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Sexualities
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Un/forgettable ! The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460716688683
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in South Korea:
Women’s experiences
of sexual labor and
government policies
Na-Young Lee
Chung-Ang University, South Korea

Abstract
The military camptown in South Korea is a legacy of colonialism and a symbol of
national insecurity in Korean history. From September 1945, when US troops arrived
on the Korean peninsula for a transfer of power from the Japanese colonial empire, until
the present day, the presence of American soldiers and military bases has been a familiar
feature of Korean society. The purpose of this article is to trace the history of the US
military camptown in Korea, adding the intersection of hidden stories of women’s
experiences. Based on an analysis of life stories of 14 former prostitutes and other
primary and secondary sources, this article explores the ways in which the Korean
government cooperated with US (military) interests in the systematic construction and
maintenance of a system of camptown prostitution in the period from 1950 to 1980,
with changes in policy from tacit permission to permissive promotion and then active
support. During this process, women in camptowns experienced absurd, unjust and
contradictory sociopolitical changes relating to international relations and national
policies, as well as community attitudes toward and treatment of them in their vulner-
able state. However, these women were neither absolute sexual objects nor helpless
victims. Women in camptowns managed to carve out spaces for themselves and change
their material conditions, cultural identities, and even their legal status, demonstrating
their struggle for survival. In this way, women in camptowns represent a symbol of
transgression against both androcentric Korean society and ethnocentric nationalism.

Corresponding author:
Professor Na-Young Lee, Department of Sociology, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu,
Seoul, South Korea (ROK), 156–56.
Emails: nylee@cau.ac.kr; nylee240@gmail.com
2 Sexualities 0(0)

Keywords
Gender, military prostitution, oral history, US camptowns in South Korea, women’s
experience

Introduction
US military camptown prostitution recently became a visible issue in the public
arena in South Korea. On the 25th of July 2014, a lawsuit was filed in Seoul District
Court by 112 former prostitutes in US military bases under the name of military
‘‘comfort women’’1 in US camptowns,2 against the Korean national government,
for condoning, supporting, and regulating the prostitution of women to serve the
US military. Those who filed the lawsuit said in a press conference that because
their basic human rights had been violated by this system, the Korean government
should recognize this historical fact, take legal responsibility, compensate them
financially, and apologize to them for its misconduct.
In light of these events, the question arises as to who these women are, how their
situation is different from that of the Japanese military ‘‘comfort women’’ from
whom they took their name, and why and how the space and practice of camptown
prostitution was able to exist despite the anti-prostitution law that applies in
South Korea.
The military camptown in Korea is a legacy of colonialism and a symbol of
national tragedy and insecurity in Korean history. Since September 1945, when US
troops arrived on the Korean peninsula to assist with the transfer of power from
the Japanese colonial empire, the presence of American soldiers and military bases
has been a familiar feature of Korean society. The number of US bases and military
facilities has fluctuated, and a full count depends upon what is considered a mili-
tary base, the time period included, and who undertakes the count. Despite changes
in the number of facilities, which have accompanied changes in the political atmos-
phere over time, the number of US troops in South Korea at any one time was
historically no fewer than 37,000 before 2013. However, given that North and
South Korea technically remain in a state of war,3 the high number of US soldiers
may not be as strikingly unusual as it initially appears.
Lee (2007) observed that American military prostitution in South Korea began
with the start of US military presence in 1945. Based on archival research,
she argued that US military prostitution was intentionally allowed and
regulated during the rule of the US Army Military Government in Korea
(USAMGIK—1945–1948). ‘‘Despite the formal prohibition of the Trafficking in
women and licensed prostitution, the US military government continued to regu-
late prostitutes and control’’ the spread of venereal disease among its troops by
utilizing the licensed prostitution system created by the Japanese colonial govern-
ment (Lee, 2007: 474). Designated red-light districts, a government-controlled
registration system, and compulsory venereal disease examinations of the
women, all practices introduced by Japan, and continued by the US military
Lee 3

government. USAMGIK shifted the location of public brothels to camptowns near

bases and delegated responsibility for the control and medical surveillance of pros-
titutes to local authorities. Since then, prostitution has been pervasive in US camp-
towns, with the Korean government’s collusion, despite the official illegality of
prostitution in South Korea (Lee, 2007).
However, the presence of camptown prostitutes has been forced out of the
Korean people’s consciousness and left out of official national history for a long
time. Korean people have long treated these women as trash or pariahs, calling
them highly derogatory names such as yanggalbo (western whore) and yanggongju
(western princess), but hardly anyone has officially talked about them in the public
sphere. Moon (1997) contends that there are several reasons for Korean society’s
contempt for and disregard of military prostitutes. First, Korean society has been
racially and culturally homogeneous for thousands of years. It is not easy for many
Korean people to accept those who have a different skin color or culture.
Therefore, among Korean people, there is an attitude that women who have
‘‘special relationships’’ with foreign soldiers (‘‘strangers’’) are not ‘‘real’’
Koreans, or Koreans ‘‘by birth but no longer . . . in body and spirit’’ (Moon,
1997: 3). In addition, Confucian morality, which is deep-rooted in Korean society
and in which women’s chastity is regarded as important as their lives, considers
these ‘‘fallen women’’ to have been sexually corrupted and to have lost their self-
respect. In this way, Korean racism, intertwined with Confucianism, has led many
Korean people into degrading US camptown prostitutes as doubly ‘‘impure.’’
Under this blanket reasoning, however, lies another more subtle explanation for
the invisibility of these women. In general, the Korean people do not want to be
reminded of the Korean War (1950–1953) or its consequences; such devastating
memories may signify national insecurity and a continued vulnerable position to
people. It is an unbearable national dishonor for many Koreans that the sexual
domination of a number of Korean women by Yangki (American people, including
soldiers) should be tolerated for the sake of national security. Moreover, women in
US camptowns stand as a symbol of Korea’s dependency on the USA and ongoing
colonized condition, serving as ‘‘living testaments’’ of national destruction,
poverty, and insecurity. Therefore, the presence of these women has been seen as
a social, national, and historical disgrace, as well as a ‘‘necessary evil’’ (Moon,
1997: 8–11).
The purpose of this article is to rewrite the history of US military campstowns in
Korea with an emphasis on the hidden stories of the women’s experiences. In
revealing their complex life stories, I ask feminists to reconsider and resituate the
existing debates and policies on prostitution, which have been trapped within the
dichotomies of ‘‘legalization’’ vs. ‘‘criminalization,’’ ‘‘choice’’ vs. ‘‘force,’’ ‘‘active
agent’’ vs. ‘‘helpless victim,’’ and ‘‘subject’’ vs. ‘‘object.’’ Documenting the lives and
experiences of Filipina entertainers in US camptowns in South Korea, Cheng
(2010: 223) argues that ‘‘no single label—be it ‘entertainer,’ ‘sex worker,’ or
‘victim of trafficking’—can capture the multiple subjectivities and experiences of
these women, just as no single structure of power can explain their vulnerabilities.’’
4 Sexualities 0(0)

Similar to Cheng’s perspective, I contend that work, sexuality, violence, and love,
are inseparable for these women, as well as the interaction between structural
control and personal resistance. Without losing sight of women’s agency to survive
in difficult conditions, I also want to indicate the broader aspects of state regulation
and the use of women’s sexuality for the purpose of national security and economic
growth. I believe that if we develop a more comprehensive understanding of pros-
titution constructed within a specific national historical context, it becomes pos-
sible to imagine a better policy.
The framing on debates and policies of prostitution is varied and has changed
over time. According to the European Parliament report in 2014 based on research
on the contemporary prostitution policies in the member states, legalization and
decriminalization of prostitution are categorized as the regulatory model, while
criminalization of prostitution is categorized as the abolitionist model. On the
other hand, in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland (and France as well as Canada in
2016), purchasing sexual services is considered a criminal offence like pimping and
running brothels even though prostitution is not illegal (European Parliament,
2014: 32). This is the so-called ‘‘Nordic model’’ or the neo-abolitionist model
that criminalizes the demand sides instead of prostitutes and prostitution itself.
Attracted by the Nordic model, I believe that our imagining of better policies on
prostitution can emerge from a wider understating of historical realities of prosti-
tution in other countries, not only to move beyond the old dichotomy but also to
overcome the limited western perspectives.

