(By guest blogger Andy Jackson)
It seems that Korean lesbians have a hard time. Well, not literally of course but, er…. here is the link:
A significant number of lesbians in South Korea have suffered ostracism and discrimination due to their sexual orientation, a survey suggests. According to the poll announced Monday by the Lesbian Rights Research Institute, which interviewed 507 women in their 20s and 30s in Daegu, Busan and Seoul who consider themselves gay, 83.4 percent of respondents said they experienced discrimination or disadvantages due to their orientation.
So, what kinds of problems do Korean lesbians have?
Among disadvantages, lack of emotional stability was cited most often with 30.2 percent, while 28 percent named conflict with family and friends, 5.9 percent cited disadvantages at school or work or being threatened with exposure, and 1 percent reported sexual assault.
While there is no telling what kind of methodology the institute used, Korean lesbians certainly seem to have it rough. So, if you see any walking down the street, be sure to be nice to them.
21 Comments
Yahh, “lack of emotional stability” is certainly a rare and sympathy-inducing condition for the women of THIS nation… we should all be rightly concerned… shur’nuff.
I was gonna say: only 30.2 percent with emotional instability might induce some readers to want to start to date Korean lesbians!
Preaching to the chior… yes and looking at who conducted this survey, it looks like it is a desparate grab at sympathy by people that are very unlikely to get any.
Assuming lesbians do at some point feel empowered enough to come out of the closet en masse, think of what consequenses this will have. Very butch women at the office commenting on what a nice rack Ms Park on the team has or what a nice caboose Ms Kim has and some maybe going as far as requesting to be called something silly like ?? or ?. Yes-what a liberating world it would be…
One of my closest friends in Korea was a bisexual woman who socialized extensively with bisexual, gay, and lesbian foreigners and Koreans. Most gay and lesbian Koreans get married, just like their heterosexual counterparts, owing to family pressure or the desire to start a family. Some gays and lesbians marry each other while others marry heterosexuals who are unaware of their spouse’s sexual orientation. One lesbian Korean was actively dating Western men, hoping to find a husband who would take her to the West. I met one American boyfriend, who was smitten with her. Ponder that, James. Do you really want gays and lesbians to remain in the closet?
Koreans will send lesbians and gays to a mental hospital and lock them up. Koreans people do not want to talk about these things; “gay” is a sick topic to Koreans. It is as taboo as “incest”.
Sick, sick, sick!
Due to this attitude, there are less gays in Korea. Lots of girly men, but they don’t do intercourse. Men can be very close friends emotionally. But no physical hanky-panky, no kissing, no intercourse. No breakback mountain.
I believe this is a better way to deal with gay problem. The society should impose a rule. Just the same rule as having an intercouse with a teenager is “statutory rape”. These rules are necessary.
There you have it. I am an anti-queer. And, I am proud of it.
A gay-basher? No, I would not go and bash a gay’s head.
But I would vote against the same-sex marriage and would not allow these gays to teach my children.
Yes, I like them to go back to the closet where they belong. I have known some nice gay people. But, some Nazi people were nice, I am sure.
What is wrong is wrong.
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
you’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before its too late
before you are six or seven or eight
to hate all the people your relatives hate
you’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
of people whose eyes are oddly made
and people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
( Lyrics from Rogers and Hammersteins…South Pacific)
Baduk obviously has never been to Itaewon. And I hope he stops making stupid generalizations about Koreans. I’m a Korean gay male who’s fairly out to family/friends, and I don’t think homosexuality is as taboo as incest. Being gay is not considered to be legally “wrong” in Korea (I don’t care about the crap Baduk’s god talks about). The currently most popular film in the Korean box office deals with a Chosun dynasty king’s relationship with a young guy, and there was a Korean judge who recently wrote a thesis about legalizing gay marriage. I’m not saying that things are going well for gays in Korea. It’s just that it’s not as hellish as Baduk claims.
Btw, I’m really glad to find that Baduk is not a Korean citizen. I feel sorry for America though. ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???
Baduk,
I suggest that you try to imagine your brother, sister, or one of their parents being gay. Then imagine your brother, sister, or one of your parents being verbally or physically abused because of his or her sexual orientation. That might help you to humanize gays.
My attitude about gays changed 178 degrees when I found out my younger brother was gay. I admit that I do not feel 100 percent comfortable around gays, but I am not afraid of them, and I certainly loved my younger brother, who died in 1990.
I think gays should have the same rights as any other human being, including the right to marry someone of the same sex. Afterall, why should we care if two people, even of the same sex, are happy together?
I do not know what Koreans were taught in school about this subject, but Koreans used to tell me that there were no gays in Korea. My memory is a little hazy, but I think the reason given was that kimchi suppresses the “gay gene.” I am just kidding about the kimchi, but they really did tell me that there were no gays in Korea.
I do not believe that homosexuality it learned, so seeing gays kissing or hugging in public is not going to make someone gay. I think schools need to teach children that sexual preference is determined at birth and that it is all right to be either heterosexual or homosexual. If children were taught that, then maybe we would have fewer crazies in our societies.
By the way, I hate smokers, and I’m proud of it. I do not think they should be allowed to smoke anyway where I might breath their smoke. For example, I cannot stand it when someone is walking ahead of me on the sidewalk while puffing on a cigarette. Moreover, I think it should be illegal for smokers to have children. Why should children have to grow up in an environment like that?
