The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast

Sex, Pries, and Videotape

ZenKimchi Episode 173

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Sex education is an important addition to our school systems. Learning about dangers is especially crucial. Despite Korea’s reputation for being an education haven, sex ed remains a mostly avoided subject.  

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Produced by Joe McPherson and Shawn Morrissey

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Speaker 1:

And welcome to the Dark Side of Soul podcast. This is Joe And this is Sean. Hey, like the intro and my sexy voice?

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, was that your, that was your sexy.

Speaker 1:

Well, i mean. I was trying to. I was trying to imitate our friend Ed, so it was my sexy Ed voice. Oh Yeah, good job. There we go On the fly, on the fly making up the stupid dad jokes. Yes, so what is our topic today? Sean Sex, talk about sex.

Speaker 3:

Of course sex, more specifically sex education and how it's. It's actually nothing to joke about. It's pretty dire in Korea. It's, as we'll get into. It's blamed by Korean experts to be the source of a lot of problems that that Korea's had, especially in the last decade, decade and a half, you know it's. That's not the source.

Speaker 1:

It's one of the sources. It's, it's, it's Japan. Japan's a source.

Speaker 3:

No, so, but before we start real quick, i want to do the listener mail first.

Speaker 1:

OK. So, Mr Listener, mail first. We're going to load this.

Speaker 3:

It is front loaded, just this, just this once. So one of our big supporters, long time supporter, discovered us, i believe, over the pandemic. He's looking for stuff to do. He used to live in Korea, pete, and goes by, i'm going to call him the sewer tour. So Pete the sewer tour, married to Korean, lived in Korea years ago, lives back in the states Now came to Korea last now by the time this is out last month And and so we. He came on my tour, contact me, he and he and I were communicating a little bit because he's a he's a metalhead as well. So we were talking a lot about heavy metal and, disconnected, became friendly through the socials, social medias, and came on my dark side tour And had a good time. And when he came on the tour he brought me a gift And Pete the sewer tour brought me goose island beer. Bourbon County brand stout.

Speaker 1:

Bourbon County brand. Now. Now, this is Bourbon County. Does it mean there's like? it doesn't mean there's actual bourbon in it Is it or is it I do?

Speaker 3:

And I think it's bourbon barrels. It's bourbon, it's barrels. I mean, yeah, as apparently so. Pete said that it ferments in the bottle, so Oh, you're going to open it on the show. I just I open it just for we sort of haven't had a swing. I'm trying it for the very first time. I had to sit my big. Oh, I see it.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it looks like root beer. Yeah, it's very, very thick. It's got some good head on it, Yeah very thin head.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, that's going to give you some massive beer farts.

Speaker 1:

Let's see. Oh, now I'm trying it for the first time. Usually the best beer is giving me the best. Most beer farts, man. Well, listen, listen, tell us. Tell us that works for you too. Yeah, How is it? Tell us.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, that's that's got to bite in the throat. That's that's good.

Speaker 1:

That is now fermenting in your throat The firm ferment in my belly.

Speaker 3:

That was good. So thanks, pete. I had a had a couple of great, great days.

Speaker 3:

You know wow yeah, thanks, pete, next time one for Joe, and so no, but he. So he came on the tour And then we made a plan to meet up, because I came with this, his family, his wife and his daughter daughters a year or two younger than my daughter, i think a year younger And we went. We hung out at the Dyson Comics Cafe for a whole day. We were there for like eight to ten hours or something like that.

Speaker 1:

And keep in mind guys like we do, we do the tours, but we still I mean, we're just unprofessional enough that we'll hang out with you Say that we were just like hey, you're cool, what are you doing on Friday? Yeah, I just did that.

Speaker 1:

I just did it on Sunday. I said like I just had what it was. It's like after the tour we're right in the subway together, there's one, one person left and we end up on the same subway train together going back and we got to this deep conversation about the game The Sims. We're both really big into it And I'm like let's meet up on Friday to just talk about The Sims.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, so we had a great time. The girls are playing my daughter, pete's daughter, great time. They were just playing video games, mostly at the Dyson Comics Cafe and the DCC where you can get our comic And, and so I think we're there for hours and then had a good time. And then Pete messaged me a few days later asking how, how difficult or steep Inwangsan is as a hike, because he and his wife wanted to go up But she recently had a injury in her leg injury So she had to be careful. I said I said I'll go with them, so just just hang out and I can show you around there a little bit.

Speaker 3:

And so, but ended up, unfortunately, that Pete's wife couldn't join us. So Pete and I just had a great day. It was, it was raining, walking through this, you know the sacred, shamanic sites of of Inwangsan, spent about two hours up there, i guess it was. Then it came down and had some, had some some good food, a few beers, and yeah, two great days hanging out with Pete. And yeah, i told Pete I was going to open the bottle on the next episode that we record at night And here we are.

Speaker 3:

So very good, pete. I now see, now you've you've broken the seal, Pete, and now you have to bring me another bottle next.

Speaker 1:

And one for Joe, and one Well, yeah, i'll, i'll, i'll trade you, i get stuff, i get stuff.

Speaker 3:

There, you go Sounds good, all right, so should we hop into it? Yeah, ok, so before we get into the content itself about sex education and how it's in a pretty bad state in Korea, is it?