Feminist research as political activism

For this article, I have employed multiple methods of gathering information and
analysis, including archival research, participant observation, oral life histories,
and textual analysis of un/official documents, based on ethnographic research con-
ducted over 13 years. The triangulation principle: that is, ‘‘the act of bringing more
than one source of data to bear on a single point,’’ was adopted for analysis, not
only to supplement ‘‘the weakness of each individual method’’ (Zoonen, 1994: 139),
but also to further feminist aspirations. By telling these women’s stories, I hope to
pursue justice for them.
My ethnographic journey started in 2003 for my doctoral dissertation on US
camptowns. Since then, I have been deeply engaged with former prostitutes and
activists in US camptowns as a friend, activist, and researcher. Even after my
settlement as an established scholar in Korea, they have willingly accepted me as
a friend whenever I visit them. This long relationship has enabled us to change each
other. I began to recognize that a feminist researcher’s foremost responsibility
should be toward social change to reflect women’s inner voices, while overcoming
and negotiating the many problems and tensions that arise during multiple encoun-
ters. Women in US camptowns have begun to understand that the fundamental
problem is not themselves, but the structure and system of the state and patriarchal
culture, which can function to blur their personal guilt. More significantly, with the
Lee 5

assistance of researchers, activists, and progressive lawyers, many of the women

have decided to take legal action against the state, which has long been
oppressing them.
For this article, I officially interviewed 14 former prostitutes, most of whom have
been involved in filing the lawsuit and intentionally stepped forward to fight for
their rights and place themselves in a political or activist arena. Most of the women
are now 70–80 years old and worked in US camptowns from the 1960s to the
1980s.4 They still live in a camptown in Geonggy province near Seoul, the capital
of South Korea.
According to Harding (1987: 2), a research method is ‘‘a technique for (or way
of proceeding in) gathering evidence.’’ To construct my argument in this article,
I employed a variety of evidence-gathering techniques, such as ‘‘listening to
(or interrogating) informants, observing behavior, or examining historical traces
and records.’’ All of these techniques have previously been used by researchers
working under traditional patriarchal assumptions (Harding, 1987: 2); however,
for feminists, applying these old techniques in a simple way to feminist research
may not be adequate. Instead, ‘‘new uses’’ of familiar research techniques are
required for the transformation of androcentric academic fields in particular, and
also to assist in the transformation of society as a whole. That is, the question at
hand for research like mine is both how existing theoretical approaches can be
modified and how new approaches can be designed for women and applied to
understand women’s experiences and the production of legitimate women’s
knowledge.5
For me, the inspirations and insights of feminist oral history shed light on my
own path or journey as a feminist researcher and activist. Feminist oral history, or
the feminist historicization of women’s experiences, is not just a means of revealing
hidden, marginalized, and/or distorted experiences within a larger framework of
androcentric history, but also a process of re-evaluating historical as well as social
standards of signification of gender and sexuality from feminist perspectives, in
particular by giving voice to the (female) ‘‘Other.’’ Therefore, writing her-story is
inevitably a way to challenge official ‘‘history,’’ in that it is a process of rewriting
and reconstructing alternative histories from women’s perspectives (Reinharz,
1992: 134; Scott, 1999: 17).
Even more importantly, I believe that feminist oral history should be a part of
feminist politics for justice because oral history as a process of collaborative
generation of knowledge constitutes not only academic work driven by personal
academic curiosity, but also political activism for the improvement of society and
at the same time the empowerment of the vulnerable, underprivileged, and disad-
vantaged (Armitage and Gluck, 2006: 75; Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2011: 133).
Because women’s narratives about their lived experiences enable us to rethink
and rearticulate obscured painful memories (Stone-Mediatore, 2000: 120), the
aim of this article is not to generalize a specific group of women’s experiences.
Instead, I believe that this article will help bring questions and concerns about the
way excluded people live under dominant ideologies and patriarchal ‘‘history’’ into
6 Sexualities 0(0)

public discussion. This article is a product of my activist involvement with the issue
of US camptowns since 2003 and long-term communication with former prosti-
tutes there. Nonetheless, it is ‘‘I’’ as a researcher and writer who should take
responsibility for the final re-representation of women’s experiences.

1950–1960: Legacies of the Korean War: Tacit permission and

prostitution as the only choice for survival
The Korean War left a harsh legacy. Along with the division of a previously sov-
ereign nation, the war resulted in roughly $3 billion in property damage; massive
destruction of infrastructure, including industrial factories and equipment; extreme
privation; and more than 4 million Korean casualties, as well as leaving approxi-
mately 30,000 widows (Cumings, 1990: 770; Kim, 1982: 325; Yi, 2004: 34). As
Cumings recalls:

South Korea in the 1950s was a terribly depressing place, where extreme privation and
degradation touched everyone. Cadres of orphans ran through the streets, forming
little protective and predatory bands of ten or fifteen; beggars with every affliction or
war injury importuned anyone with a wallet, often traveling in bunches of maimed or
starved adults holding children or babies. (Cumings, 1997: 303)

The miserable experiences of this period resulted in long-term psychological and

physical traumas for a huge number of Korean people. The women I interviewed
recalled this disastrous period as follows.

[It was in the middle of the night and] my arms must’ve been this tiny. The ground was
covered in all these broken pieces of ice and I could feel it all around my feet and ankles.
I asked my brother where we were going without mommy and daddy and he said that it
was time to escape; that we had to go. I asked why and he goes, ‘‘We’re gonna die, don’t
you see all these people hurt?’’ I told him even if I die, I’d go to mom and dad to die and
if I’d live, I’d go to my mom and dad to live, that I was gonna take that boat back home
to Pyŏngyang . . . that’s how I left . . . it snowed like hell, too, that day. Your feet just sink
every time you take a step. Sometimes we follow the lights way over there and it’s just so
cold. I don’t know, maybe the tires were flat. The North Korean army had probably lit
the fire and then ran away. We kept wishing it was a town but we had to just keep
walking if we didn’t find one because we had to go quickly no matter what. It’s just
boiled rice I got too, and . . . we were all starving the entire time . . . Then we got to
Yongsan and I got sick, like I couldn’t talk at all. I can hear everything but I can’t
say anything, nothing. I don’t know if my airway or my throat went wrong. We got
caught by the North Korean soldiers because of me. (Cheon)6 (all emphasis is mine)

I don’t want to talk about, or even think about when I was young. (Kim S.)

