Behind The Myth: Are gay Koreans products of Western culture?

Since gay culture has not been a public issue in Korea for very long, some people believe same-sex relationships are a cultural import of the West. This fallacy is seemingly supported by the fact that Seoul’s “foreigner district” of Itaewon is the only place where Koreans are openly gay.

However, if Koreans had no gay culture before the 1800s, then they are a very unique people in East Asia. All of Korea’s neighboring countries have had gay cultures for a very long time. To the West, the upper classes of ancient China painted (explicit) pictures and wrote poetry about love between men, which they called “the passion of the cut sleeve.” Eastward, Japanese society looked benignly on “the beautiful way” until the Meiji Restoration (1868), especially when the lovers were monks, soldiers or other men who could not easily find women. And yes, Korea’s northern neighbor Russia was once gay-friendly too: the historian Solovyov wrote in the 1600s that “nowhere in the East or West was [homosexuality] looked upon so lightly as in Russia.”

But the truth is that Korean history does not lack early examples of homosexuality either. At least three Korean kings are known to have had male lovers: King Hyegong of Silla (who reigned 765–780), King Mokjong (r. 997–1009), and King Gongmin (r. 1351-1374). King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) supposedly learned in 1436 that his daughter-in-law Pong was sleeping with her maid.

As in Japan, same-sex relations also occurred among Korea’s religious and warrior classes. The famous soldiers of the Silla Dynasty known as the hwarang, or “Flower Boys,” are particular examples. Originally recruited by King Jinheung to wear dresses and serve in his court as hwanang (“flower girls”), the Flower Boys evolved into an order of fighting men known for their cosmetic-enhanced beauty.

Historical records about the lower classes are more difficult to find, since peasants did not write recreationally. We do know that Korea’s underclass of actors, the namsadang, often brought “beautiful boys” to openly inflame the passions of rural noblemen, even during the conservative Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910).

So why did Korea’s gay culture become less visible as Korea modernized? Ironically, some scholars think it was Western influence. In Russia and Japan, same-sex love only became socially shameful after Christian missionaries arrived. The slow transmission of Christian and Muslim attitudes across Asian trade routes may also explain why the Chinese philosophies shared by the Korean people eventually became more negative toward same-sex relations.

Regardless, public discourse in Korea about homosexuality should be informed by the fact that it is a fully Korean phenomenon, not a foreign one. Korea has had dongseongaejadul, or “same-sex lovers”, much longer than it has had Itaewon.