Perceptions of teens in the mid-1990s

Here are some more articles from the Korea Times from July 1995 to July 1997, most of which refer to how changing youth behavior, especially regarding sex, was perceived, as well as the growing realization of how often children were victims of sexual abuse and harrassment. It seems that on the KINDS database an extra year was added (back to 1995) so I decided to see what I could find, and these seemed quite interesting. Most of these articles would fit about a quarter of the way down this post (in fact, there are brief references there to some of the things below in that post). This is pretty long, and though I've clipped bits here and there, most of the 15 articles remain intact (statistics and all).

Just for reference, the first noraebang (or 'singing room) appeared in Busan in early 1991 and by 1992 they had spread to Seoul (Antti has much more on this here; it's interesting that some saw noraebangs as a harmful Japanese influence). Something to think about when considering how many runaways were working in in such places three or four years later.


Girls Outnumber Boys Due to Earlier Maturing
1995-08-23

Following the tragic fire on [August 21, 1995, in which thirty-seven inmates were killed and 16 others injured] caused by arson at a rehabilitation center for runaway girls and prostitutes in Yongin, Kyonggi-do, alarm over the sharp increase in runaway teenagers is being sounded by schools and parents.

According to Education Ministry's statistics, the number of runaway students increased to 11,363 last year, a 23 percent hike from 1993. Among them, girls outnumbered boys 5,935 to 5,428, indicating an urgent need for more efforts to focus on girls. In particular, the number of runaway girls far exceeded that of boys at the middle school ages at 2,806 girls to 2,050 boys. By age, middle school runaways numbered 4,856, high school 6,428, and elementary schools 79. The larger number of runaway cases among middle school girls is attributed to their earlier maturing than boys. Leaving their homes, girls were also found to often travel with friends rather than running away by themselves, a ministry official said yesterday.

The runaways began to post a sharp rise in 1991, crossing the 10,000 mark for the first time, according to the ministry. Among those labeled as runaways last year, 1,843 had been expelled from school, 4,843 were suspended, and 4,677 were given minor school punishment. As to motives for running away, the ministry cited the lack of parents' attention to their children, poor school grades, the need for more of an allowance, and parents' unruly life style.

Meanwhile, the absence of proper facilities to protect teenage delinquents is cited as a serious problem in Korea, as proved by YMCA statistics, showing that 71.4 percent of runaway teenagers are making their living at adult entertainment facilities.

The government operates only 22 reformatories or rehabilitation centers mainly for homeless women or prostitutes across the nation, but they cannot afford to accommodate teenagers, due to the limited budget and lack of manpower. With no recourse the teenagers can turn to, the youths are certain to graduate to more aggravated delinquencies, including prostitution, to make a living, a YMCA counsellor said.

If the number of runaways passed 10,000 in 1991, then how could the 11,363 in 1994 be "a 23 percent hike from 1993"? An article I can't access reads in Google that "In 2001, the number of runaways in South Korea reached 61319 youths (23577 males and 37742 females) (The Commission of Youth Protection, 2002a)." Now that's quite an increase (notice the rate still skewed towards females), and is likely due to the fallout from the 1997 financial crisis. It also probably helps to show where the girls willing to take part in wonjo gyojae were coming from at that time.


Unlicensed Night Spots Serving Hotbed for Teenage Girls' Delinquencies
1995-08-24

With the number of teenage runaways sharply growing, nighttime entertainment facilities with no business licenses are becoming the target of public criticism for snaring the runaway girls. According to related business sources, unlicensed bars, in particular, are enjoying booms by preying on underage runaway girls, who have little means to support themselves away from home. A common way in which these bars lure in teenage girls are advertisements in newspapers and magazines guaranteeing big money plus free room and board.

As to why girls run away from home, the teacher cited their desire for a lavish lifestyle, apparently influenced by the overemphasis of materialism in this society. Some girls show off the presents from their "customers" like pagers and jewelry to their friends at schools, he claimed. Meanwhile, the night spots employing teenage girls, in turn, are enjoying booms in their business, by drawing more male customers. By a rough estimate, the number of women serving as "hostesses" at the night spots without licenses totalled some 200,000, four times as many as those at legalized facilities, according to an official of the association of the nation's entertainment business operators.

