Just Saying | After K-pop, could spycam porn be the next great Korean cultural export?
- Yonden Lhatoo asks where South Korea is going and what it means for the rest of the world as the country is plagued by one hidden-camera sex scandal after another
“We may well be the country with the highest number of peeping toms per capita,” a rueful South Korean friend told me this week. “Forget about K-pop and all our great cultural exports; if we keep this up, we’re going to be seen as a nation of perverts.”
Sarcasm and self-deprecating humour aside, as a Western-educated professional living overseas, he was genuinely frustrated and embarrassed over the scandalous news reports of perverts, peeping toms and all manner of deviants besmirching his home country’s reputation on an almost daily basis.
I don’t see any official statistics out there to lend credence to his perverts-per-capita estimate, but he may not be far off the mark regarding the spycam epidemic plaguing hyper-wired South Korea.
It’s known as molka, the dirty business of men secretly recording and sharing or selling sexually explicit images of women, and that means anything from upskirt photos on public transport and escalators to videos in public toilets, changing rooms, hotels and even homes. And it’s out of control in one of the most tech-savvy places on the planet, where nearly 90 per cent of adults own a smartphone, and even more have internet access.
The hotels have not been publicly identified, but they’re said to be motel-style establishments that are popular among travellers seeking affordable accommodation as well as local couples looking for privacy. That ought to work wonders for paranoia over some degenerate spying on you the next time you find yourself in a hotel room in the country.