The country was so poor with no power. (Lee)

Lee 7

Most women in the US camptowns feel great pain whenever they remember their
childhood memories from the 1950s. It was ‘‘just all bad memories [during child-
hood],’’ and they ask themselves, ‘‘what is [it for,] bringing all that back?’’ (Eom)
They said that everything was terrible back then and attributed the situation to the
fact that ‘‘the country was poor’’ and ‘‘family was poor’’ after the Korean War.
Another legacy of the Korean War was the stabilization and relative perman-
ence of the wartime US military camptowns. United States Army Base Camp
Casey has been located in Tongduchŏn since 1952, and has become one of the
most notorious military camptowns, having housed four different US infantry
divisions (third, first, seventh, and second) (Moon, 1997: 28). United Nations
police in Tongduchŏn forced the Korean residents to leave in July of 1951.
Another infamous US military camptown is Songt’an, near the city of
P’yŏngt’aek. Here, in 1951 the 417th Squadron came with bulldozers to construct
an airfield, which caused 1,000 farmers to lose their homes and land (Moon, 1997:
28). Camp Humphreys, used as an airfield during the war, is also a short distance
from P’yŏngt’aek and adjacent to the town of Anjeong-ri, both of which became
notorious for US military prostitution. As US camptowns became widespread,
military prostitution began to be officially organized into an R&R (rest and recre-
ation) system after the US–ROK (Republic of Korea) Mutual Defense Treaty –
effective November 1954 (Moon, 1997: 27). In the 1950s, 18 such camptowns in all
were formed throughout Korea, in a mutually dependent but uneasy relationship
with US military bases (MBC, 2003).
This nationwide sociopolitical and economic situation just described forced
many women to make the choice to engage in prostitution. For a lot of unmarried
girls and widows who had lost families and homes and who suffered from severe
poverty, there was no way of getting by without the financial rewards that could
come from prostitution on or near a US military base. In 1957, for example,
approximately 40,000 women (Lee, 1995; quoted in Kim, 2003: 127; Yi, 2004:
43) flocked to areas where UN/US forces were bivouacked (Moon, 1997: 28);
some of them became camp followers. Regardless of their education levels or
family background (Anon., 1953),7 ‘‘half-ton trucks full of pathetic women car-
eened onto military bases for the weekend’’ (Cumings, 1997: 303). As Han’guk Ilbo
reported in 1955, the total number of Korean prostitutes according to a registry
was 110,642, of whom 61,833, or more than half, were catering predominantly to
American soldiers (Yi, 2004: 135).8

I was born in a village deep in the mountains. My mother died after she had me, and
after that my father spent all his money drinking and gambling so he decided to move
to a different town. Before moving there, he got a new wife and she brought her
daughter . . . My father was doing some type of repair work for the train station at
the time, and it was hard to survive just on that job, so he sent me to a different family a
little after the Korean War . . . At 16, I think, I worked as a hostess at a tavern, and it
was a place where women sell their bodies at night. Yes, I went to one of those places,
people sold me to the place . . . uh . . . so many American soldiers coming and going
8 Sexualities 0(0)

around the place near the railroad at night. I asked what it was, and they say that’s
where yangsaekshi (western brides) live over there. There were the yangsaekshi and
around the railroad, [they] were the Korean hookers. I thought if I had to sleep with
someone for money, it’d better be Yankees so I borrowed money from here and there
and went to that town, where the yangsaekshi live. (Lee)

Although some women were unwillingly forced into prostitution or induced to do it

by deceit, others could not help deciding for themselves to work in camptowns in
order to survive. For women in military prostitution, therefore, the stereotypical
dichotomy between coercion and voluntary choice is meaningless and unjust, as is
the judgment on prostitution rooted in a specific historical context from the current
divisive perspective of anti-prostitution vs. sex worker rights.

I have to do what I have to do to eat, right? I was hungry and I went there for a while
in the end . . . And what do you do once you’re there? . . . Got no choice, so started the
life there. (Cheon)

Throughout the 1950s, the term ‘‘comfort women’’ was commonly used in news-
paper articles (wianbu) to refer to military prostitutes serving American soldiers,
along with phrases like ‘‘prostitutes catering to UN soldiers;’’ interchangeable
terms like yanggongju (western princesses), yangsaeksi (western bride), yanggalbo
(western whore), and/or ‘‘UN madams’’.9 This usage continued during the 1960s
and 1970s, when camptown prostitution became more consolidated and separated
from prostitution that did not involve the US military. That means there was
widespread public acceptance of camptown prostitution as inevitable in the face
of the presence of a large number of foreign soldiers.
The Korean government’s policy on prostitution also reflected these public per-
spectives on prostitution, which was largely regarded at the time as a necessary
means to feed Korea’s impoverished population. Although a systematic coalition
between the two countries seemed absent in the early 1950s, the construction of US
bases and the increase in military prostitution after the Korean War could not have
taken place without tacit permission from the Korean government. Prostitution
became concentrated in specific areas, particularly near where US soldiers were
stationed. There were two main reasons for this: first, Korea’s postwar anxiety
around the boundary between ‘‘us’’ and the ‘‘Other’’ in the new nation-building
process confronting the communist country, North Korea. Second, the national
concern about increased rates of sexually transmitted disease (STD) among ordin-
ary people (Anon., 1955b), as opposed to prostitutes, in conjunction with the US
concern about controlling prostitution to ensure the health and safety of its
soldiers.
In 1957, the US military and the Korean government agreed to concentrate
prostitutes in several areas where American troops were stationed. The US military
established 10 designated bars and clubs in Seoul, 12 in Inch’on, and 2 in Pusan. In
the same year, the Korean Ministry of Health and Social Affairs opened 89 STD
Lee 9

clinics throughout the country, 43 of which were clustered near major US military
bases. The issuance of health cards to prostitutes (McNinch, 1954: 147) and peri-
odic health examinations mostly targeting prostitutes in these areas (Yi, 2004: 240)
suggest that the Korean government was cooperating with the US military to
protect American soldiers from STDs. Once the soldiers’ safety and the control
of STDs on bases were secured by this consolidation of camptown prostitution, the
United States Forces in Korea (USFK) permitted its soldiers to stay overnight out
of the barracks, which brought about the rapid growth of camptown prostitution
(Kim, 1980: 274).

1961–1970: Permissive promotion by the government and

the heyday of camptown prostitution
The ascendance of Park Chung Hee’s dictatorship (1961–1979) through the mili-
tary coup of May 1961 brought significant changes to camptown prostitution
through a shift in policy from tacit permission to permissive promotion. Based
upon the previous government policy on prostitution, the Park regime intensified
the consolidation and development of camptown through more systematic institu-
tions and organized legal structures.
Immediately after the coup, the junta proclaimed the Prostitution Prevention
Law to replace the Public Prostitution Elimination Law issued by USAMGIK.10 In
April 1962, the Korean government authorized the United Nations’ 1949
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of
the Prostitution of Others. These legal changes also served as a rhetorical reasser-
tion of the illegality of (private) prostitution. In 1962, the junta established 104
‘‘special districts (t’ŭkjŏngguyŏk or t’ŭkjŏngjiyŏk),’’ including 32 military camp-
towns where prostitution was not only legally permitted but also closely monitored
by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, and
the Ministry of Law (Anon., 1962a; Pak, 1992: 111). The official rationale for
establishing these special districts was ‘‘to move away from the prosecution of
prostitutes and guide them to rehabilitate in ‘benevolent areas’ by saving money
from prostitution to leave for other occupations’’ (Anon., 1962a). However, under-
lying this superficially progressive surface rationale was the ‘‘inevitability of male
sexual desire’’ (Cho and Chang, 1990: 92).11 Since foreign currency was an impera-
tive resource for reconstructing South Korean society and moving it toward cap-
italist industrialization (Lone and McCormack, 1993: 142–145), ‘‘to be prepared
for foreign visitors at various upcoming international events’’ was another practical
reason stated by the government for the establishment of special districts (Anon.,
1962a). In this context, the number of special districts grew by 1964 to 145, of
which 60% were in US military camptowns (Cho and Chang, 1990: 13).
Another important institution whose establishment functioned to support camp-
town prostitution was the Tourism Promotion Law proclaimed in August 1961,
three months before the promulgation of the Prostitution Prevention Law. Under
this law, there were designated clubs in US military camptowns, which exclusively
10 Sexualities 0(0)