Compared to recent setbacks of the night-time entertainment businesses, the unlicensed spots increased to about 7,000, as of June, five times as many as the ordinary ones. While the ordinary facilities are reeling from strict regulations and limited operation hours, the illegal facilities are enjoying booms by drawing more customers thanks to the younger girls, according to a bar operator in Sinchon.
With the "sick" entertainment culture surviving in society, many other businesses might have to follow their lead to survive, he claimed.

Meanwhile, the law enforcement authorities are held responsible for the rampant spread of the illegal spots by taking no serious action against them. The bar owner in Sinchon went on to claim that many of the illegal facilities are operating under the connivance of the police. The ordinary entertainment spots, including night clubs and cabarets, lost more than 50,000 employees over the last three years, marking a 44 percent drop in the employee number last year, according to Seoul city statistics

Interesting. Unregulated businesses grow, fueled perhaps by the rising number of runaways. It begs the question of how popular teen prostitution was in the past (remember the main character (an old man) in Chae Man-sil's 1937 novel Peace Under Heaven trying with all his might to find a 14 year-old Kisaeng who will sleep with him?), and if it simply expanded in the 1990s (or had simply been brought to light by the media), or if that period saw a new trend rapidly appear. Interesting that "their desire for a lavish lifestyle, apparently influenced by the overemphasis of materialism" was mentioned, as well as the fact that "some girls show off the presents from their "customers" like pagers and jewelry". Such gift giving was more a marker of wonjo gyojae, and the popularity of wonjo gyojae has often been explained by the influence of materialism. It seems then that aspects of the 'charitable relationship' already existed, but what was needed was to make them 'free agents', which needed the innovation of the 'phone room' (which I would imagine came from Japan, though I don't know if anyone has ever researched that).

At any rate, in response to changing sexual attitudes in teens and a rising number of AIDs cases, a new program was promoted in schools.


`New Purity' Movement to Kick Off at Middle, High Schools in Sept.
1995-09-01

The Korean Federation for AIDS Affairs, Inc., will launch the "New Purity" Movement among middle and high school students across the nation to teach the prevention of AIDS from this month.As a growing number of adolescents tend to have sex at a younger age, the federation is kicking off a nationwide campaign to educate AIDS-ignorant teenagers about responsible and proper sexual behavior, said Chung Kyung-kyoon professor of medical sociology at Seoul National University. Prof. Chung, who heads the anti- AIDS organization, said that the movement is also being initiated to proliferate correct sexual attitudes, emphasizing its spiritual and mental aspects rather than the physical act itself.

Nine out of 10 HIV carriers in Korea are infected through sexual intercourse, illustrating the fact that irresponsible acts are the main catalyst of the deadly disease[.] Moreover, the infection of three Korean high school boys has alarmed citizens, leading them to pay more attention to the issue, he said. The group's successful education in AIDS prevention of over 30,000 students at 13 high schools during the first school semester is resulting in a more active promotion of the program with the participation of over 700 middle and high schools in Seoul. The lectures discuss the characteristics of HIV, channels of transmission, ways to prevent it and healthy sexual behavior.

The anti-AIDS organization has distributed a free video tape, titled "What is AIDS?" to each school which will be used for educational purposes from this month. Also membership cards, embossed with a heart and cross, representing love and purity, respectively, will be handed out from Dec. 1, which was designated as AIDS Day in Korea. The recipients will promise to show real love by adhering to "correct ideas about sexual activities," and practicing safe sex, regardless of whether they have had previous experience or not.

If your curious as to what the real focus is on with this program, read on:

This purity movement, originating in the virginity movement being promoted by religious groups in the United States and Europe, is scheduled to spread not only among teenagers but also students and adults, said Kwon Kwan-woo, a director general of the group.

An essay about this program is here.


`1 in 5 Sexual Abuse Victims Is Child Aged Under 13'
1995-10-11

One out of five sexually abused people in South Korea is a child under 13 years old, and fifty percent of the victims are under twenty years old, said a recent report, sending shock waves throughout society.The Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center (KSVRC) surveyed 501 cases of sex-related violations that took place during the first half of this year.