According to the poll announced Monday by the Lesbian Rights Research Institute, which interviewed 507 women in their 20s and 30s in Daegu, Busan and Seoul who consider themselves gay, 83.4 percent of respondents said they experienced discrimination or disadvantages due to their orientation.
The solution is simple: move out of the big cities. Heck, Nomad’s been advocating that since forever.
Sounds like Memento Mori.
Reminds me of a national survey I saw in a prominent Korean paper a few years back. I’ll try to find it later. It was a report on AIDS in Korea, and one pie chart showed with whom those who contracted HIV through sexual intercourse had been in contact. The three catagories were 1. Korean 2. Foreigner 3. Homosexual…I always wondered where Homosexualland was…
Baduk, all due respect, but there is no “gay problem.” There is a “straight problem” though, it’s called bigotry. I have gay and lesbian friends (and knew several who died of AIDS) — some would be obviously queer to you, but many you would never know their sexual orientation. And why should you? It’s none of our business, these people contribute a lot to society and are no different than you or me.
Anyone got an photos or home movies of this ostracised group?
gbb,
I just want to say that you have my 100% support. There is nothing wrong about being gay. I can just imagine it is not easy to be gay in the traditional Korean culture, I respect the courage you show in coming out to your family and friends.
No comment.
Ok, here’s the comment I was trying not to comment make. The link didn’t work.
I Name My First Lesbian
You’ve heard of a boy name Sue, well I gotta Korean girl named Steve.
By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Editor
I don’t know that she’s a lesbian, but damn if she doesn’t look and act like one.
It was an honest enough mistake. At the beginning of each semester, yours truly gets to play the age old game of Name The Korean. I turned to my right and I saw a kid that looked like your average male Korean kid.
I didn’t really think much of it — I put a bunch of male names on the board and let the kid pick which one he wanted.
Little did I know that I wasn’t naming a male Korean…I was naming a FEMALE Korean.
After weeks and weeks of teaching the girl, I saw her zip out of the girl’s bathroom and I said to him/her, “STEVE, WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE GIRL’S BATHROOM?”
The moment I said it, I remember KHK telling me about one of my students who I thought was a boy but was really a girl.
And I realized it was Steve.
Seeing Steve leave the girl’s bathroom reminded me of this girl when I was a kid who looked and acted the same way. Everyone assumed she was a boy or…uh…really wanted to BE a boy. Later, of course, people would mumble something inaudible whenever the topic of her significant other came up. “Yeah, she’s mumble mumble mumble with mumble mumble.”
Oh. Is that so?
Anyway, back to Steve.
Once I realize Steve was a girl, I started taking a closer look at her. One close look and Steve pretty much looked like every dom I’ve ever met. Her hair was short, her shirt flannel and her hands all over the cutest young fem you ever did see. I tried as hard as I could to see any sign that it was a girl and not a boy in front of me, and I just couldn’t see it. Looked all boy to me.
These days, I look at Steve and Julie and think, “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
See, Korean culture is EXTREMELY conservative, at least on the face of it — no pun intended — and the idea that I might have a little pre-pubescent lesbian in one of my classes I find ever so delicious. “Steve, Steve, Steve, you need to take your little twinky there to a nice New England town and raise a couple of gender neutral chillens,” I think while I try to ponder what fate awaits Steve.
The position of Julie in Steve’s world I find perplexing. Is Steve just going through a phase, or is she going to grow up to be…uh…a lesbian? In such a conservative society, why does Julie seem so happy with Steve touching her all the time. I mean, I know all about how Koreans have a completely different idea about same-sex touching vis-a-vis the West, but dude, Steve looks and acts like a Western lesbian. (Which, come to think of it, would be a great band name. “You do NOT FUCK with the Western Lesbians! The Western Lesbians carry ALL their own equipment!”)
I tried to cover for Steve, Julie and their Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name when a bunch of girls from the other side of the room started to suggest that Julie and Steve were a couple.
“No, no, their just friends guys. Stop talking like that,” I said.
There talk did cause me to walk over to Steve and say, “Steve, you need a girl’s name. How about Sue? That’s a good girl’s name,” I said.
“No, TeaCha! I like Steve!”
Fight the power, my young lesbian in training. Fight the power.
Is the Koizumi post being blocked somehow? I’m able to link to everything except that.
Gerry, you are correct. 25% of homosexual males are born that way, the other 75% are sucked into the lifestyle.
Hey Baduk, I’m a Korean gay male who’s open to his family. They are very supportive of me and love my boyfriend. Your comparison of gays to Nazis is amusing. My mother raised me like she’s super-woman and she loves me to death. If she ever heard you saying such things she’d be very hurt. Please know that I am a better human being than you are because I don’t put down people who are only loving the person/gender they do.
And railwaycharm, 75% are sucked into the life style? Sucked… in??? How does one get sucked into homosexuality? Does one have to be sucked off by a homosexual to become one?
I think you guys are jealous or something, otherwise you wouldn’t be whining.
And Shelton, that’s a beautiful story.
Anyways I just wanted to say that I’m gay and I’m Korean (shocking!) and I’m proud whether you like it or not!