catered to American soldiers as ‘‘special tourism facilities businesses’’ (t’ŭksu

kwankwangsisŏl ŏpch’e) that would enjoy a supply of tax-free alcohol (Anon.,
1967). The clubs subsequently organized the Special Tourism Association (t’ŭksu
kwankwang hyŏphoe), whose major activity was managing camptown prostitution.
In accordance with the Tourism Promotion Law, each camptown club was
required to deposit $500 (not in the Korean currency won), which would be
worth around $3546 in 2014, per month in its savings account; noncompliance
could lead to the withdrawal of business approval by the government (Sŏng and
Chang, 1970: 132). Women in camptowns clearly recognized this absurd situation.

Not to mention the American soldiers . . . every club was packed. There were eleven
special tourism clubs then, not like the private clubs these days. They [we]re the
foreigner-only clubs. There were eleven of them. (Q: Who authorized them?)
Whoever authorized it . . . there’s a license, a permit. Pica, Paradise, and UN
Club . . . What else . . . anyway there were eleven. These were special tourism clubs.
The drinks were basically free. They didn’t even pay taxes, under special tourism.
They served drinks to American soldiers, so they didn’t even pay taxes. (Kim S)

The final major element of the institutionalized structure of camptown prostitution

was the Korean American Friendship Society (KAFS), which evolved from a June
1962 lecture on the promotion of ‘‘Korean American Friendship,’’ intended to
alleviate tensions arising from violence against Korean civilians committed by
American soldiers.12 The KAFS became a formal channel through which the rela-
tionship between Korean civilians and American soldiers in camptowns was man-
aged through the signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 1966, which
became effective on the 9th of February 1967 (Chŏn, 1991: 170).13 Convening
bimonthly, the KAFS was composed of a Korean chair, an American chair, and
a dozen members, commonly including the mayor of a host city, its police chief,
KCIA (Korean Central Intelligence Agency) officers, the president of the Korea
Special Tourism Association, and the president of a local hospital, as well as com-
manders and military police advisors for the US Army. The society’s central office
was located in Seoul, with local branches in almost all camptowns. From its cre-
ation onward, the KAFS managed tension between Korean civilians and American
soldiers, often stemming from serious violence against civilians by the soldiers, in
the name of promoting friendship (Mal Magazine, 1991: 170–172). In practice,
however, the KAFS worked to pressure bar owners to improve the quality
of sexual service to US soldiers (Anon., 1967) and as a means for some
Korean people in high places to boast about their ‘‘close relationship with
Americans’’ (Mal Magazine, 1991: 172). In the 1970s and 1980s, the KAFS evolved
into a more overtly repressive institution, controlling and supervising military
prostitutes.
Owing to the Korean government’s support for the purpose of economic growth
by utilizing women’s labor and sexuality, and the US military’s unwillingness to get
involved in Korean domestic concerns, US military camptowns enjoyed their
Lee 11

heyday in the 1960s.14 The rapid development of camptowns turned farming vil-
lages outside Seoul into ‘‘commercial districts’’ (Kim, 1980: 288), filled with clubs,
bars, convenience stores, pawnshops, barbershops, tailors, photo and portrait
shops, and drugstores catering to American soldiers. With the explosive growth
of military prostitution, young girls, mainly from the countryside, began to flock to
the camptowns. Many of the women I interviewed in camptowns testified that the
number of women was almost the same as that of soldiers, or not notably less, in
the 1960s.

The camp [in Jincheon] had maybe two hundred soldiers and there were not a
hundred, but over seventy to eighty [girls], I think . . . Here [in Anjeong-ri] had like
over a thousand, yeah, the girls, I came back here then it was over a thousand.
(Cheon)

It was a well-known town crowded with girls. Back then I couldn’t even go outside in
the evening, so scared of the American soldiers everywhere. I’d go, ‘‘Mom, I’m scared
I can’t go alone, come with me’’ and have her with me around. It was so scary, and
there were usually seven to eight girls at one place. (Kim Y)

I heard there were two thousand American soldiers on this camp, and there were many
girls, like as many [as the soldiers]. There must’ve been just a few hundred less than
two thousand. (Kim J)

Geographically, Kyŏnggi Province had the largest concentration of camptown

prostitutes, accounting for 53.3% of the total number of registered military pros-
titutes in South Korea; this is in keeping with the concentration of US military
bases in the province. The next largest concentrations were in Seoul (2231), Pusan
(2182), and North Kyŏngsang Province (1113) (Chŏng, 1967: 66–67).
From the perspective of the Korean government, the so-called ‘‘camptown econ-
omy’’ or ‘‘PX economy’’ was a major factor in the influx of US dollars into the
South Korean economy, which would allow for foreign investment and, with it, the
importation of new industrializing technologies (Sin, 1970: 30). Camptown prosti-
tution as a special tourism industry was thus regarded as a source of start-up
capital to enable the nation to earn additional foreign currency by building
export industries. In 1964, when Korea’s total exports amounted to roughly $100
million, camptown clubs catering exclusively to American soldiers officially earned
$9,733,000, equal to approximately 10% of total exports (Choi, 2004). Overall, US
troops contributed to 25% of South Korea’s GNP in the 1960s (Moon, 1997: 44);
the roughly 46,000 Korean workers in camptowns earned $70 million in 1969 alone
(Sŏng and Chang, 1970: 134).

The ‘‘PX economy’’ was thus a major economic resource and a symbol of so-called
‘‘camptown culture,’’ not only for the nation in general, but for people in camptowns
in particular.
12 Sexualities 0(0)

You know, those were rare things a long time ago. You feel like a king when you go to
the PX . . . we weren’t married so we waited outside and the soldiers went and bought
stuff at the PX, they told us they’d get everything we wanted and they’d get us
those . . . Then we’d get a big pile of things and eat that for half a month or a
couple of weeks. (Q: Didn’t people sell those [things]? I hear there were people
trying to buy them.) There were many of those traders for Yankee things. Like
‘‘This and that, less money for you, sell the PX stuff if you get more.’’ If the coffee
is ten bucks, they’d give fifteen or thirteen and that much is profit, they did the math
about how much comes out of it. So there were traders . . . Ah . . . dollars were so
valuable, you know. (Kim S)

I got so much from the PX when I lived with a US soldier . . . nothing rare about that.
This house wasn’t big enough to hold all that, so packed. Packed with things to eat.
(Eom)

People in the town and everyone in Korea lived off the money these girls made. (Kim J)

The economic significance of camptown prostitution in the 1960s was well reflected
in a series of concerned responses to the impending withdrawal of American troops
in 1970 in the aftermath of the Nixon Doctrine proclaimed in July of 1969,15 as will
be discussed further in the next section.