Of the 282 sexually abused, 149 were over the age of 20, 83 were 14 to 19 years old, and 50 were children or infants under 13. In 205 cases of sexual harassment, 72 or 35.1 percent of the victims were little girls, evidence of a disturbing trend towards paedophilia. As many as 317 cases of the total 501, 63.3 percent, were attacked by someone they knew or had seen. Among the 317 cases, superiors or coworkers in the workplace made up 81 cases or 25.6 percent, followed by neighbors with 20.8 percent, boyfriends with 6.9 percent, school teachers with 5.4 percent and schoolmates or friends with 5.0 percent.

Sex Education at Schools Will Be Stepped Up After Student Gave Birth
1996-07-08

Following hard on the heels of news that a middle school girl went into labor in the classroom last month [June 27], the government has announced it will strengthen sex education in schools, distributing, among other things, audio-visual educational materials to elementary, middle and high schools across the nation. The Health and Welfare Ministry said yesterday it will consult with the Education Ministry about establishing mother's health classes and increasing the number of hours currently allocated to sex education in elementary, middle and high school. At present, sex education is carried out during physical education classes.

Funds for the audio-visual sex education material production to be supplied free of charge to schools will be raised in cooperation with the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea by collecting used telephone cards and returning them to Korea Telecom, said the ministry. It hopes to raise 6.7 million won by amassing 100,000 used phone cards this year, 67 million won (with 1 million cards) next year and 1.34 billion won (with 2 million cards) in 1998.

The shocking news of a middle school girl who became pregnant after she was raped on her way home from school and went into labor in the classroom last month had pushed the Health and Welfare Ministry to promote better sex education in schools. Afraid that she might be expelled from school, the young girl had kept her condition a secret from her teachers, parents and school mates. She was taking her final exams on June 27 when her water broke and she gave birth to a boy upon being rushed to the hospital.

Wearing an obstetrical binder when she began getting big, the middle school girl hid her pregnancy from her teachers and friends at school. According to her homeroom teacher, because she was always a quiet child, no one thought anything was amiss. And since her working parents spent little time at home, they too did not notice anything was wrong, she added.

Recycling phone cards? I wonder what came of that?


Health-Welfare, Education Ministries Clash Over Sex Education Curricula
1996-07-10

The Health-Welfare Ministry and Education Ministry are at odds over the inclusion of sex education classes in elementary, middle and high school curricula. Efforts by the Health-Welfare Ministry to convince the Education Ministry to establish new health education classes that would include sex education are being met with strong resistance from the latter.

Pointing out the rise in sex crimes, sexually transmitted diseases, drinking and smoking, and drug abuse among teen-agers, the Health-Welfare Ministry said schools should incorporate health education classes into their curricula so that students may protect themselves. More and more young people are being exposed to sex with the recent trend of sexual liberation in Korean society and, as a result, the number of kids troubled by the issue is growing day by day, said the ministry in its argument for schools to assume the role of teaching these youths proper countermeasures. While the Education Ministry concurs with the need for sex and health education in school, it believes that the existing system of teaching those courses as part of physical education classes is sufficient, snubbing the Health -Welfare Ministry's proposal for setting up separate classes.

It also said parents with conservative ideas about sex do not approve of teaching about contraception and other sex-related issues at schools. But a high-ranking Health-Welfare Ministry official said it was precisely this tendency to avoid discussions on the subject of sex in schools that is perpetuating the social problem and causing such unfortunate incidents as the young girl giving birth during class.

Keep in mind that it's been 11 years since th happened and there still aren't decent sex education programs in place within the Korean education system.


Society Epitomizes Obscene Culture
1996-07-11

Over the past few days, Koreans with a conscience must have been struck by the appropriateness of the phrase: "human in appearance but with the mind of an animal." The series of rapes of young girls that recently shocked society, still under the influence of Confucian tradition, at first struck the public dumb. But it soon reacted with indignation. "How could such a thing take place in this society? How? How?" Everybody is talking about the disappearance of morality and the need for a moral rearmament movement and appropriate sex education at schools.

A raped middle school girl went into labor in her classroom and gave birth in the ambulance on the way to hospital while her astonished teachers looked on helplessly. No one knew of the pregnancy of the 15-year-old latch-key girl at all. Before the people could calm themselves, they were informed of a brutal gang-rape of an 11-year-old parentless primary school girl by her 14 neighbors. How could people not wonder where the limit to men's evil lay?