Speaker 1:

deeper than the lyric We don't need to take our clothes off to have a good time. I don't know what song that's from. Oh man, you were. You were around in the eighties, buddy, You don't have. We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time. No, no.

Speaker 3:

All right, now that you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, anyway, so the idea was to dance and party on and drink some cherry wine so you can get drunk. But no, take your clothes off. Close up, have a good try. Try to try hump.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, anyway, so sorry.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, sorry, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I just think it up all the 80s bad like.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, I'm sorry, I'm totally derailing.

Speaker 3:

Don't, don't, don't. We don't need to talk about 80s music.

Speaker 1:

There are so many late 80s songs that were about responsible, safe sex.

Speaker 3:

Well, that was the AIDS era.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, george Michaels, i want your sex, and they were, and the whole Nancy Reagan. just say no, now, that was drugs, but that was taken into the pop music realm, for sex Is like we don't have to take our clothes off. Well, anyway, anyway, go back back back to this.

Speaker 3:

The idea for the episode was due to the recent passing of Sue Johansson. So do Sue Johansson was kind of a kind of a superhero to Canadians.

Speaker 1:

She. now, i just remembered who you're talking about. Now you mentioned that It's like oh God her.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Oh, passed away. She was 93, 93 years old. So she, she. She had a Sunday night radio show on the CBC. Cbc radio called Sex with Sue And very, very popular with my generation, and beforehand and then after she did go global, i get like a lot of Americans when I first moved here in 2004.

Speaker 1:

And I was at the local expo expat bar Havana They. They play her on the TV there. Hmm, that was hilarious. Was watching Sue Johansson on Korean TV in a bar, playing Right.

Speaker 3:

Right, yeah, so. So she just passed away. So I mean, like we had sex ed in school. We started sex ed And I was like, maybe grade three, no, no, no, i'm sorry, not morning grade three, maybe grade four or five, we started our sex ed. And so, even though we had sex ed in in school, suju Hanson was kind of like the beloved sex teacher of Canada, sex educator, the Canadian Dr Ruth Yeah, that's what people often called her Yeah, so, yeah. So she passed away.

Speaker 3:

And I thought about that because sex ed in Korea has been an issue for a really long time, it's. It pops up the news at least once, at least once a year. And so I thought, yeah, so do an episode. And you know how I found out that Su, suju Hanson died, how The comedian, margaret Cho, margaret Cho, the Korean, korean American, she posted about it. Oh, then I sent her a message and I was like, oh, she, you know, su was, was like a superhero to Canadians, my generation. And then Margaret, margaret, joe and I just chatted back and forth just briefly. She was saying how she was so amazing. So, yeah, so, yeah. So this, this episode, is dedicated to Suju Hanson.

Speaker 1:

I heard that Margaret Cho follows us And she does.

Speaker 3:

I've chatted with her a couple of times. Yeah, ok, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And she still follows us. After you chatted with her OK cool, I mean, she didn't look bad.

Speaker 3:

She says she listens to our episodes. So if you're listening now, oh no, oh no, so, yeah, so this, so this this episode is for Suju Hanson And unfortunately Korea's never had a figure like that to try to, to, to make, to make set, to make sex safe, sex, sex health accessible to young people. Well, say that five times fast, yeah, and it's just. That's that. That's something. I think that's. That's a bit of an unfortunate, that's quite unfortunate. So but a bit of background.

Speaker 3:

First, on sex ed. And it was just go back to the 80s. I'm going to go to, you know, say, for 35, 30, 40 years ago. So there was sex ed in middle and high school. It was quite limited because, well, teachers didn't really have the proper training. So the it advanced very slowly, delivery was very poor, just teachers weren't, were, weren't prepared for it, they were not experts in that particular subject.

Speaker 3:

So then the Ministry of Education began more teacher training programs in the 80s. But also at the time there were a lot of organizations that offered lectures, sex, sex education lectures, like the YWCA, and another one was the Soul Youth Guidance Society. So there were groups that that didn't shy away from it because sex was taboo. It's comparatively, koreans are comparatively, really undereducated about sex and safe sex, sex health and stuff like that, and it's still kind of a general consensus that there's no need to teach it in school because people will learn it when they become adults. So but that's one of the problems with it, with the system, because that's that's not the case. You know, that's like saying people you don't have to teach math because people learn about math when they grow up. It's like, yeah, when you, when you get a bank account, yeah, Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so yeah I think that's a good point.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so when you start inserting stuff in your bank account you'll learn about it? No, it doesn't work that way, so so But anyway, at the time of the 80s they were growing calls for for better sex education As, like awareness of issues started to grow. Rate cases really started to skyrocket from 1974 to 1984. And these are being attributed to just poor understanding of sex and in no clear method of education for people, especially men. So also at the time, sexual activity started to increase. Between 1971 and 1981.

Speaker 3:

Sexual activity for males rose from 18, 19 percent to almost 28 percent And for females, within that same time period, but actually a little bit longer 68, 1965 to 81, it rose from about 4 percent to 14, 15 percent. Now, of course, those numbers are probably lower than what they actually were because people still even if it's an anonymous survey, they often shy about giving such information. So that's kind of a backer. Just the 80s, moving into the into the 90s, Sex ed videos came into schools And unfortunately the videos were complete Shite, which is absolute trash. They and they weren't good for both men and women. So for example, for women, these videos said that the responsibility for sexual assault on women was by women.