1970–1980: Active support and tight control for the

national interests
The Nixon doctrine clearly signaled that the US would reduce its involvement in
other nations’ affairs, especially in Asia. For South Korea, this meant the rapid
withdrawal of one-third of US troops by the end of 1971 (Lone and McCormack,
1993: 148). Koreans expressed the fear that the ‘‘United States would abandon
infant-like Korea,’’ which reminded them of the tragic situation prior to the
Korean War (Kim, 1970: 140). However, this fear was not just about national
security, but also about the national economy.
For many Koreans, in fact, it was about survival, because, as discussed earlier,
US camptowns were a significant source of livelihood for a large number of people
in the still war-stricken society. As the Department of Tourism and Transportation
of Kyŏnggi Province estimated in 1970, the so-called western princesses earned $8
million annually, and each of these women supported an average of four additional
family members. Therefore, the withdrawal of one American soldier would affect
not only prostitutes and their families, but also local businesspeople who ran dry
cleaning and laundry shops, hair salons, convenience stores, and so on (Sŏng and
Chang, 1970: 131).16 To the South Korean government, therefore, reduction of
American troops meant a significant decrease in the amount of foreign currency
available for economic development. This sense of crisis caused the Korean
Lee 13

government to reconceptualize camptown prostitution, not only as an integral part

of ‘‘national economic growth,’’ but also as an aspect of ‘‘self-reliant national
defense’’ (chaju kukbang) (Sŏng and Chang, 1970: 130, 138).
To the US military, ‘‘safe’’ amenities were needed to entertain troops stationed
near the de-militarized zone (DMZ), who were regarded as doing a ‘‘hazardous
duty’’.17 Further, soldiers’ sexual behavior was regarded as ‘‘a sphere of personal
autonomy over which the military held very little rightful authority’’ (Yom, 2004:
68). Because of these attitudes, STDs became a serious and urgent problem that
threatened military efficiency and soldiers’ health and needed to be controlled. The
USFK strongly signaled to the Korean government to take official responsibility
and accountability for camptown prostitution. Cowed by the Nixon doctrine and
subsequent reduction of US troops in Korea, the Korean government seemed to do
no more than bow to the US request. As a result, the Korean government changed
the camptown policy from permissive promotion to active support, leading to tight
state control over camptown prostitutes.
On December 22nd, 1971, Park ordered the establishment of the Base Community
Clean-Up Committee (BCCUC), also referred to as the ‘‘Purification Movement’’ (in
Korean) and the formulation of ‘‘purification policies’’ for US military camp areas
(Moon, 1997: 75–76).18 The BCCUC’s STD prevention program consisted of
actively pursuing the registration of women who were engaged in prostitution
(to reduce the number of streetwalkers who did not undergo STD checks), physical
enforcement of regular STD examinations for the women in camptowns, improved
examination and treatment techniques, the construction and renovation of STD
clinics and detention centers (for infected women), and cooperation with US military
authorities on ‘‘contact identification’’ (Moon, 1997: 97).
Called to engage in patriotic service through selling sex, women became subject
to strong government control and indoctrinated via intensive education in ‘‘good
conduct’’ and proper ‘‘etiquette,’’ to induce more GIs to patronize their services.
As part of this, so-called ‘‘education classes’’ held at either local government offices
or health centers emphasized the importance of ‘‘improving’’ women’s behavior
and preventing STDs.

[In the early 1970s] maybe it was from the county office . . . maybe it was by the
assembly members . . . they rented the club storage room for a bit, like an hour or
two. (Q: What was it about?) They told us to be cautious, that we have to be nice to
the American soldiers and be clean when we’re in contact with them. (Kim S)

Often the health center would gather people from the clubs and show us the movie.
The health center movie. (Q: How often did they play it?) Well, not that often but
every once in a while when we’re about to forget about it. (Na)

When we were working at the club, an assemblyman said that he felt sorry for us,
because we gained foreign currency. He said we worked so hard and saved the country
14 Sexualities 0(0)

by earning foreign currency, and felt bad for us. He told us the mayor’s wife said
‘‘These sisters save the country and make foreign currency so they can get some help
here and there. Don’t get weak and live with pride.’’ (Cheon)

Government officials, including policemen, encouraged women to work with

‘‘pride’’ and called them ‘‘personal ambassadors’’ (Moon, 1997: 153) or ‘‘patriots.’’
However, the rhetoric of ‘‘living with pride’’ and the use of hypocritically flattering
labels could not eliminate the women’s pariah-like status or improve their image.
Instead, the already severe degree of control being exerted over the women’s
bodies, their physical separation from residential areas, and the psychological iso-
lation they experienced as a result, all intensified. In accordance with the more
stringent controls on STDs, all women working in clubs were required to take an
STD test once or even twice a week and to carry an STD identification card.19
Clubs were put off-limits (usually for seven to ten days) if three or four prostitutes
were found with invalid STD cards in one month (Moon, 1997: 144). According to
one former prostitute, any Korean woman accompanying a GI was required to
carry an STD identification card unless she was married and had a dependent’s
card to prove it. If she was still working in a club after marriage, she had to have an
STD identification card issued by a government-supported STD clinic.
Moreover, twice a month, base personnel, Korean authorities, and Civilian
Military Operations (CMO) conducted STD spot checks, in which they stopped
women on the street to check their STD identification cards. According to one
former prostitute, ‘‘MP (Military Police) guys would go around and take the ones
without a health card’’ (Eom). If a woman did not have her card with her on the
spot, she was taken to the police office and given a summary conviction. If she
could not afford to pay the associated fine, she was imprisoned for five days (Kim,
2005: 195). If she turned out to be infected with an STD, she was imprisoned in the
health center until she completely recovered. Most women remember the regular
health check and the enforced imprisonment as the hardest experiences they went
through.

The health center checkup was the hardest . . . The weekly test . . . with the legs open and
the machine in, putting ointment in there like picking ears . . . I hated it the most. You’d
just go up there and the men, it was Korean men who did it. If you had a disease then
they’d take you in . . . in P’yŏngt’aek . . . to a place like a health center and I also saw
American soldiers there too . . . They give medicine and all, for days . . . like half a month.
Now they know it gets you tired, the penicillin was so strong and awful then. Gave a shot
twice a day, and you have no idea how big those needles were. It hurts after getting one.
They gave more only to Korean girls. It’s supposed to be just this much . . . if you get it
wrong, you should be lying in bed for days and can’t walk around. Now people make a
complaint, but we couldn’t say anything and just hung in there. (Eom)

They had the permit and had checkups twice a week, from the health center. Checked
the blood pressure and all those things every three months. You know, because they
Lee 15

don’t want any STDs and other diseases. It was twice a week on Tuesdays and
Fridays. (Cheon)

Anjeong-ri health center was separate so you go there to stay if you don’t pass the
checkup. Stay there for an entire week get more checkups and treatment, you get to
leave there if you pass it. (Lee)

In addition, the institution of the ‘‘volunteer army system’’ in the US in 1974

significantly changed the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of military per-
sonnel (Shin, 1987: 270). Bok (1994: 221–222) observed that ‘‘American servicemen
were spending less money and enjoying more drugs instead of alcohol . . . and many
of them were blacks . . . there were few college-graduated soldiers.’’ With the
increase in the number of African-American soldiers, clubs and bars in camptowns
became physically separated by race. The racist division resulted in a split among
the women as well: ‘‘black brides’’ vs. ‘‘white brides.’’ American racist thoughts
and attitudes permeated Korean civilians and prostitutes in camptowns, which led
to prejudice and discrimination against African-American soldiers and ‘‘black
brides,’’ even though many of the informants observed that those ‘‘blacks are
kinda nice’’ (Ji) and even ‘‘loyal (to women).’’ (Cheon)