Eleven of the 14 rapists living in Asan City were arrested yesterday. Another had fled and two others are middle school boys who cannot be tried under criminal law because of their age. If she had not written their names in her diary and taken poison in a suicide attempt in despair because of her plight, the neighbors would have continued to live their routine lives without any pangs of conscience. The seriousness of the Asan incident is that no villager moved to protect the young girl, even though word about the immorality was getting around in the village, and even middle school boys were involved. Other rape cases involving minors have made one headline after another. In Kangwon-do, a middle school girl living alone in a rented room was violated by the house owner and his son in turn.

Who is responsible for this evil? These incidents are probably only the tip of the iceberg. Korean society, which is implicated in this total moral collapse, should be called to account. The International Labor Organization (IL0) recently apologized for a "mistaken" report on child prostitution which cited South Korea as one of the countries where child prostitution is rampant. Thus, South Korea avoided disgrace. But, should it have? Korean society today all but epitomizes an obscene culture.

All seem to be crazy to sell sex. TV entertainment programs, night shows, dramas and movies have already exceeded the limit. Under the noble name of arts, lewd dramas are making big profits for their producers on Taehangno Street and TV stations are desperate to raise their viewing rates by making more and more suggestive programs. Adults marketing products are all-out to attract young customers by stimulating their curiosity about sex. It is not going too far to say that our children today are nakedly exposed to obscene culture without restriction, and few appear to be trying to put the brake on this trend.

It's a piece of cake for minors to see porno videos any time they want to. So-called "video rooms" are packed with minors, who are forbidden by law to enter them. Some of the video theaters, mostly located in the basements or higher floors of buildings, have a dozen or more closed compartments and some of them are even equipped with beds and are open through the night functioning as lodging facilities. The police know of the illegal business. The video rooms, however, are still doing business and are prospering. This is bizarre.

Those who are ruining public culture are committing even more vicious crimes than those who discharge poisonous wastewater into rivers. In particular, the influential mass media should refrain from titillating programming in their "all-or- nothing" competition to attract more viewers. The young girls involved in the incidents are the victims of an obscene culture that adults are creating.

By the way, those who visit red-light districts "may" be more human than those who raped the little girls.

Apparently some thought Korean society in 1996 was "nakedly obscene," though those who visited red-light districts were exempt from this, I guess.


More Education Urged to Curb Sex Problems
1997 7 12

Seoul City Education Office yesterday added its voice to the growing calls for more sex education in schools since a raped middle school girl went into labor in the classroom last month. Several horrifying cases of rape involving young girls over the past few days have sent shockwaves reverberating through society and a huge groundswell in support of better sex education has been the result.

In a report released yesterday by the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea, most of the young girls who sought advice from the federation's counselling centers last year were concerned about unwanted pregnancies while boys asked about sexual urges and masturbation. The research was based on 14,896 cases it handled last year at its seven youth counseling centers nationwide.

Eighteen percent, or 814, of the total 4,654 girls that asked the center for advice wanted help with unwanted pregnancies as a result of rapes or sexual relationships. Among them, 27 percent were between 16 and 20 years old while 3 percent were aged 15 and below. Others who sought counselling on sexual relationships and related health problems numbered 11 and 8 percent respectively. Eight percent asked about adoption and contraceptives while 3 percent shared their anxieties about sexual urges. On the other hand, 24 percent of the 10,242 boys who called or visited the center wanted to discuss sexual urges, followed by 20 percent who had questions about masturbation. Fourteen percent asked for advice on sexual problems and related health issues and 8 percent sought help with intersexual relationships.

In 1991, 16 percent of young people said they were worried about relationships with the opposite sex but the number of teenagers worrying about it dropped to 9 percent last year. However, those anxious about masturbation and sexual urges increased significantly from 23 percent to 32 percent.

Meanwhile, the Education Ministry yesterday revealed that 29 middle and high school students have been suspended, expelled or reprimanded for sexual violence. It said nine middle school and 20 high school students were punished as of the end of May this year. Of them, eight were expelled, 15 were suspended from school and six got off with a warning.

