The Grand Narrative

(Update: I just came across this semi-related thread at daveseslcafe that discusses this Australia e-journal’s discussion of this social science journal article entitled “Porn Up, Rape Down” that claims that access to pornography in America has reduced sexual violence there. I’m not for a moment denying that many other factors would be involved, and correlation of two trends does not mean causation, but people interested in this post will probably find it interesting. Because of my online MA giving me access to Leeds University library I should be able to access the original journal article myself if it’s there, and if it is I’ll try to figure out WordPress’s hosting system and will put it up here for people to download.  But I have to go to work now sorry, so check back tonight)

(Update2: Well don’t I feel like an idiot. I was already in the Leeds University Library website trying to figure out the journal name to look for before I realised that a) ”Porn Up, Rape Down” is merely a research paper, and a whole 6 page(!) one at that, and b) that you can download it directly from the third link I gave you. Enjoy)

Quite a while ago I discussed censorship laws in Korea in Part 2 (and a little in Part 1), and concluded that their strictness, pervasiveness, and arbitrary application were signs that Korea still has some way to go before it completely democratizes.  But they are liberalizing, slowly, and I also mentioned that the whole issue reminded me of nudity in the media in post-Franco Spain, which I learnt at University that Spanish women consciously and deliberately flaunted, in an emblematic way I guess, to speed the whole democratization process along (see here for an intro).

I think it’s some time before major Korean newspapers and magazines flaunt nudity with the Spanish bravado that Martin Varsavsky in that link says is the case in Spain now, although the virtually nude women often found on page 3 of the free daily 7am are certainly a start (see the bottom of here for more info (no pics sorry)) and help put paid to the by now absurd notion that Korea is a conservative country, but in the meantime I’m being perfectly serious when I say I think it’s vitally important for democracy in Korea that these trends continue, and not just because I’m frustrated trying to navigate more liberal Japanese porn sites, which I can’t read. If you don’t believe me, please do read Part 2: it’s argument is more serious than its accompanying pictures may suggest.

It’s been a while since I looked at this topic, and I’ve probably lost a lot of readers in the interim (part 1 and 2 used to be my most popular posts), so I’ve been meaning to check it out again. So while I was typing up my own post on something else which I originally planned to put up here tonight (which will go up tomorrow or the next day instead), I was happy to find this post at the Marmot’s hole with a link to a short video showing Korean movies’ best bed scences. For someone who’s been here 7 years, they show that things are definitely changing here, and were real eye-openers in more ways than one.

The video will definitely help me with my Christmas list this year, but that fact that I haven’t said the link is “NSFW” is revealing…technically it isn’t, it’s a freely available video and blurred and pixellated to hell…but given what the actors are doing, then I sure as hell won’t be playing it at work myself. And that’s precisely one of my points, which is that while it’s completely obvious what the actors are doing to the several Korean 13 year-olds who are probably watching the video while you read this, somehow the pixels render it morally acceptable and acceptable to show to the public. And like fan death, this is one piece of Korean bullshit (or Japanese for that matter) that I can’t stand.

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