Those three were up there . . . only had (laugh) the dark ones, I mean dark people-
. . . and here was all white people. The girls divided, too. Girls for the black only do
blacks and girls for the white only do whites . . . Blacks don’t come to white clubs, and
whites don’t go to black clubs. White guys don’t go to black clubs cause they’re scary.
Ah, but black guys say white guys are pigs or something . . . People go and say, ‘‘Wow,
blacks! Oh, so nasty.’’ Yeah, even the same Korean girls are different, a lot different.
(Cheon)

So many of them are so dirty, they rarely wash themselves. (Q: Blacks?) Yeah, such
stench with ass and stuff like that . . . they’re just so dirty, ugh. (Kim S)

Here, they don’t think of a black wife as a human. (Kim J)

For the women, these changes, influenced by the symbolic order of race as well as
the US volunteer army system, meant a worsened environment in the camptown as
a daily living place. The less they were paid, the tougher the women’s working
conditions became. One former prostitute recollects that she was like a ‘‘dollar
making machine’’ during those days.

It was cheap. So we did multiple times every day. We’re just dollar making machines.
That sex, it’s not even prostitution, just money printers. (Cheon)

We had to do it to survive even if we hated it, and we couldn’t show him we hated to do
it, you know? You can’t really think about if you like it or not when it’s all about how
16 Sexualities 0(0)

we could bring them home and a few hundred bucks was gonna save us. We would
starve, get it? You starve. (Eom)

In addition, repeated violent crimes, sexual violence, and even murder by US sol-
diers against Korean prostitutes, as well as frequent fights between US soldiers and
Korean residents, and between African-American and white soldiers, could easily
be observed in camptowns, particularly at the end of the Vietnam War (Anon.,
1971a; Anon., 1971b).20 Tongduchŏn, for example, was called ‘‘little Chicago’’
after the various crimes and conflicts that occurred between white and African-
American soldiers (Kim, 1980: 275). Because of these conflicts, the DMZ took on
an additional meaning as well: the term ‘‘Dark Man’s Zone,’’ emerged among
Koreans to reflect the number of African-Americans serving there (Sturdevant
and Stolzfus, 1992: 178). Such daily incidents were neither noticed by the public
nor properly publicized in the media, but they were vividly embedded in the
women’s bodies and memories. Women’s everyday lives were full of ‘‘dreadful
terrors’’ (Kim, 1995: 10).

It was in the 60s . . . I’m talking about forty years ago, right now. During the
Vietnam War. They [camptown women] got beaten to death by American soldiers.
(Cheon)

A while ago in this camp, a US soldier choked a Korean woman, somebody found her
body in the mountains under a rock . . . many were killed. I heard there were many
homicide cases long ago, so there were many bodies in the mountains. I don’t really
believe in superstition but when fortune-tellers and shamans go into the mountains,
they say it has bad ‘‘spirit,’’ they say that. (Na)

A lot of them died on that mountain. (Q: Why did they die on the mountain? Did they
kill themselves?) No, American soldiers take them there and kill them with a rock, or
they’d hang them from a door frame. (Cheo)

The helicopters were going round and round. I was going to the mountains and saw a
helicopter flying so low. I wondered why it was so low . . . I heard they were looking for
a dead girl’s body. (Eom)

Unlike the deteriorating conditions for women, camptowns increasingly became a

‘‘sexual paradise’’ for GIs through the Korean government’s active support of
camptown prostitution to improve the US soldiers’ safety from STDs, which
soon became an ‘‘open secret.’’ As Strategy Page has reported, ‘‘For half a century,
duty in South Korea was officially considered a hardship tour. The one bright spot
was the inexpensive and widely available prostitution. This was a dirty little secret,
but troops who ended up in South Korea quickly found out about it, and enthu-
siastically enjoyed themselves’’ (Dunnigan, 2010).
Lee 17

Women’s tactical and strategic resistance for survival

As military prostitution became consolidated in specific geographical areas, separ-
ate from ordinary residential areas, and was systematically integrated into national
security and economic growth, women in camptowns became increasingly subject
to collective control. Yet they were neither helpless victims of the national interest
as perceived by the government nor ignorant poor women. According to one
former prostitute, yanggongju councils provided women with the collective power
to negotiate with pimps, clients (US soldiers), or the government, playing a key role
in helping them ‘‘help themselves out’’ on a daily basis (Anon., 1962c; Anon.,
1962f). In Pup’yŏng, for example, some 150 ‘‘comfort women dealing with
American troops’’ protested against the strict restrictions on their access to enlisted
men’s clubs and demanded improved treatment by the US military administration
(Anon., 1960). The ‘‘yanggongju’s demonstration’’ in 1965 is another example
of the women’s collective power. When a military prostitute committed suicide
(allegedly after having been abandoned by her American lover), ‘‘300 colleagues,’’
bearing the bier of the dead woman, advanced on Camp Carroll near Daegu to
ask for an apology (Anon., 1965). Another protest where military prostitutes stood
up for their interests occurred in May of 1971 in P’yŏngt’aek, against GIs’ efforts to
pay lower rates for sex (Kim, 2005: 129). About 200 prostitutes carried sticks
outside Camp Ames near Daejeon to demand the immediate arrest of a GI alleged
to have murdered a prostitute on the 16th of July 1971 (Moon, 1998: 159). When
women in camptowns felt their basic human rights were threatened or violated,
they were willing to take action. Actively conducting protests, prostitutes in mili-
tary camptowns voiced their grievances against abusive pimps and American cli-
ents in order to stay alive.

In Dongducheon, when a girl got killed by a foreign guy, the women’s association did
all the work like this (mimicking carrying the bier [which was adopted for the pro-
test]). (Kim S)

Then who’s gonna carry the bier? The chairman went around to make people carry it.
We carried it three times. It was clear that American soldiers killed them . . . but there
needed to be a witness who saw it. People weren’t so bright back then, didn’t
have . . . didn’t know back then. Especially if it took days to confirm it with your
eyes. When they kill them at an inn, the locals go out to the chairman . . . The girl
did the black man . . . he had all the fun he wanted and then went crazy. There was
blood all the way to the front door. I didn’t look at that before because it creeped me
out. They did that a lot. We gave three-or-four-day-long funerals. We buried the
bodies on the mountain . . . we protested for several days . . . but there was no evidence.
These days you can talk about it without evidence. (Cheon)

Cohabitation with American soldiers was a significant way of life for women in
military camptowns. Because of the long-term nature of the US troop deployment
18 Sexualities 0(0)

in South Korea, many camptown prostitutes cohabited with American soldiers as if

they were legally married. A stable relationship meant relief from stressful daily
dealings with customers and pimps,21 because women could stop working in bars
and clubs and could have their monthly living expenses covered by their partners.
Moreover, it opened the possibility of ‘‘real marriage’’ and immigration to the USA
as military spouses. The enactment of Public Law 91–25 (so-called Act of April 7th,
1970),22 in particular, facilitated rapid growth in the total number of Korean
women admitted to the US as wives or spouses-to-be of US citizens (Shin, 1987:
251). A Korean journal estimated that one out of six military prostitutes entered
into marriage with a GI in the 1970s, based on the contemporary record of around
3000 interracial marriages per year (Mal Magazine, 1991: 26, 109). Similarly,
Bartman (1989: 2) indicates that there were 25,000 marriages of soldiers to
Koreans in the decade between 1970 and 1980. In one year, 1976, 138 women in
Tongduch’ŏn got married to American soldiers and were able to leave camptown
prostitution as a result (Kim, 1980: 285).