The need for more sex education was reinforced a few months later in an incident which occurred not too far from where I live:


Teen Has Baby on Her Way to School
1996-10-17

A 17-year-old high school girl delivered a baby on her way to school in western Seoul with neither her family nor the school knowing of her pregnancy. At around 9 a.m. Tuesday in Tungchon-dong, Kangso-gu, a certain Kim attending the high school nearby was found with her newborn by neighbors at the restroom of a cornerstore. She was reported to have asked the shop owner for the use of the restroom to ease the pain in her belly. It was here where she gave birth to a baby boy. She was moved to a neighborhood clinic by emergency relief workers and released to her family later. The baby was handed over to the Holt Children's Services, the nation's leading adoption agency. Both the baby and the mother are healthy, the doctor said.

Friends of the girl said she has had a boyfriend since January when she was about to graduate from middle school and he could have fathered the baby. The matter is being probed. According to the school, she had moved from the province to Seoul and stayed with her married elder sister in Seoul. She was in the upper-middle group in her academic performance and never missed a day during the past and current semesters. As she is on the big side and had bound her belly with elastic bandages, nobody noticed her pregnancy.

The shocking incident vividly tells the openness but ignorance among teenagers about sex as well as their general unpreparedness. It is a testimony to her ignorance that the girl mistook the labor pains associated with childbirth as mere abdominal pain. In Korea, parents and teachers want students to remain conservative about sex while unwanted pregnancy and childbirth among teenagers are not rare. The young hardly find anyone to trust and confess their situation to.

Last summer, the public was shocked to learn about a middle school girl who began to go into labor at her classroom and later delivered a baby in an ambulance while being rushed to the hospital. Another incident involved a 12 year-old orphan who was sexually abused by several male adults who were all clansmen in Asan City, Chungchong-namdo. It was indeed unfortunate that the media projected the girls as "loose," while they failed to expose the offenders.

Interesting that the girls were considered to be "loose", though not surprising. Notice also that the baby was given up for adoption. The uproar from these incidents led to more reporting of sexual violence, as the following article reveals, though you wouldn't know it from the headline:


Sexual Violence on Children Continue to Grow
1997-01-15

The number of reports of sexual violence on children continued to grow at the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center (576-7127/8) over the past year, statistics show.Of the 1,179 sexual violence-related incidents handled by its counselors, 42.1 percent or 749 cases happened to adults whereas child victims and teeangers made up 33.7 percent and 23.6 percent of the cases, respectively. In particular, cases involving children were up 8.1 percent from 25.6 percent of the previous year.

Those who sought help at the agency related to sexual molestation grew from 40 percent in 1995 to 48.5 percent last year of all the sexual violence cases handled by the agency. "In the past, sexually-molested girls were too ashamed of themselves and of the incident and they wanted not to touch it. But, now, they are ready to fight against any sort of sexual violence and to speak out to get remuneration," a counselor of the agency explained.

The relief center extended its hotline services to 24 hours a day in July of last year following a shocking series of sexual assaults against young teenage girls were revealed. The total number of incidents handled by the agency last year jumped by 68 percent because of the 24-hour hot line service.

According to the analysis, children were raped or fondled by people around home, school or institutes such as teachers, school bus drivers, uncles, cousins, brother-in-laws, parents or other relatives. The victims were often coerced not through threats or violence but by being faked by their assaulters or showered with affection, money and gifts

16 in 100 Male High School Students Sexually Experienced: Survey
1997-02-10

About 16 in 100 male high school students in Korea are sexually experienced and the partners with whom they have had the experiences have mostly been girlfriends, a survey indicates. Korean high schoolboys are aged 15- 18 on average. The partners the boys said they had sex with were mostly their girlfriends (74.7 percent), followed by women they had met by chance (34.1 percent), prostitutes (16.6 percent), bargirls (11.09 percent), callgirls (9.4 percent), relatives (3.1 percent) and boyfriends (3.4 percent). The survey was conducted by the Sex Culture Institute of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea on 1,976 male students in nine major cities from Oct. 10 to Nov. 30.

