“The culture of sex in North Korea is not conservative,” in a
recent interview with RFA’s Korean service. “A liberal sex culture is
certainly not encouraged, but as far as sex is concerned, people make
their own choices.”
With high divorce rates, and the tendency for Party officials to have mistresses and extra-marital affairs, the Party is reticent about dictating to the people about their love lives.
“The authorities may control everything, but they could never dictate matters of love between North Korean men and women.”Jeong Young, a North Korean defector, said North Korean university students enjoyed a certain amount of freedom in dating and relationships
“There is a tendency among North Korean university students to be liberal when it comes to dating,” she said. “For example, when they go to a friend’s birthday party, they play foreign music, dance disco, and are very natural in their approach to relationships between the sexes, Western-style.”
North Korea’s political culture, on the surface, appears to lean toward extreme conservatism, with propaganda posters showing rows of clean-cut young men and women, saluting the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, or remembering the Great Leader, his father Kim Il Sung.
But Kim Jong Il in his younger days enjoyed an international reputation as a playboy, surrounding himself in his “Joy Brigade” with hand-picked young women who were given the job of keeping the heir to the North Korean leadership happy.
Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, was born out of his relationship with his first mistress, actress Song Hye Rim. She was a married woman at the time she moved in with Kim Jong Il and was never recognized as more than his mistress.
Kim Jong Il’s unrestricted sexual behavior was highly contagious, and he surrounded himself with members of the Party elite, who also boasted about their drinking and womanizing, North Korean analysts and defectors said.The North Korean government engages in forced prostitution. Its prostitutes are known as manjokcho (만족조 “satisfaction team(s)”) and are organised as a part of the kippŭmjo, who are drafted from among 14 to 20 year old virgins, trained for about 20 months, and often “ordered to marry guards of [Kim Jong-il] or national heroes” when they are 25 years old.[3] For a girl selected to serve in the kippŭmjo, it is impossible to refuse, even if she is the daughter of a party official.[3] Manjokcho must have sex with male high-ranking party officials. Their services are not available to most North Korean men.[3] Not all kippŭmjo work as prostitutes – the source used is unclear as to whether only adult women are assigned to prostitution, or whether there is prostitution of children; other kippŭmjo activities are massaging and half-naked singing and dancing.
This weekend's "Saturday Night Live" opened with the North Korean ruler,
Kim Jong Un (played here by Bobby Moynihan), declaring two important
changes to state policy: First, that they were re-opening the country's
nuclear facilities; and second, that he had "evolved" on the gay
marriage issue and would allow same-sex couples to wed.
With high divorce rates, and the tendency for Party officials to have mistresses and extra-marital affairs, the Party is reticent about dictating to the people about their love lives.
“The authorities may control everything, but they could never dictate matters of love between North Korean men and women.”Jeong Young, a North Korean defector, said North Korean university students enjoyed a certain amount of freedom in dating and relationships
“There is a tendency among North Korean university students to be liberal when it comes to dating,” she said. “For example, when they go to a friend’s birthday party, they play foreign music, dance disco, and are very natural in their approach to relationships between the sexes, Western-style.”
North Korea’s political culture, on the surface, appears to lean toward extreme conservatism, with propaganda posters showing rows of clean-cut young men and women, saluting the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, or remembering the Great Leader, his father Kim Il Sung.
But Kim Jong Il in his younger days enjoyed an international reputation as a playboy, surrounding himself in his “Joy Brigade” with hand-picked young women who were given the job of keeping the heir to the North Korean leadership happy.
Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, was born out of his relationship with his first mistress, actress Song Hye Rim. She was a married woman at the time she moved in with Kim Jong Il and was never recognized as more than his mistress.
Kim Jong Il’s unrestricted sexual behavior was highly contagious, and he surrounded himself with members of the Party elite, who also boasted about their drinking and womanizing, North Korean analysts and defectors said.The North Korean government engages in forced prostitution. Its prostitutes are known as manjokcho (만족조 “satisfaction team(s)”) and are organised as a part of the kippŭmjo, who are drafted from among 14 to 20 year old virgins, trained for about 20 months, and often “ordered to marry guards of [Kim Jong-il] or national heroes” when they are 25 years old.[3] For a girl selected to serve in the kippŭmjo, it is impossible to refuse, even if she is the daughter of a party official.[3] Manjokcho must have sex with male high-ranking party officials. Their services are not available to most North Korean men.[3] Not all kippŭmjo work as prostitutes – the source used is unclear as to whether only adult women are assigned to prostitution, or whether there is prostitution of children; other kippŭmjo activities are massaging and half-naked singing and dancing.
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