if they “needed anything else.” The waiters were offering other services.
Uri Party’s Lee Mi Kyoung is rumored to take two waiters at a time and have a room waiting for her at a place she frequents in the same neighborhood.
Some men go to prostitutes. After a few years of this the men just stop having sex with their wives all together unless they want to bring another baby into the world. The women seem fine without sex for a time but after years and years of very occasional sex, if any, they get lonely. Then the housewives get a “friend”. Spouses know about their partners cheating and just accept it. Some don’t want to know about it even with evidence right in front of them. But hey they usually stay married.
I don’t doubt that survey. After the last child was conceived 6 years ago my wife seems to rate sex about 26 in the hierarchy of importance. Sex is not nearly as important is makings sure all the shoes are arranged neatly at the front door and watching her favorite drama (which seems to be almost every drama).
It sounds pretty consistent with my experiences too.
I once had a small group of high school girls and the discussion topic was love and marriage, with the specifc exercise asking students to rate in order the worst characteristics in a potential partner. What was supriing to me was that over half of the students rated a lack of ambition above cheating as worse characteristics, thsi was in high school when they should still have some romantacised notion about love and marriage.
all my other experiences are pretty much the same as what other people have already posted, but they make me think that the survey isn’t too far off.
Some men go to prostitutes. After a few years of this the men just stop having sex with their wives all together unless they want to bring another baby into the world
If the women are lucky, that is. One housewife in her 30s told me that of all her girlfriends, only one testified that she had ever “felt anything” during sex. Among her circle of friends the wives just don’t get anything out of sex and even fear it because it’s either painful or a chore.
If the women are lucky, that is. One housewife in her 30s told me that of all her girlfriends, only one testified that she had ever ?felt anything?? during sex. Among her circle of friends the wives just don?t get anything out of sex and even fear it because it?s either painful or a chore.
Yup, this is the impression I get from most Korean (or Asian) women from my personal experience which leads me to believe that poll is onto something. I never truely thought it was so, but…jeez.
Who needs sex when we got storks handing out babies? oh wait, that’s not true!?!? well atleast we still got the easter bunny.
I can believe this to a certain extent. My experience with Korean women and Asian women in general is that they have been culturally repressed. When I give them the inspiration and freedom to live their sexuality, they transform into beautiful sexual flowers. drbedroom.com
Bck in the day, I used to practice Korean by poking around a Korean women’s lifestyle site… especially the sex advice section. I was often amazed by some of the questions women would ask… questions that demonstrated an enormous void of knowledge regarding sex and the human body. The younger generation is different (you should hear my girlfriend’s stories about the things her 17 year-old niece knows), but I’m betting a lot of women from their late 30’s on went into marriage life with no sexual experience and very little knowledge of the joys of sex. These are the ones who don’t think sex is all that important, probably because they’ve yet to experience it in all its… uhh, glory.
This was the best blog post ever! I showed this to my wife. A risky move, but at this point there was not much to lose.
Well she denied it, but her method of denial was quite pleasurable. I’m hoping this denial lasts for a long time to come
I can believe this to a certain extent. My experience with Korean women and Asian women in general is that they have been culturally repressed. When I give them the inspiration and freedom to live their sexuality, they transform into beautiful sexual flowers.
This also has happened once in my case. A beautiful thing it was, doctor.
“I can believe this to a certain extent. My experience with Korean women and Asian women in general is that they have been culturally repressed.”
How else would you explain the popularity of Yonsama (Bae Yong-jun) and other efeminant males among a small number of middle aged Japanese women? It’s oppression. Some middle-aged Asian women are turning to fantasies of asexual teddy bears who won’t threaten them with mascule traits.
I think this attitude about sex is quite common after having had children, it’s just not that important. There’s many other ways to express your love to your mate other than humping. But more than this, I think people slow down once they’re in their 30s to 50s and become ajumma/ajumeoni (middle-aged women). And of course, one doesn’t need a partner to have sex… if you have 40,000 won.
–Remort