Homosexuality in Ancient and Modern Korea
Culture, Health & Sexuality, January–February 2006; 8(1): 59–65
SHORT REPORT
Homosexuality in ancient and modern Korea
YOUNG-GWAN KIM1, & SOOK-JA HAHN2
1Pyongtaek University, Pyongtaek, Korea, and 2Hanyoung Theological University, Seoul, Korea
Abstract
This paper examines Korean views on the subject of male homosexuality. Using historical and contemporary sources, it seeks to explain elements of new cultural openness towards homosexuality in modern Korea. Korean people’s understanding and knowledge of male homosexuality is ambiguous and limited. In the absence of knowledge and open communication, most Korean people imagine that male homosexuality is an abnormal and impure modern phenomenon. Prejudice and confusion lead most Korean male homosexuals to be estranged from their families, religious communities and non-homosexual peers. Moreover, they are often viewed as the ‘carriers’ of AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). The purpose of this paper is to examine current Korean perspectives on male homosexuality by exploring both the ancient history of the practice of male homosexuality and current thinking about homosexual life among Koreans, which has played an important part in the formation of contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality.
[...]
Homosexuality in ancient Korea The hwarang 2 offers the clearest example of ancient homosexuality in Korea. They were leaders of a military group of the Silla Dynasty (B.C. 57– A.D. 935), chosen from the sons of the nobility by popular election. Hundreds of men reportedly belonged to hwarang bands. Their major role was to fight a common enemy or to advance the common welfare by increasing national power. The Five Hwarang Commandments – serve the king with loyalty, serve parents with piety, be faithful to friends, never retreat in battle, and preserve life when possible – were the basic principles alongside loyalty to the nation, righteousness and dauntlessness.
Beyond their function as e´lite warriors, hwarang concern for ecstasy and eroticism – hyangga – can be found in the vernacular poetry of Silla. In the Sam-Guk-Yu-Sa,3 for example, can be found verses such as:
Song of Yearning for the Flower Boy Taemara
The whole world weeps sadly
The departing Spring.
Wrinkles lance
Your once handsome face,
For the space of a glance
May we meet again.
Fair Lord, what hope for my burning heart?
How can I sleep in my alley hovel?
Song in Praise of the Flower Boy Kilbo
Moon
Appearing fitfully
Trailing the white clouds,
Whither do you go?
The face of the Flower Boy Kilbo
Was reflected in the pale green water,
Here among the pebbles of the stream
I seek the bounds of the heart he bore.
Ah, ah! Flower Boy here,
Noble pine that fears no frost!
Ch’oyong’s Song
Playing in the moonlight of the capital
Till the morning comes,
I return home
To see four legs in my bed.
Two belong to me.
Whose are the other two?
But what was my own
Has been taken from me, what now?
In Korean society, the above songs have been traditionally seen as illustrating a hwarang penchant for sexual intercourse with same-sex partners. In colloquial usage, the term Homosexuality in ancient and modern Korea hwarang has given rise to modern derivations such as hwallyangi or even hwangangnom, meaning a playboy and a lazy good-for-nothing, and also the word hwaryangnyon, or something outside the range of expected variations, meaning a slut or prostitute’ (Rutt 1961: 8). Until the twentieth century, the word hwarang was also used to mean sorcery, laziness, laxity, and having the life of the mountebank (Rutt 1961: 10). Modern hwarang or ‘players’ are also perceived of as a homosexually oriented group. One of the later Koryo Kings, Kongmin (A.D. 1352–1374), is well known both as a scholar-painter-calligrapher and for pederasty with royal catamites or chajewi. The names of five of these are recorded: Hong Yun, Han An, Kwon Chin, Hong Kwan, and No Son (see Hee-Dok Lee 1983 and Hi-Woon Kang 1964). In the Koryo Dynasty, homosexual practices were described as yongyang-chi-chong,8 the dragon and the sun, implying the coming together of the two male symbols. [...]
http://hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Homosexuality_in_Ancient_and_Modern_Korea.pdf