Speaker 3:

So the responsibility for the result was on the women, on the victims themselves, yeah, yeah, or even the potential victims Shouldn't have been wearing that. Yeah, exactly, and these were videos coming out in the sex education program. So they say stuff like women have to dress appropriately, like no, no, low cut shorts, mini skirts and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

Put on your burka.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And then these, these videos at the same time said that about men they have compulsive sexual behavior and they would have to get this exercise more to control their compulsive sexual behavior. Oh, whoa. So so women? OK yeah.

Speaker 1:

Go back. Ok, keep going, keep going, yes. So, as I was going to say so, like women were being told, you're responsible for your own safety.

Speaker 3:

So dress a certain way And the men are being told you're prone to sexual assault. And the men are being told you're prone to being, to being like this. So there's nothing you can do except exercise, Exercise, exercise.

Speaker 3:

And two absolutely horrible things to teach young people Absolutely awful. This is terrible, and these kinds of things just existed for a long time. Now this video and videos like this We're being shown through the 90s and we're still shown in Korea as recently as 2020. So Wow, it has decades old videos with with outdated, archaic information about women and men. So Also at the time of the 90s, rape became the third most common crime committed by youths And so, again, wider calls for a better sex education and counseling to focus on STDs, pregnancy, contraception and whatnot, all started to grow again at that time. But also there was a call for services to help parents as well, which I think is great. This is a great idea, and they call this family life education, to help educate parents on how to talk to their kids about sex. So something linked to that. There was a Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea that offered telephone counseling to kids in the 90s.

Speaker 3:

And then we go ahead to the 2000s. There was a lot of structural changes. A lot of this is pretty deep. It's a lot of its numbers and stats. Trying to go through them as quickly as possible. But the 2000s saw a massive structural change In Korea and including more single parent households, and so, in 2007, the Single Parent Family Support Act was signed into law, and the purpose of this, as stated in the act itself, was to contribute to the stabilization of living and to the promotion of welfare of single parent families by supporting them to lead a healthy and civilized life. That was an article one. It's the very beginning of the act. Article 13 was a breakdown of welfare support, so money, finance, financial support for single parent households. So this was growing. But linked to all this was the continual stigmatization of unwed mothers. This was a massive still. It still is. Still is Still is massive, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It reminds me of what Steve Martin said I like to do charity work. I like to do work with unwed mothers, help them get their start.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I thought you were going somewhere else. I was like oh, that's nice.

Speaker 1:

We'll return to the podcast after this message.

Speaker 2:

In our first comic we explored ghastly Korean folk tales while walking the streets of Seoul. This time we are ambling the Korean Highlands with terror tales set in those storied landscapes. Welcome to the dark side of Seoul. Weird tales from Korean lore mountains of the Macabre.

Speaker 3:

So, but they still. They still have the stigmatization and that, even though this, this act, was signed into law, the stigmatization still existed. So there was, in the end, it almost didn't even really matter, so in the end. So I'm going to turn my turn my fan off.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So now, among no so, unwed mothers generally are stigmatized, but teen mothers especially were stigmatized very much. so You know, abortion and adoption are still very, very common for for teen mothers. For anyone who doesn't know, abortion was decriminalized in Korea in 2021. There was a 2019 constitutional court order and that went into effect in 2021. So abortion is not legal, but it's decriminalized now in Korea. In 2010, there was a study by Seoul National University and with a partner organization about teen mothers being ignored and not given proper pre and postnatal care.

Speaker 3:

The stigmatization was so bad that it didn't really matter.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, it extended. Punish the unborn child, yeah right.

Speaker 3:

So there's two victims there. So and so teenage mothers, especially if they're unwed, were three times more likely to give premature birth. 42% of of of these mothers had four or fewer prenatal checkups. Four or less And the recommendations at least 13 during the entire pregnancy they'd have. 42% had four or less checkups. 14% had no checkups at all during the entire pregnancy. 3.7% of them resulted in these, these premature births. And that particular percentage is compared against older mothers, like adults in, say, the 20s upward, that only have 1.3% of premature, of premature births. So it's way more than double for teenage mothers to have to give premature births. So this is likely due to having fewer checkups, because fewer checkups increases the likelihood of premature births. So 50% of of premature babies or premature births are preventable with checkups 50%. And all of this has denied them, these young unwed mothers, mostly teenagers, because they are stigmatized and they're ashamed and not given proper they're, they're afraid to get go get care and they're not given proper care. But checkups are so important because, you know, there's a lot of early diagnosis of complications for a mother and baby. So most of these unchecked. Another another key thing most of these unchecked teen mothers, the ones that don't have any checkups. 86% of them run away from home in Korea And a lot of them are kind of forced to keep their pregnancies a secret and the majority of them give up their children.

Speaker 3:

So could all of this be prevented with proper sex education? Very likely, yes, it will get a little bit into more into that going forward. So so, as the UN points out, children who who do learn about sex through a positive and inclusive program or guidelines, and who have parents who are present parents, their own parents who are there for them, are more likely to have their first sexual experience later in life, and that's when they're more mature, cautious and emotionally physically prepared for it. Right, and that's statistically shown through the UN, from the UN. And so all this needs to be done. All of it starts with proper sex education And unfortunately, in Korea, age and this, you know, this started in the 2000s, the age of first sexual experiences are happening earlier, as young as 13 years old.