Of course, living together is way better, much less tiring. He had to go after seven or
eight months. After living together for several months he got attached to me, so he
asked me to marry him and move to America. (Eom)

He wouldn’t have given me a wedding ring if he didn’t want to marry me. I hadn’t
really thought about it. I’m such a little person, and I marry an officer? Yeah, I had
never thought about it. It was just like, ‘‘What if I ruin his future by marrying him?’’
That’s how I felt. When I was young, I felt like ‘‘How can I possibly marry a guy like
that?’’ (Cheon)

As one former prostitute asked me, ‘‘Why not? If the [exclusive] relationship was
the only way to get to America for me, who had no hope in this country, and if they
took care of me. Why not?’’ Paradoxically, the considerable number of interracial
cohabitations and marriages shows the ostracism of military prostitutes by
Koreans and the oppressive environment they faced, leaving them with no place
to return to.
Interestingly, many of the women testified that American soldiers treated them
as ‘‘respected’’ partners, provided them with highly valued goods, and were
‘‘kinder’’ and ‘‘better than Korean men,’’ as they did not care about the
women’s backgrounds or status. In many cases, therefore, the women’s memories
of their relationships with American soldiers were not that different from those of
‘‘ordinary’’ lovers. Crossing boundaries between official marriage and cohabit-
ation, between romantic relationships and prostitution, women in camptowns
actively sought to make their lives better.

My soldier said, ‘‘My pretty girl, my precious baby . . .’’ I’d tell him, ‘‘Please stop doing
that’’. He said, ‘‘No, I should treat you like a queen [so] you can get respect from the
others. If I [want to] be respected, I should respect you.’’ (Eom)
Lee 19

The black guy, an American soldier . . . we were young, so we were wearing bikinis on
the roof, putting stuff on for tanning. We’d play music and drink while tanning when
we hang out on the roof . . . we hung out together drinking and all, then he gave me the
watch with jewels on top. It was like crystals all over it . . . That’s how he became the
father of my child. (Cho)

They are tender and nice to me. Kind and sweet people . . . Even if you don’t under-
stand what they’re saying, they talk quietly, and nicely . . . [US soldiers] do it tenderly
when they’re in bed or something, they don’t just think about themselves. (Kim J)

By ‘‘performing love in order to get ahead’’ (Brennan, 2004), women in camptowns

actively pursued the alteration of their own condition and identity to cross national
and cultural boundaries. For them, a sense of belonging is not just about the matter
of nation, but is a transformative condition. Regardless of their intentions,
women’s effort to survive disrupted the androcentric notions of gender and
nation, and transgressed heteronormative ideals of marriage and family as well.
However, it should not be ignored that many of their trials confronted limits as
much as possibilities. These limits were often the result of the hierarchical relation-
ship between Korean and American, and prostitute and customer, intertwined with
multiple orders of gender, race, and nation. In fact, three-quarters of marriages
between Korean women and US servicemen ended in divorce, and 70% of such
marriages were abusive, and thus many of the Korean women who left the country
with GI husbands ended up working as prostitutes in US massage parlors. Ms. Hey
who ran the Rainbow Center for former prostitutes, in New York, testified that
‘‘over 100,000 marriages between American men and Korean women, many but by
no means all of whom were former prostitutes, have taken place since 1950.’’.
Many other women were left behind in Korea with their mixed-race children and
endured community discrimination. In fact, some women I met had sad stories
about their mixed-race children who suffered discrimination from Korean people
because of their skin color and had to be given up for adoption in the US when they
were young.23 Nevertheless, women in camptowns continued to take great risks to
realize the only hope they had of leaving their abusive communities and nation.

Conclusion
This article has examined the ways in which the Korean government cooperated
with US (military) interests in the systematic construction and maintenance of a
system of camptown prostitution in the period 1950–1980, with changes in policy
from tacit permission to permissive promotion and then active support. Based on oral
histories (or her-stories) provided by the women themselves and on analysis of
these and other primary and secondary sources, the lives of women in US military
camptowns have also been explored.
After the 1953 armistice, which ended active hostilities in the Korean War, the
US military started to build R&R facilities around military bases and demanded
20 Sexualities 0(0)

that the Korean government develop systematic policies governing these facilities,
particularly with regard to the control of venereal disease, to ensure the safety of
US soldiers. Given this US concern, combined with the Korean government’s
concerns about increased STD rates among ordinary people and about a perceived
moral threat caused by the increased number of prostitutes, prostitution for foreign
soldiers in South Korea began to be concentrated in specific geographic areas
where American soldiers were stationed. As the Korean government began to
conceptualize prostitution as a necessary means to accommodate and ‘‘entertain’’
foreign soldiers and to retain them as a means of ensuring South Korea’s national
security during the Cold War, the increased concentration of prostitutes within and
around the R&R facilities eventually developed into a full-blown system of
so-called ‘‘camptown prostitution.’’ In particular, the state-building, national
security, and economic development priorities of Park Chung Hee’s military
regime (1961–1979) depended on the utilization of women’s sexual labor, thus
creating the foundation for the consolidation and development of camptown pros-
titution. In principle, prostitution is illegal in South Korea, but the government has
not in any material way attempted to enforce its anti-prostitution laws. This
contradiction between the illegality of prostitution in principle and the acceptance
of camptown prostitution in practice has remained a lasting feature of the South
Korean situation until the present day.
Women in camptowns have suffered during the nation’s disastrous modern his-
tory and witnessed absurd, unjust, and contradictory sociopolitical changes related
to international relations, national policies, and community attitudes toward and
treatment of them in their vulnerable state. However, their stories are not unusual.
In fact, they share important similarities with ‘‘ordinary’’ women’s experiences in
poor, patriarchal countries. As members of an underprivileged gender, class, and
race, these women had to encounter diverse forms of discrimination, abuse, and
violence, and most ended up in camptown prostitution simply to survive. As a
result, they developed diverse survival skills, including leading protests against
discriminatory treatment, organizing self-reliance groups, and planning their
escape from an oppressive community and nation. In short, women in camptowns
managed to carve out spaces for themselves and change their material conditions,
cultural identities, and even legal status. In this way, women in camptowns repre-
sent cases of transgression against the androcentric Korean society as well as ethno-
centric nationalism. Their embodied hybridity of racial, national, and cultural
identities disrupts and interrupts traditional Korean cultural constructs and sig-
nifies their position: belonging neither to Korea nor to America. This multifaceted
position at the interstices of assimilation and negation of national/ethnic origins
reflects their multiple and contradictory relationships with Koreans and with
American soldiers, a fact that is demonstrated by the way camptown prostitutes
have been labeled, neither coherently nor consistently. These women’s complex
subjectivity, as well as their struggle to escape their conditions, can now guide us
in confronting persistent ideologies of gender, race, and nation across hegemonic
borders.
Lee 21

