14 Trillion Won

That’s how much Koreans spent domestically on prostitutes last year.

That’s about US$12.3 billion… or just over a quarter of North Korea’s estimated GNP.

Or 1.7% of South Korea’s 2006 GNP, for that matter.

Granted, this is down 10 trillion won from 2002, when the Special Law on Prostitution went into effect. Experts say, however, that the decrease may be exaggerated, since unregistered places like “telephone rooms” were not included in the study.

The figure was the result of research by the Korean Women’s Development Institute.

Marmot’s Note: Need more reason for South Korea to take responsibility for its own defense? OK, how’s this:

Money spent on whoring in 2007: 14.952 trillion won
ROK defense budget for 2008: 26.7 trillion won

42 Comments

  1. lupin_the_4th your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 12:57 am | Permalink

    If the adjosshi “men” in Korea had the balls get money for whorin’ tied to shootin’, Korea would rule the world.

    On second though, nix that.

  2. NetizenKim your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:20 am | Permalink

    Since whoring has everything to do with the military….

    The United States spends in the neighborhood of $200 billion annually to kill people around the world, the current area of vogue being the Middle East, of course. Make love not war, they used to say.

    Where this fits on the morality scale in relation to ajossi’s who like to fund young girls’s expensive tastes for luxury bags and shoes is, of course, up to you.

  3. dogbertt your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:28 am | Permalink

    Very good point.

  4. Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:42 am | Permalink

    All the states have drug code names and when they take your picture at
    the DMV they send a drug into your system.

  5. cm your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:43 am | Permalink

    Red flags rose when I read:

    “The figure was the result of research by the Korean Women’s Development Institute.”

    A special interest group that in the past has padded the numbers.

  6. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:31 am | Permalink

    Speaking of whores, the Palin spike has run its course, right on course, just as one Mizar5 of course predicted.

  7. anunsaram your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:39 am | Permalink

    “Speaking of whores, the Palin spike has run its course, right on course, just as one Mizar5 of course predicted.”

    Just because you married a whore is no reason to project on others.

    Now off to the haggie with you !

    A B C D E F G …….hmm, hmmm, hmmm hmmm la, la la !

  8. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:50 am | Permalink

    NetizenKim: “Since whoring has everything to do with the military….The United States spends in the neighborhood of $200 billion annually to kill people around the world…”

    Which is a drop in the bucket really, considering the inestimable number of lives that have been saved as a result of US military operations.

  9. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:53 am | Permalink

    “Just because you married a whore is no reason to project on others.”

    What else would you expect from a pederast?

  10. slim your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:55 am | Permalink

    Translation into Englisg, please: If the adjosshi “men” in Korea had the balls get money for whorin’ tied to shootin’, Korea would rule the world.

  11. slim your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 2:57 am | Permalink

    English, that is.

  12. NetizenKim your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 3:20 am | Permalink

    Can one of you experts on Korean prostitution explain what a “telephone room” is? I’m curious.

  13. dogbertt your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 3:30 am | Permalink

    Surely you still have some relatives on the auld sod who’d be glad to fill you in on Korea’s “bang” culture, which caters to the local clientele.

  14. Mizar5 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 4:52 am | Permalink

    Lets, see. A “video bang” is an enterprise where where 2 kids or adults can go to watch a DVD in a private room and anything goes. If you’re out to dinner with a girl and she says “what do you say we watch a movie?” and you there are no theatres in the vicinity, it’s a safe bet she wants to do some snorkling.

  15. CactusMcHarris your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 5:12 am | Permalink

    #13,

    I don’t know what a telephone room is either, so there are at least two inquiring minds….

  16. AK your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 6:35 am | Permalink

    explain what a “telephone room” is? I’m curious.

    Well I guess one shouldn’t expect a Kyopo to have a good knowledge of Korea.

    Anyway, a “telephone room” is where an ajussi goes to have phone sex with some agassi(or ajumma). Of course if during the conversation the couple hit it off, then they can meet outside of the “room” in order to complete the transaction in a nearby motel.