Speaker 3:

The core of education, sex ed in Korea, happens in high school, But the major but sexual experiences are happening earlier. So there's this. This is complete misbalance. This, the deeper, better education has to start in elementary school. So, and some high school, some high schools themselves have prohibited surveys checking student knowledge of contraception And the results are. The reason, i should say, is a lot of these schools, their very conservative view is learning about contraception encourages using contraception Oh, that was.

Speaker 1:

We heard that in American the 80s Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But that's. That's kind of the point. It's like, isn't it better to have the country to know about it? Like, oh okay, i know how to use this, i'm going to do it Now. I know how to do it more safely, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I know, i mean, is that thinking? Yeah, this is that thinking.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's so our case ridiculous. Now I'm just going to go into this next part very quickly, because this is this is something that's happening right now is we're recording across Korea And I do think this is related. So currently in Korea it's known that approximately 2000 babies are unregistered. So they were born, but then they were. The babies were never registered with the government. The parents never registered their babies.

Speaker 3:

There's currently a massive investigation led by the board of audit and inspection to find out where these 2000 kids are. Already, in less than a month, they have found several of them dead. So these are these are just some of the cases that are currently in the news through this investigation. Where are these 2000 babies? So a couple of them? A mother killed her two newborns and stored their bodies in a freezer. Mother gave mother gave her baby to a stranger she met on the internet. A baby just found dead in a trash can. An infant died of malnutrition and neglect. Parents acute parents who are currently accused of killing and burying their infant. Mother is accused of abusing, killing her killing, abusing and killing her infant and abandoning the body. And the majority of these parents are young.

Speaker 3:

So where's the sexual sex education? The arguments can be made that with proper education, these births wouldn't have happened, and then the babies wouldn't have been born, which would have would have you know just the irony of it would have saved their lives. So so our unwanted babies due to, at least in part, to poor sex sex ed. I say yes, i think it's very likely, very likely so. So currently, in response to all this, the new birth notification system is in review and the government is being encouraged to get it underway as quickly as possible to prevent more unregistered babies. As we push again now, say, go to 2015, where we talk about the education, the curricula starts to, starts to become a little bit interesting. So in previous decades there was this push to have these better sex ed curricula all across the country. So in 2015, the national level of school sexual education standards was introduced and it was compulsory. It had to be done, so teachers had to teach it. But now remember this was compulsory from the program. These are some of the things that the program stated.

Speaker 3:

One reason for sexual violence is that women do not pay for dates and men want and demand something in return. That was in the sex ed program in the pulso area. Men are impulsively sexual. Again, this is like it said previously, and women should cope with this. So this is the same that was that the video was saying decades ago. So men are impulsively sexual and women should have to cope with this.

Speaker 3:

So not only is this again make you know, give responsibility to potential victims, it belittles men And it puts, it, belittles them, makes them, it makes all the reader like, oh, okay, am I, am I like that? Like okay, okay, maybe I am like that, and then maybe they'll actually didn't act on it and not actually be like that at all. It's a serious belittling. It's a horrible education thing. Education, it's not education at all. You're not educating anyone, you're just creating this, these ridiculous stereotypes. So so, yeah, i think it gives boys and young men the wrong impressions of themselves And then give society wrong impressions of them as well, and it provides an excuse for both of them when, when, when some, when some men do commit crimes, they're the creates this ridiculous excuse.

Speaker 3:

Another thing that said is this program said women have to focus on their appearance And men have to focus on making money. Mm, hmm, awful. So another thing is that it encouraged sexual assault victims to control their negativity and to think positively. Imagine telling that to a victim. A horrible thing to say. And this was in the education system. So so this program ran for a whole year before it, you know, through heavy criticism it, it was edited, but where did kids turn?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's funny, like like I think I remember when this came out and like guys try, the guy that did behind this was really trying to justify it. It's something like that We might have talked about on the show Maybe.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, maybe in some or like other episodes that that are kind of adjacent, run parallel topic wise to this, yeah, maybe, so, so, yeah. So where the case started, these kids went online. They went to YouTube. There's a chat rooms and stuff like that Mm, hmm. And so teens have started to become more more frequently, have started to go online for advice, information, and most of this comes from non professionals. So it wasn't like when we I was growing up listening to Sex with Sue on Sunday nights on the radio, because she was a nurse and a professional sex educator and deeply respected in the in in her field.

Speaker 3:

These are just YouTubers, influencers, who are giving sex advice. You should never give any type of sexual advice at all If you are not professional. Even if someone asks you, your answer is seek a professional. That's my advice. Go speak to a professional, and I deplore influencers who do this, who take a position of knowledge and then they will try to give advice on sex dating, anything, anything really that they're not, they have no expertise in. They just have their own personal anecdotes and they think that they have. They have a bunch of followers or they have their ego get stroked because they're being asked these questions. Then they give advice. Don't fucking do that. Give advice as you tell these people to seek professional consultation. Oh, it drives me nuts. These kids are being driven to YouTube and influencers and all this, all that other horseshit.