Asked when they most often felt sexual urges, 65.4 percent said when viewing obscene scenes on TV or videos, followed by seeing women wearing sexually-appealing clothes like those exposing midriffs (54.6 percent), viewing porn films (45.1 percent) and seeing obscene moviehouses advertisements or movie posters (18.9 percent).

Students in the second year of high school were found to have the greatest access to lascivious materials through magazines or CD ROMs, while those in the first year gained theirs through PC communications, the survey showed. As for the frequency of access to obscene videotapes, students in small cities had more chance to get hold of them than their counterparts in big cities like Seoul. Asked how they felt when they saw obscene material, 27.1 percent said that they wanted to see more, 20.4 percent answered they wished to do it themselves, and 39.3 percent replied that they felt nothing in particular. Only 8.2 percent said they did not want to see any more.

As for ways they dealt with their sexual desires, masturbation topped with 49.7 percent and 46.6 percent said that they practiced self-control. However, 9.3 percent said that they went to prostitutes, 6.9 percent answered they made obscene telephone conversations and 3.1 percent replied they committed sexual assaults. About half of the boys questioned were opposed to sexual experiences for boy students, while 67.8 percent believed that girl students should not have them.

"Only 8.2 percent said they did not want to see any more". I suppose that means the other 91.8% were thought to be abnormal, then? Notice that 16.6% said that they went to prostitutes. Remember those high school students on the school trip in China?


25 Percent of Female Students Sexually Harassed by Educators: Survey
1997-06-18

Sexual harassment of female middle and high school students by educators - school teachers, hagwon instructors and private tutors - has reached grave proportions, according to a Women's Hotline survey released this week. One in every four or 722 of the 2,986 students polled said that their teachers have surreptitiously touched their backs and behinds. Among them, 126 (4.6%) answered that they have repeatedly experienced such treatment, making sexual harassment a serious problem for these teenagers.

In addition, 13.9 percent of respondents said that their teachers have intentionally come in extremely close physical contact with them and another 7.6 percent claim that their instructors have touched the area near their breasts. Sexually provocative words are even more widespread than physical contact - 20.4 percent of the middle and high school students answered that their teachers have made sexual jokes and comments to them. And how many students have had their bra straps snapped by their teachers? Five point two percent, according to the results of the Women's Hotline survey. To the question, "Have your teachers ever poked you in your breasts and buttocks?" Three point four percent answered yes. Another 1.6 percent said that their teachers had exposed themselves and asked to be touched, or touched the students under their clothing.

The Women's Hotline also found that 2.3 percent of respondents have been forced to kiss their instructors, 0.6 percent have been invited to have sex by their teachers and 15 students or 0.55 percent said they have engaged in such sexual relations. Seven girls or 0.2 percent of respondents confessed that they have repeatedly had intimate sexual contact with their instructors.

The poll was conducted in two intervals - during the first two weeks of December 1996 and for 10 days in February - by distributing questionnaires through student organizations and informal gatherings in schools, hagwons and churches. Of the 4,000 survey forms handed out, 1,464 were returned by middle-school students and 1,578 by high-schoolers. The surveys did not ask respondents to specify the gender of their teachers.

In the midst of that article one might get the idea there's a preference for teenage girls. The next article discusses a famous 1950s film as an introduction to a growing problem of violence in schools (by students). I'll look more closely at this later, but for now, it should be pointed out that there was a massive crackdown in 1995 which accomplished... nothing.


'97 Version of `Blackboard Jungle'
1997-07-04

The movie was shown in Korea under the Korean title of "Classroom of Violence," which may better describe what it was about. In reality, the blackboard jungle of 1997 in Korea has become a very, very serious social problem with no solution in sight. Instead of the strong rock'n'roll beat, youngsters of Korea in 1997 are listening to vulgar rap music, playing Japanese-made electronic games and reading Japanese comic books featuring sadistic violence and immoral sex. School violence has already crossed the limit.

A Japanese term, "ijime," is now a common word here, meaning a collective act of harassing other students, mostly by violent means, just for the fun of it. This trend is no laughing matter, as evidenced in many cases, in that the victims are weak and have no "influential" parents.

