
Telegram Sex Slave Video Scandal Hits South Korea - 4684499
https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/telegram-sex-slave-video-scandal-hits-south-korea/
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DoreenMichele
In a nutshell, this is why I am open about having been molested and raped as a
child.

I was taught the shame was not in me. It was on the man who assaulted me.

As long as women can be shamed and blackmailed and no amount of trying to "be
good" is ever adequate protection, you will see things in this vein. No woman
should ever be characterized as a "whore." We don't do that to men. Men who
get around have bragging rights for "being a stud" or whatever.

I understand some of the reasons it gets treated differently. In a nutshell,
men can walk away from a one-night-stand and never know a pregnancy resulted.
In contrast, a woman can end up a single parent and not know the father's name
and it can trap her and her child in poverty for life.

But doubling down on saying it's the woman's responsibility to "be moral" and
high fiving men for being able to get away with it just deepens the problem.

Prudish cultures, where "good girls don't," see a lot more prostitution.
Studies show that availability of porn tends to drive down the incidence of
rape.

Human sexual need -- both physical and emotional -- is very powerful. It
really doesn't work to insist everyone just say no to sex. Without socially
acceptable outlets that help keep all parties safe and help mitigate the
inherent risks (such as disease and unexpected pregnancy), you just compound
problems and actively create problems.

I have mixed feelings about seeing this on HN. People tend to get outraged and
want revenge and so forth. This can deepen these problems.

We must, collectively, find ways to build bridges and foster healthy and safe
avenues for sexual expression and sexual satisfaction. That's the actual
antidote to rape culture and it's nigh impossible to read something like this
and respond to it in that way. Instead, people get very understandably angry
and want someone's head on a platter.

Yes, the law needs to go after these people. But fostering a better culture is
mostly going to come from somewhere else and you don't get there by focusing
on lurid stories and revenge fantasies.

~~~
hirundo
> No woman should ever be characterized as a "whore."

No, since "whore" tends to be derogative. But we should make it socially
acceptable for a woman to be a prostitute, lady of pleasure, hetaera, etc.
These can be highly skilled, honest businesspeople that deserve our respect.
Calling one a "whore" should be like calling a physician a "sawbones", which
is often not meant derogatively.

> Without socially acceptable outlets ... you just compound problems and
> actively create problems.

And one important such outlet is prostitution, by and for all sexes.

Hopefully some day we could call someone a whore and they'd honestly respond
with something like "well I'm not actually a professional at it, but I
generally admire them, so thank you."

~~~
DoreenMichele
Just for the record, I'm for the decriminalization of prostitution as defined
by Dolores French in her autobiography "Working: My life as a prostitute."

I intentionally did not mention that because the current climate means an
awful lot of men would like to strongly advocate for a woman's right to say
"yes" while not just as strongly advocating for her right to say "no," this is
an overwhelmingly male forum and this article is not a good jumping off point
for having a good discussion about that topic.

I've spoken before about my pro decriminalization stance. That's not news.

I don't think this is the right time and place to focus on that. So I didn't
bring it up.

------
neom
Awful, but not surprising. I live in Seoul and women are genuinely concerned
about using public restrooms for fear of cameras under the seat. I got roofied
at a Gangnam club in January. And then there is this:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48702763](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-48702763)

------
black_puppydog
There's nothing in this article to suggest that Telegram played any role that
couldn't have been filled by any other messaging service.

When a company name gets mentioned like this it makes me feel the real story
is that someone is trying to frame them as "bad guys" or make an example of
them.

Edit: to be clear, the story of course does and should get attention, that's
not what I'm saying. But I get the impression that including "telegram" in the
story when really it should be "instant messaging" takes away from it.

------
fulafel
Tangentially related to underground rings: SK has heavy censorship on a lot of
things:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_South_Korea#Subj...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_South_Korea#Subject_matter_and_agenda)

Details on the great content firewall:
[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/south-
korea-i...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/south-korea-is-
censoring-the-internet-by-snooping-on-sni-traffic/)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Probably not _tangential_. From your Wikipedia link:

 _South Korea is one of the few countries that explicitly prohibit any form of
pornography._

Studies show that availability of porn reduces incidence of rape. It's not
something most people want to hear. They want to believe all rapists are evil
monsters, not that at least some are men with no socially acceptable means to
meet their needs.

~~~
himinlomax
I'm not convinced of the causality here. It's more likely that societies that
are so repressed as to ban pornography also are too repressed to handle sex-
related issues, whatever they are. Rapists are a small percentage of the
population, most of them fall under cluster B personality disorder, and their
prevalence does not change much across cultures.

Openness about sex allows two things: first, abusers can actually be caught,
and stopped from re-offending; second, the unacceptable nature of sex offenses
is on public display.

When all sex is censored / hidden from view, there is no social distinction
between normal and criminal behavior. Consider, when having sex with your
fiancée before marriage is supposed to send you to hell, what's worse about
diddling the little cousin? Of course, not to normal humans, but that's the
kind of things that goes into cluster B's heads.

~~~
fulafel
Could Japan be a natural experiment in this regard? It's quite repressed
(right?) but there is little censorship. It seems Japan has a much lower rate
according to the first stats my web search showed me:
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/rape-
statistics-...](https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/rape-statistics-
by-country/)

------
lsh
"Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a
month."

I remember I read a news article once about a man who battered his girlfriend
to death with an iPod for messing with his playlist. The article had embedded
advertisements to buy iPods.

~~~
apexalpha
These kind of 'keyword' based ads can backfire quick. Every forum where people
seek support for miscariages will have all the keywords expected for sites
visited by expecting or new parents. There are thousands of quite opposite
cases where humans would judge the subjects very different than a bot counting
keywords.

It's really hard to get this right.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> There are thousands of quite opposite cases where humans would judge the
> subjects very different than a bot counting keywords.

It doesn't stop people from publishing results based on cutting-edge automated
sentiment analysis, though. It's amazing what people will believe if you just
lie loudly enough.