Speaker 3:

So a couple of examples of kids not knowing what to do and doing stuff wrong. In 2018, there was a teen couple had consensual sex. They both wanted it. They did it. They used, instead of a condom, a shopping bag And at the end, they found that there was a hole at the tip Of course, oh darn Yeah, oh man, they got a really cheap shopping bag.

Speaker 3:

And it's as far as I could tell, they ended up getting pregnant. So they go online for advice And they ask the poor kid is like.

Speaker 1:

This is the conception kid was dad used to shopping back and bad shopping back And just think of the hygiene issues with that as well. It's just not fun, I mean.

Speaker 3:

but on top of that.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry, man. I mean I don't know. I just can't see how that works.

Speaker 3:

I can't No, anyway, anyway, that's not comfortable at all. But I mean, like you and I, we've had well, now we're also, we're also halfway to halfway to 90. So but we're old, so but I mean we had sex education growing up, right? So yeah, yeah, we did. I mean, i mean, obviously this teen couple didn't? they thought a shopping bag would do the trick. So so the more and more these kids are going online, they're asking advice about contraception. You know, they're asking what, what it is, and and so yeah, and then in another chat room I discovered that one we don't know who it was, of course it was, it was all private. They asked if a food wrap, like plastic, like saran wrap, would do the trick. Nope, most certainly will not.

Speaker 1:

So, but these are the types of questions that it won't feel good on your willy either. No, no, absolutely. Don't ask me how we know these things.

Speaker 3:

So so yeah, but you know, these are the types of things that teens are asking because they're just not being properly educated. This whole system is designed for them to remain ignorant. Which is such a such a? it's such an irony. Yeah, it is such a. It's an education haven, but, but you know, they reject sex ed. It's just so ironic. I don't understand. It's so bizarre.

Speaker 1:

You can't get a job. Such a low birth rate too, yeah right.

Speaker 3:

So so then, by 2018, the curriculum was still shit. It was. It started from grade five through high school, yeah, but it was only about 15 hours annually. 15 hours a school year was spent on sex ed. That's I just baffled like. Even in high school, i couldn't find out if it's 15 hours only in high school as well, but it in any type of situation.

Speaker 3:

You can spend 15 hours just talking about you know condoms, you let alone sexual health, yeah, and consent, and even you know people's sexual preferences, safety, how to do things properly. 15 hours, well, they were just teaching them how. You know women had a dress and young women had a dress and young men had to make money, i suppose, because it's all. Either one of them are good for good, for That's what the system is telling them yeah, so one's a toy for the other and the other one's a robot for society. That's what they're being, that's what they're being taught. So, yeah, it's frustrating. But another like yeah, another key thing about the curriculum is that it talked about sexual desires and having it. Having them, should they having sexual desires? But the curriculum mostly focused on teaching these kids how to suppress their sexual desires. It's like a fucking church.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's all church things Yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's ridiculous. It's crazy. It doesn't focus. Go ahead. I was just saying it's cultish, it's like yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah, very much so. So it doesn't focus, like I said, like on sex, sexuality, safe sex, consent, things like that. It just focuses on dealing with one part of it anyway, focuses on dealing with the aftermath of a sexual assault, not the prevention of one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I bet you're talking about menstruation either.

Speaker 3:

No, no, I don't think they do, because I know that And I think farther down in the notes I'll mention how that. that's this that has to be brought up. It must be talked about. of course, young women especially need to know about it, But young men do too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, men, so they're just not be so ignorant about it. Yeah, Yeah. And not be like totally freaked out by it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's completely natural. Just, they have to be taught And I mean it's. If you're not taught something, it's understandable. If you freak out, you're literally what the hell is that? and you know, you just freak out. I remember the Okay, i'm not going to never mind. I was going to talk about, like when, first of my experience something impurity, but I think I think I'll just leave that for now. I'm not going to mention it, but I freaked out first time.

Speaker 1:

Take advantage of the fact that we went through that before the internet. Don't spread it. Yeah, it stays there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah So, but if for anyone listening they're not sure Everybody for dudes sucks too, it's awful, it's absolutely terrible. It definitely is a lot worse for some people than it is for others. So, and there's a lot of health issues that have to come up for for young, young dudes as well. Yeah, so hygiene, especially Hygiene, so, anyway, so, yeah, so concerned by 2018, the were growing concerns that kids were learning mostly from non professionals on the internet and their peers and stuff like even from porn, which is I'm not against the sex industry, i'm not against porn, i'm against learning about sex from porn. Right, that has to be right, curbed very seriously. So it's just so. The big irony as well is that how we talk about sexual health, similar to what we just talked about education, where traditional medicine in Korea and largely in Asia is, is preventative, the sex ed does not have preventive education about sexual health. It's just such a weird irony.

Speaker 1:

I think it was an Italian novel called bread and wine, so it's a line that stuck with me. from that is like there's there's something messed up about a society where the greatest sin is between your legs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

This is so silly. So, and another thing that started happening around 2018 and earlier as well, was the. They cited the lack of a proper sex ed for the rise in misogyny, which has been a huge issue. We thought, yeah, and we talked about that a lot in in our in our hidden, in our sex cams.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all the incels that are upset because no, not, not everyone woman is waiting to throw themselves at their feet, that you know they have to like actually have conversations with them and get to know them as people first, Right And they're learning from the, from the programs that women have to change for them, and if they don't, then then the program, like I was saying, it generally says that women should expect sexual violence or not expected.