  17. Ladron your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 6:40 am | Permalink

    As far as I know, and feel free to correct me, a “telephone room” or “conversation room” is a place to go to talk to scantily clad women in a phone-sex kind of way. That is how it was explained to me.

  18. AK your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 6:55 am | Permalink

    #17.

    The way it was explained to me is that like a “video bang”, there are small rooms but instead of having a TV and a couch, there is a telephone with a small screen showing images of scantily clad women and of course a chair.

  19. KrZ your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 7:50 am | Permalink

    I’d pay 14 trillion won to do all of the Wonder Girls at the same time.

  20. Granfalloon your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 8:24 am | Permalink

    @ Netizen Kim,

    You know, I’ve always considered myself a hippie peacenik type. But your way with words is just sickening. I’ve been opposed to most American military action in the past forty years, but calling the current debacle $200 million spent on killing people is way off-target. I think if the US only wanted to kill people, they’d be going about it a very different way.

    At the same time, there is so much wrong with your glossing of prostitution, I’m not sure where to start. How about this: contrary to what you learned from TV and Hollywood, not all prostitutes sign on to earn money for Gucci bags.

    Come to think of it, I’m not sure how comparing the overblown military budget of the US to the overblown domestic sex industry spending of Korea makes any sense at all.

  21. funkoffan your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    What does the “special law on prostitution” actually entail? I thought that prostitution in Korea was supposed to be illegal yet we have areas like Yongsan with their neon overhead lights apparently saying otherwise…

    If anyone could send me a link or offer an explanation I would be very grateful.

  22. madar your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 10:50 am | Permalink

    I had a friend who used to go to telephone rooms before he met his wife. He told me he you would call a series of women through the room, chat with them, and, when you found one you were interested in, arrange a price and a meeting place for actual sex. Often not the best looking women, and it tends to be the older guys who go for it, at least in the small town he lived in.

  23. wjk, 검은 머리 외국인 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 11:42 am | Permalink

    i bet you that video room, telephone room, is imported from Japan via Busan.

    if US just wanted to kill, they’d just air bomb day and night.

    air bomb day and night. That was what Bill Clinton did to Bosnia for his 1st term in office, and when Monica sucked him dry, he stepped it up a notch and put some grounders in.

  24. McGenghis your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 11:50 am | Permalink

    If I were king of the world, we’d talk in hushed tones about war and pin medals on whores and johns.

    One of those professions does not deal murder, at least not overtly.

  25. Granfalloon your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 12:21 pm | Permalink

    Good God, where the hell is all this coming from? What does American jingoism have to do with the Korean sex industry? There’s this ridiculous logic, from several posters now, that the rampant sex industry in Korea is somehow OK because of the US military doing bad things.

    I guess I’ll go beat up some hookers. I’ll sleep well tonight, secure in the knowledge that while I may have spent the day punching and sodomizing girls kept is quasi-slavery, at least I’m not the US military.

  26. seouldout your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:49 pm | Permalink

    Wow! Korea!

    Kevin: Hey hyung Doo Hyun, I am feeling like a horny. Where is the girl?

    Doo Hyun: Let me introduce amazing Korean traditional prostitute. You can enjoy. It cost one-hundred dollar.

    Kevin: One-hundred bucks! Wow!! Too cheap!!! That’s amazing!!!! I have prepared the condom. Let us go together!!!!!

    Kevin and Doo Hyun wonder Yongsan Red Light District. Girls try to pull the duo in. “Oppa” is heard. Doo Hyun shows Kevin how to ‘high five’. The pair is dragged into a brothel.

    Kevin: As I know Korea man is world famous for extra-hard cock.

    Doo Hyun hangs pail of water from his erect penis.

    Doo Hyun and Kevin exchange another ‘high five’.

    End.

  27. McGenghis your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 1:56 pm | Permalink

    We all know Sri Lankans can get better deals than that.

  28. th3rm0 your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 3:28 pm | Permalink

    I have a hard time believing this number. Say if we have 10 million sexually active (a pun intended) males, that’s $1,400 per person. Call me cheap, but there are lots of other places I’d rather spend that money than at a house of ill repute.