Notes
1. The term ‘‘comfort women’’ usually refers to women drafted for military sexual slavery
by Japan during the Second World War. However, interestingly, the lawsuit used the
term to refer to the women in US military camptowns.
2. Camptowns—commercial districts of small villages that are solely dependent on a US
military customer base—have developed around the main US bases. They have been
notorious for military prostitution throughout Korea’s modern history.
3. Because the Korean War ended in a ceasefire and not a peace treaty, the Korean
peninsula still exists under the armistice agreement signed by North Korea, China,
the Soviet Union, and the USA in 1953, after the end of hostilities.
4. Since the mid-1990s, foreign women as cheap labor have replaced Korean women in US
camptowns. Therefore, this article will focus on old Korean prostitutes’ experiences
instead of foreign women’s. For more information of US military policy after 1990s
and changes in camptowns, please refer to Lee (2006).
5. This is why discussions of method and methodology (that is, the theory and analysis of
how research should proceed) have been intertwined with each other and with episte-
mological issues (that is, issues around adequate theory of knowledge or justificatory
strategies) (Harding, 1987: 2–3).
6. The last names used in this article are pseudonymous to conceal the women’s identities.
7. Many of the prostitutes had obtained at least a middle school education. According to a
nationwide survey, 152 out of 2197 had a higher level than middle school education and
23 were college-educated women. The majority of them (76%) were between 20 and 29
years old (Anon., 1953).
8. By 1958, there were an estimated 300,000 prostitutes working in South Korea, approxi-
mately 180,000 of them in camptowns (MBC, 2003).
9. Anon., 1955a; Anon., 1957; Anon., 1960; Anon., 1962b; Anon., 1962c; Anon, 1962e;
Anon., 1963. In the mid-to-late-1960s, there were numerous articles in Chosun Ilbo,
which commonly used the term ‘‘comfort women,’’ reporting crimes committed against
camptown prostitutes by American soldiers.
10. This law was originally enacted during the Second Republic (April 1960–16 May 1961).
11. This idea was explicit in the original proposal by the fourth National Assembly Session
in 1960: ‘‘since a majority of the troops are single and eager for entertainment [sex] by
human nature, it is better to provide special facilities.’’
12. Since their arrival in South Korea, American soldiers had enjoyed extraterritoriality,
which contributed to the rise of violent crime against Korean civilians. On the 6th of
January 1962, American soldiers shot and killed two local farmers while they were
collecting firewood in off-limit areas. This triggered a series of protests by college
students in Seoul. On the 6th of June 1962, students in Korea University issued the
following statement: ‘‘We can no longer hold back our indignation against humiliating
savagery committed against Koreans by some insensible Americans and rightly demand
that both Korea and the United States as sovereign states establish an agreement,
through a rational way, which clarifies the rights and responsibilities of both countries
and protects basic human rights’’ (Committee of Nogŭnri to Maehyangri, 2001: 274).
Responding to the crime and the subsequent protests by college students, Park Chung
Hee, the Chair of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, ordered a meeting
of ministers to mitigate the tension. As a result, the week around July 4th (Independence
Day in the US), was proclaimed Korean–American Friendship Week, with the following
22 Sexualities 0(0)

choreographed events taking place: (1) awards given to American soldiers who performed
good deeds, (2) the dispatch of a student corps to ‘‘comfort’’ American soldiers, (3) a
nationally touring ‘‘entertaining’’ show for American soldiers, and (4) the strengthening
of a national campaign to promote South Korean–American friendship (Anon., 1962d).
13. The full name is the Agreement Under Article IV of the Mutual Defense Treaty Between
the Republic of Korea and the United States of America Regarding Facilities and Areas
and the Status of the United of States Armed Forces in the Republic of Korea.
14. In the 1960s, US officials had cautioned against active US involvement in local affairs
relating to health and hygiene. They were afraid that ‘‘such dealings or recognition of
community health inspections and [medical] treatment tend[ed] to indicate official
[USFK] approval [of prostitution].’’ (Inspector General of the Eighth United States
Army 1964; quoted in Moon, 1997: 101).
15. On the 24th of July 1969, President Richard Nixon, en route to Guam, told reporters
that the US would seek to reduce its military involvement in Asia and encourage the
‘‘Asianization’’ of conflicts on that continent. This change in US foreign policy was
originally called the ‘‘Guam Doctrine’’ but has become better known as the ‘‘Nixon
Doctrine’’ (Moon, 1997: 58).
16. Testifying in a National Assembly session, Kim, Hang-yŏl, director of the Economic
Planning Board, which administered the Five-Year Economic Development Plans,
replied that the annual amount of foreign currency earned from the US military sta-
tioned in South Korea was approximately $160 million, of which $43 million came from
sales of goods and services directly to American soldiers (Sŏng and Chang, 1970: 130,
138). This category of direct sales would include revenue from camptown prostitution.
The reduction of American troop numbers by 30,000 would decrease the acquisition of
foreign currency by $80 million per year (Sŏng and Chang, 1970: 130).
17. In April 1968, the Pentagon officially authorized hazardous duty pay for approximately
4000 troops, who would get an extra $65 a month (Sŏng and Chang, 1970: 130), which
would be worth $462.59 in 2014.
18. The US–Korea Status Forces Joint Committee (JC), established in 1967, set up an ad
hoc Sub-Committee on Civil–Military Relations in September of 1971, and initiated this
campaign (Moon, 1997: 57, 58, 182).
19. In the 1960s, women took a VD test every month. A chest X-ray and blood test every six
months and an HIV blood test every three months were added in the 1980s.
20. It is said that during the Vietnam War many GIs stationed in Korea were dispatched to
Vietnam, so they suffered from so much stress that it led to violent behavior. For a more
detailed explanation of the racial clashes that occurred at Anjeong-ri (Camp Humphrey)
and Yongsan in the spring and summer of 1971, please refer to Moon (1997).
21. Women who served ‘‘one American husband’’ were generally called yangbuin (western
madam) instead of yanggalbo (western whore).
22. The provisions of the Act were, first, to create two new classes of nonimmigrant admis-
sion—fiancé(e)s of US citizens and intracompany transferees; second, to modify the H1
temporary worker class of nonimmigrant admission (workers of distinguished merit and
ability); and third, to alter the two-year residence requirement, making it easier for
nonimmigrants who had been in the US on exchange to shift to a different nonimmi-
grant status or to permanent resident status (US Department of Homeland Security,
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/aboutus/statistics/LegisHist/533.htm [accessed
February 22nd, 2006]).
Lee 23

23. One former prostitute said, ‘‘Just for the baby’s future, I said I’d do that.’’ But she could
not forget the day when her child left. ‘‘I couldn’t give my child away sober so I smoked
some weed and kept bursting into tears. My kid asked, ‘Mommy, why do you keep
crying? Why are you crying?’ I said I had something in my eye . . . and then they took
him . . . They took him and I was so stupid. I didn’t even give him anything’’ (Cheon).

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Na-Young Lee is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Chung-Ang

University, Seoul, Korea. Since graduating from the Department of Women’s
Studies at the University of Maryland in 2006, she has developed wide-ranging
research interests such as politics of representation, political economy of global-
ization, post/colonialism, gendered nationalism, sexuality, and women’s cross-
national movements. She has published many books and articles in Korean, in
English, and in Japanese, covering the subjects of US military prostitution,
Japanese military sexual slaves, gendered space, women’s oral history, and migra-
tion. Her recent publications include Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Society
(co-author, 2014); Feminist Oral History: Deconstructing Institutional Knowledge
(co-editor and co-author, 2012). Articles include: ‘Korean men’s pornography use,
their interest in extreme pornography, and dyadic sexual relationships’ (2015); ‘The
Korean women’s movement of Japanese military ‘‘comfort women’’: Navigating
between nationalism and feminism’ (2014); and ‘Gendered violence and gender
regime in the neo-liberal state of South Korea’ (2014).