Speaker 3:

But it's, it's a, it's a possibility. The men are like, yeah, it's a possibility, so they're learning everything wrong. Now, of course, this is only going to be, this is only going to cause a switch to flick in the brains of the, of the, a lot of the unwell and people who don't probably have a lot of the other opportunities. But education could would have curbed it to a huge extent. It could have prevented a whole bunch of things like the stabbing in in in Gangnam, the bathroom stabbing Yeah, recent one or last year Yeah, so many things could have, could have been prevented, i think, with proper education And then by 2020, a lot of people were suggesting that the in through and through this the sex room.

Speaker 1:

And that in through. That was a scandal where it was. Was a high schooler involved in the mastermind behind this one?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, mostly when we don't know who were, who most of the men were, because they were all. It was all dark web stuff.

Speaker 1:

Loser was sharing sharing amateur vids against people's consents and stuff like that, and then blackmailing them into sex, and a lot of these, a lot of these.

Speaker 3:

They were children, they were just young girls, so teenagers and younger. I'm not well I'm not sure how young the youngest one was, but anyway, children, teenagers, so yeah. And then during those investigations at least one person who was caught said he he didn't understand sex. He said he had very, he admitted to having a very distorted view of sex. He had no idea. He's like I don't, i don't get it. He was, he wasn't taught, he wasn't given, he didn't have parents who were there for him, who felt comfortable teaching it. He didn't have a school system, didn't have an education system that was there for him. And then so there are all these victims because of that. So now, terrible.

Speaker 1:

It's rough, it's rough And you know, yeah, it's something that's it's really not even talked about, so I don't see how it's changing. The best we can do right now for those of us who have children in Korea is we got to handle this ourselves.

Speaker 3:

Oh, oh, yeah, Yeah, like I honestly like I'm I think I'm a very strong advocate for the idea that the majority of the education does come from home. We have to trust our teachers, but I'm fine with most teachers. I'm just not fine with programs, with curriculums, curricula that they have to teach. That's, that's. That's part of the problem sometimes, and this is obviously an example of it. So, and then just this year it's already just 2023, something came out that was called the preliminary ordinance on sex education.

Speaker 1:

Okay, tell us what this is.

Speaker 3:

I'm gonna get a load of this shit. So this, this ordinance focused on an argued for abstinence, only education.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, wow, we got the 90s Republicans right there.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, so essentially no education at all. So the ordinance said sex is only suitable within marriage. So obviously this is outdated And this is against the UN standards, which is called the Comprehensive Sexuality Education or the, or the CSE, and a key point of the CSE is understanding sexual behavior, and without an education system that teaches you sexual behavior, you're not going to understand it. You're going to have a distorted view of it or no, no, no view of it at all, which is sometimes maybe even worse. So the preliminary ordinance in sex education 20 this year teaches abstinence, abstinence only, education, not abstinence and safe sex, abstinence only. And it does not teach anything about sexual behavior, which is a problem Because, of course, when you teach abstinence only education, teens are still going to have sex, just that now, they're not going to know anything about it And it's going to be unsafe, dangerous, risky, inappropriate, assault, it's going to increase.

Speaker 3:

So it's just like. It's just like abortion, Like making abortion illegal is not going to stop people from doing it, it's going to stop them from having access to safe abortions, right? So this is also why I think we should have safe injection sites for people who shoot up drugs. Give them a safe place to do it, decriminalize it, even legalize it, i think, but have laws surrounding it, like you can't shoot up and drive or whatever, have guardrails, yeah, and you have your safety belts And where no one else can get hurt People who are not interested in that behavior you can do it, but you have safety nets in place for the user and people around them. So, yeah, so this is what's happening with this ordinance, what was proposed by the ordinance, and it's just making kids even more so less equipped to have safe sex. Another key problem is that it ignores sexuality and gender. So it says marriage and sex, and marriage and sex are only between heterosexual men and women. That was in the ordinance, and how archaic is that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And what happened as recording this past weekend The Pride Parade, pride Festival that had to move to Uljiro, away from City Hall where it's usually held, because, well, the government allowed a Christian organization to have their whatever. They had something for kids, right, some kids festival or something, and I'm sure the kids had a great time when they went there And they had no idea what the whole. Have you seen pictures?

Speaker 1:

of this Sean? No, i haven't. There were no kids there. There was no one there. It was empty. There's a great shot, an overhead shot, of the Pride Parade going by it. Now they're being boarded by police buses on the edge of the road, but it's this big crowd making this beeline around City Hall Plaza And the plaza is basically empty, except for a stage and what looks like an inflatable chick with a crown of thorns.

Speaker 3:

What.

Speaker 1:

What's that? A chick? Was it Easter? I don't know, man Bizarre.

Speaker 3:

Weird, so weird. So this exited is just perpetuating all this kind of archaic thought. Fortunately, the Soul Teachers Union disapproved of the ordinance. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights disapproved of it.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that means nothing in Korea, we know that.