  29. AK your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 4:45 pm | Permalink

    #26.

    LOL!!

    But 100USD per person? They must have gone for a “long time” session, because the last time I heard a “short time” session cost only 60 USD.

  30. youcrazyfool your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 8:33 pm | Permalink

    AK explain what a “telephone room” is? I’m curious. Well I guess one shouldn’t expect a Kyopo to have a good knowledge of Korea.

    Dummy, not all of us have our minds in the gutter. If this is your way of getting to know a country, go right ahead. Priorities a bit out of whack??

  31. youcrazyfool your flag
    Posted September 20, 2008 at 8:38 pm | Permalink

    AK- Well I guess one shouldn’t expect a Kyopo to have a good knowledge of Korea…

    Dumbass, if this is your lame way of showing off your knowledge about another country, go right ahead. Shows just how low your priorities lie.

    seouldout- Wow! Korea!

    Poor attempt at a lame joke. The again your user name tells us all.

  32. Posted September 20, 2008 at 10:32 pm | Permalink

    If they really wanted to do something about prostitution, they’d nationalize it. Nothing destroys an industry quite like putting the government in charge of its well-being.

  33. Posted September 20, 2008 at 10:33 pm | Permalink

    Marmot, methinks you might want to tweak your little flag-o-meter thingy. I’m in India, not Australia.

  34. NewYorkTom your flag
    Posted September 22, 2008 at 11:53 pm | Permalink

    #19 I’d pay W14,000 to see you get ass-raped after getting busted for pedophilia.

    #28, I have a friend who prefers whores over gf’s bc he thinks it’s way cheaper, variety, and no drama. For me, I cant imagine a life without my wife/stability(?) but I guess to each his own…

  35. user-81 your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 3:02 am | Permalink

    re #34 @ Tom
    I think KrZ meant he’d pay 14 trillion won in fines and legal costs to do all of the Wonder Girls at the same time.

    So-hee and Sun-mi are underage and off-limits, KrZ. Not smart to publicly declare your desire to have group sex with them.

  36. country bumpkin your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 9:36 am | Permalink

    @ granfalloon

    I think you are damn right! If the US would spend the $200 billion (not million) just on killing people, they would even be more effective. it is more like spending $200 billion on protecting their interests on oil and and power and if people get killed in the process, that is just too bad.

    in general i think the comment on “making love, not war” was not so far of the mark. interestingly a president who got himself a blowjob and lied about it caused a huge scandal and almost got thrown out of office and a president who lied (among other things) about weapons of mass destruction and whose lies caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians got himself re-elected. i personally find that quite interesting and it shows the hippocracy on how people judge on sex and war.

    i rather have the koreans screw around than kill people with the money. but that is just me…..

  37. user-81 your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 10:50 am | Permalink

    hippocracy

    Is that rule by horses or by hippos?

  38. cmm your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 1:30 pm | Permalink

    @28

    I liked your Wow Korea script, but at what point and who will don the scary mask??

  39. dda your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 2:14 pm | Permalink

    hip o’crassy

  40. country bumpkin your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 7:45 pm | Permalink

    interesting what part of the post is of interested to some readers… :-)

    but to get back to the question: i am just hippo-crazy. so i guess it is the rule of hippos.

    forgive a country bumpkin for some spelling mistakes…
    i am sure more will follow over time.

  41. KrZ your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 9:55 pm | Permalink

    #34
    A++ Would troll again

  42. KrZ your flag
    Posted September 23, 2008 at 11:12 pm | Permalink

    Somebody made a “countdown until they’re all legal” site. NSFW
    http://wgscountdown.nimp.org

2 Trackbacks

  1. By Korean Prostitution Tops 14 Trillion Won A Year on September 20, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    [...] Robert Koehler adds some perspective on how large a number this 14 trillion won in prostitution every year is: Marmot’s Note: Need more reason for South Korea to take responsibility for its own defense? OK, how’s this: [...]

  2. [...] is the view that Koreans are conservative is somewhat naive (which is putting it mildly: see here, here and here), but the implied passivity of (legally-required) Korean partners of international [...]

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