One of the most brutal cases was that of a 16-year-old high school boy, whose poor family relies on a government subsidy of 100,000 won a month as they are on the list of people whose livelihood is protected by the state. Not to mention the constant beatings, the school bullies from wealthy families extorted 50,000 won of the subsidy every month from him. As he could no longer endure the repeated beatings and extortion, he quit school, saying he would come back after the bullies graduate. Six of the bully boys were arrested by police, but showed no repentance at all like their rich parents. And their teacher insisted that they had done nothing wrong, dumbfounding the police. Teachers do not want to be held responsible and try to preserve the school's good name, but in reality are only aggravating the situation.

He goes on for a bit, but makes some interesting comments on another topic:

There are a considerable number of middle and high schoolgirls working at night spots such as "song rooms" employed to sell liquor as "hostesses." As long as such entertainment spots fatten their purses, any good plan to guide youths to the right path will be useless. As long as there exist adults who seek "younger" girls at entertainment spots and the notorious "college entrance exam hell," juvenile delinquency will never cease to exist.

Middle School Girls More Tolerant About Premarital Sex
1997-07-29

Whether they just think about it, or engage in it, middle school girls are more open-minded about sex than their seniors in high schools, while high school boys are more liberal about sex than their juniors.The majority of boys and girls consider their sexual drive to be a natural need of the body. These facts came to light in a survey done in May-June by the Korea Women's Association's Guidance Center on Family and Sex Affairs on 1,160 middle and high school students.

Asked about if both boys and girls should remain virgins before marriage, 50 percent of middle school girls and 68 percent of high school girls said yes. In the case of the other gender, 36 percent of middle school students and 28 percent of high school students agreed they should. Asked if sex is permissible before marriage if they love the person, 26 percent of middle school girls surveyed said it was, 5 percent more than the number of high school girls. Only 55 percent said they feel ashamed and confused about their sexual drive whereas 56 percent think it is a physiological phenomenon.

On the source of their knowledge on sex, the largest group, or 37 percent, cited friends and 27 percent said adult media. About a fifth, or 19 percent said public media was where they learned about the carnal act, while only 4.7 percent and 1.7 percent acquired such information from school teachers and parents respectively.

They "said public media was where they learned about the carnal act"? I doubt they were watching TV dramas. Last, but not least, is the case of the "red scarf":


7 Teenagers Arrested for Making, Distributing Porno Video Film
1997-07-16

Six high school boys and one teenage girl were arrested Monday by police for starring in, and distributing their own pornographic production. Seemingly unaware of the social consequences of their actions, the group huddled together, covering themselves to avoid the spotlight of local TV cameras, barely answering questions from reporters at a police station.

"This feels like a (bad) dream," said 17-year-old Kim, one of the teenage boys involved. Kim reportedly thought of making the video "for fun" after watching a similar Japanese pornographic movie. "I thought they were going to destroy the tape after it was over," said Choi, 15, the lone girl and middle school dropout, who was videotaped having sex with three of the teenage boys. Asked if any of her friends had ever made similar movies, Choi replied a simple "yes."

Kim reportedly met Choi at a school festival in September 1995. The two had an intimate relationship for sometime, he said. Choi left school in June 1996, to go work at a karaoke bar. She said she did so because of the constant bickering between her parents. A month later she was raped by four men, she said.

The filming of the act itself began in April last year, when Kim's school friend, Ahn, came to his home to watch the Japanese porn movie. Kim reportedly suggested the idea, called Choi over and took turns with Ahn in filming the sex acts. Kim later completed part two of the movie in August of the same year with Choi and another male friend from school, also called Choi. The movie was filmed in Kim's home when his parents were at work. Copies of the movie were passed among friends, and before long it became one of the hottest selling videos in the underground porn market, police said.

Among the arrested was the son of a high-ranking government official who said he got involved in the video's distribution "to make some money". "The fact that this video was being passed around school for nearly a year had been common knowledge, but nobody paid any real attention," YMCA advisor Seo Yon-kyong said, pointing out that it was an incident caused by "lack of attention towards teenagers on the part of society as a whole."

You certainly can't say that the media and the government weren't paying attention to teenagers as a group, though their perception of teenagers and youth behavior seems to be as of a cancer affecting the social organism that is the nation, which needed to be contained - as long as it did not involve actually talking about sex with them.