Speaker 3:

But anyway no, it's a But sent an official complaint to the government Korean government about it. So it is, this ordinance got global attention from And, of course, local attention from the people it should, from actual teachers, teacher unions and from the UN. I know the government's not going to care, but I mean at least people know about it. So in the end, fortunately, the ordinance was rejected. It did not go into place, but there are current fears that something similar is going to pop up and it will be implemented. So now just a final thing Public response. What is the public response to this piss? poor sex ed in Korea.

Speaker 1:

I have my guesses, but I'll wait.

Speaker 3:

Well, like most things in Korea, the response is haguans.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna Okay, that's different than what I think it I was thinking there was just no response. No one's aware of it.

Speaker 3:

Oh no, if you can make money, if someone can make money, they're going to open a haguan. So yeah, so the sex ed haguans have popped up. It's still pretty rare, but they exist. They teach sexuality, safe sex consent, puberty, lgbtq plus issues and things like that, things that should be just taught in the schools. The costs are mad. For one hour it's $25,000. So that's pretty pricey if you want to have a very good session for your kids to learn about proper sex ed.

Speaker 3:

So it highlights even other issues in Korea where it highlights why sex ed really A proper sex ed really needs to be in the public school system, because if it's just gonna start being taught through private education, it's not going to expand to most people, because education, especially private education and especially in Korea, is for the rich. So low income people who unfortunately are more statistically prone to have early births, teenage births, unsafe sex, will be the ones who will not have access to this education if it grows in the private sector and not in the public sector. But now, currently, right now, the government is kind of shaping the private to the haguan system, but of course they're not going to do anything with these sex ed haguans, because if they're not doing anything with their own public system, they're not gonna do it. They're not gonna support the private system for sex ed.

Speaker 1:

No, no, they're not, and that's it. Yeah, $25,000. Sorry, i'm sorry, there's a red like district out there. I mean gosh. I mean I mean it's cheaper than it costs there The for an hour.

Speaker 3:

It's a two hour. two hour, two hours per class and 50,000 won, and I think you have to do two hours.

Speaker 1:

Oh, really Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but I mean the two. You can't teach anything in two hours, not the, not the totality of issues surrounding sex. You can't even teach. You can't even teach just menstruation in two hours. You can't. You can't teach, can't teach young boys how to, how to deal with the stuff that they'll go through in puberty in two hours.

Speaker 3:

So I don't know, someone, someone else needs to come along. Some professional needs to come along, like Suja Hansen did, like who is the Dr Ruth? Dr Ruth and people like that, some I think that that will be here. We say, because there's the Internet, now kids can watch this stuff on on, you know, youtube privately. There's more access, there's more accessibility to education. There's just, the system is just swamped with garbage And kids are not interested in that. They, they guess they mostly want to play their video games and shit, roblox, whatever the fuck, and yeah, but someone does need to come along, i think. I think that's that's going to be Korea's savior, someone who's a nurse, who's an expert in sex ed, and they'll, they'll, they'll just do a show, and yeah, and just a ongoing.

Speaker 1:

You've had quite a few Dr Drew. We all said Dr Drew In the 90s.

Speaker 2:

I don't know Dr Drew, because we had was on MTV with Adam Corolla.

Speaker 3:

Okay, now we didn't get MTV. Oh, we in much music, oh gosh, okay, not from the States, man, sorry, we had. We had Suju Hansen, we had, we had, you had the.

Speaker 1:

CNBC, where every interview is by speakerphone. See, you mean CBC, cbc, cbc. That's the NBC, the CBC. I'm just. I'm still in the middle of my glass of Babin.

Speaker 3:

Well, we're done. Hopefully things change. This is, this is the topic, that That I think. I think a lot of creed, like we've already stated, a lot of Korea's issues. Yeah, we did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, i mean we're done because we have a child. That's in us. Macky throws a puberty right now. All right, i don't want to embarrass her, but I mean she did have a major was last year She had a, a major life event. Okay, and out of her friends or anyone she knew, we were the only ones who actually had a little bit of a rich of Celebration. We had a cake and everything.

Speaker 3:

Oh good, yeah, yeah, that's yes, you celebrate, it's a, it's a milestone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, we know what I like about is that she is very open about it with me. Should we talk about? good? We talk about it all the time. I mean all the time, but we It's, it's, it's such a natural conversation for us to talk about it, yeah that's so important for parents.

Speaker 3:

And there's something I heard I heard said before And I'm not I know it's a quote, i've heard several people say it, but they said And they're referencing, referencing fathers, but it could, it could reference mothers as well. But the quote was something Make sure you tell your daughter you love her, and frequently, because if you don't, someone else will and that person Won't meet it.

Speaker 1:

I say it too many times. That's the problem. I say which hey, geon, i love you. Yeah, she's looking at me All right, yeah and Yeah. but the other thing is I do.

Speaker 1:

There's some shows that I think I like to watch with her Because there's supplementary. It's kind of. It's kind of like the AV Session of there's some was one really good show that just finished called never have I ever on Netflix And it's it's a very practical Coming of age series for it, four seasons and it's about, you know, very modern in ways, practical ways of dealing with sexual topics and love, topics of love and and Adolescence. I mean I like, i like, i like, i like a lot of modern stuff that's coming out deals with adolescence a lot more candidly, less like porkies, even less like breakfast club. It's a lot more, lot better. I mean we just recently watched Mean Girls And I've never seen I've. I know, oh, tina Fey, man, tina Fey wrote it And I just found out that that's. Some universities actually reference it or teach it and these they use the movie in psychology classes dealing with group dynamics and things like that.

Speaker 3:

It's yeah, we had a thing too, and I think this was At least known by some people in the States. But in Canada we had the Degrassi series. Yes, yeah, right that I know some. It was quite popular with some people. So I know some Canadian shows like you can't do that in television and stuff for popular in the state. Definitely Yeah. So, but Yeah, the Degrassi started with the kids of Degrassi Street, degrassi junior high, then Degrassi high and, yeah, and a lot of those actors were the same going through the whole series.

Speaker 3:

Oh, i didn't know that part That's yeah, yeah, and then They all played the actual ages They were and There wasn't 20 year olds, you know, playing 15 year olds or whatever. Or you know, like 35 year olds playing university students or whatever. But That that whole series, from kids of the kids of Degrassi Street through to Degrassi high, dealt with Sex, pregnancy, drugs, violence, bullying, yeah, racism, everything that kids really need to to know about, and it dealt with it in a in a child's A dramatic show. That was also extremely entertaining because you could, there were, there was a kid, that was everyone. Yeah, there was a kid, there was a character, that was everyone, there were all. There's so many different ethnicities and dealt with dealt with homosexuality as well.

Speaker 1:

There was a representative for many people. Yeah, yeah, and so, and it was shot and filmed, set in Toronto.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, that was a good idea. I mean, i mean, that's the most, one of the most diverse parts of Canada, but Where I'm from is less diverse, but Especially like compared to Toronto, not as diverse, but but there was still. There was still a representative. So there was a kid, kids who liked comics, there were kids who played music, there were jocks, they were nerds like the geeky smart kids and they were. They were referred to as all that, yeah, but But it was like watching a day in school. Nothing was, nothing, was Was sugar coated in that series and that's one of the reasons why it lasted for What, like 15 years or whatever. Yeah, you say that now.

Speaker 1:

Now the Americans will get upset because I, as an American, i should mention 902 or no, even though Not how you described a grassy, it's not. Didn't have everyone represented there. It did. It did deal with Topics, but dealt with them in a very soap opera way.

Speaker 3:

Right, that was it. That was an older, i was a teenage show. I always felt early like Because I remember watching that and I was quite young. I watched it because my sister watched it. but But yeah, i do just remember that being a bit more, i don't know, i can't. yeah, i think you said it right, a bit more. What is it like? start is started out being kind of what the ambitions of the crassie high, but Like every Aaron spelling series, it just evolved into soap opera antics.

Speaker 1:

I mean, even Melrose place originally started out as what do you do after you leave? You know, you start becoming an adult after college. And then you start becoming an adult after college And it's pretty practical, and then, after like like half a season of the like, screw this, let's have people blow up and Stab each other right in the backs and everyone sleep with each other. Yeah, people coming back from the dead, all that stuff. And that became Melrose. What, what? Yeah, you know how it is. And someone dies. And then suddenly you're back Oh no, i'm a twin sister or something like that. You know, oh, right, right, yeah, they bring the actor back. I mean, i'm not gonna lie, i'm not gonna lie, i'm not gonna lie. Oh right, right, yeah, they bring the actor back, whatever. Yeah, i got those, i got those. Yeah, i mean, i remember the early episodes of melrose was like one of the plot points was this guy defaulting on his student loans, and I guess it wasn't soap opera enough. Right, right, all right, we'll return to the podcast after this message.

Speaker 4:

Take a walk. There's those 500 years of ghastly murders, forbidden history and hidden scandals. Listen to tales of Korea's deepest, darkest secrets. What lies under the concrete or who? The dark side of soul ghost walk at darksideofsoulcom.

Speaker 1:

But now, if you dare, Um, so anyway, we're gonna wrap up. Uh, if you do have any listener mail, please send it to us at info at darksideofsoulcom Have any? or if you have any Sex ed questions.

Speaker 3:

Consult an expert. Do not ask us or any influencer, consult an expert.

Speaker 1:

Yes, i'm really the worst person to give advice for um, um, okay. Well, the dark side of soul podcast is produced by Joe more, joe moracy and son.

Speaker 1:

Another bourbon Joe i'm keeping that there. Our music is by son XI, which you can find on bank camp under sexy. Did you digital? We like to thank our sex. Okay, let's do this. Sexy top tier patrons. Sexy angel earl. Sexy joel bonamini. Sexy Sharon cullen. Sexy debon hiffner. Sexy milan sock lee. Sexy ryan berkenbaugh Sexy ryan berkenbaugh. Sexy gabby palamino. Sexy steve marsh. Sexy chat straws. Sexy mitchie brewer. Sexy sarah ford. Sexy jane kong. Very sexy ron chang. Sexy mckinsey moore. Sexy hunter winter. Sexy cecilia. Love clean dumas. Duma, love clean dumas. And sexly, sexly, sexily amy, sexily Emily. All right, guys, you've done with this enough. All right, till next time, stay spooky.

Speaker 3:

Everybody wants something they'll never give up. Everybody wants something. They'll take your money and never give up.