Customer Reviews

Sex Among Allies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book gives an excellent history of US-ROK relations re: the US military troops in S. Korea. It also gives a vivid and detailed snapshot of the harsh, and sometimes brutal and tragic lives, of military prostitutes in the "camptowns." And finally, it provides international backdrop, context and setting of the Nixon doctrine, S. Korea's regime during the 1960's and 1970's, and aspects about the political economy. There is such a dearth of information on all these subjects taken from the POV of these women and on this topic, that I give this book 4 stars because it finally sheds light on a little-known area. It is indeed very well-written and informative. I felt I learned much about the macro and micro worlds of the US military in S. Korea from a very different and neglected perspective.

Unfortunately, it's not a history book, but a sociological study. There, I would have to say is the book's weakness. The author's argument is that the women are not just "passive victims" but rather, "players" who played an indispensable role in US-ROK relations. She builds her argument by pointing out that typical state-to-state relations involving elites, government institutions, and "men in suits" fail to address how non-elite, lower-level "actors" play a role and how international policies not only impinge on their bodies but also how they express some "agency," or autonomy by the women themselves. This comes off as a somewhat exaggerated argument, tenuous at best, and only plausible in the ideal world of academia. It seems more like she is trying to set up a "straw person" argument that combines feminist theory, organizational theory, and sociological analysis. All fine and good for the acedmics, but I wasn't very convinced as a lay reader. What agency can you really give to women who are forced to prostitute their bodies? What power and resistance can one have by selling sex? To her credit, she does admit that their power is limited and that they are don't have much say. But still, the argumentis more to convince her advisory panel for her Ph.D dissertation than the general public. I think the power of her book remains the fact that she has given voice to an "invisible" segment of women who have been discriminated and neglected, and shown how the US-ROK military relationship very much involves them. I wouldn't use the word "player" because it connotes or implies more "agency" than they have, but again, this seems more to be a political academic thing that the author is trying to make that is irrelevent to the very major contribution she has made. I think that as long as you learn something from this book, which you will, it is definitely a must-read for those who wish to examine US-ROK relations.

The Korea we knew as military troops was only a spot on the map. Did any of us take the time to understand the people we interfaced with, How our culture interwined with theres. This book is thought provking and brings many issues to the surface. A chance for our troops to understand the whole picture.

Case studies are decidedly difficult to objectively review because one isn't just reviewing the accuracy of details and author neutrality but also the writing style and subject matter, as well. A boring case study, important as it may be, might be less entertaining than one of relatively low importance but that is easy to get into. This book is caught somewhere in between the two. Sex Among Allies is, nonetheless, an important study that deals with Korean prostitution around American military installations from the 50s to the late 80s, particularly with their change prompted by the "Nixon" Doctrine of 1971.

The premise that not only did prostitution thrive among American servicemembers and Korean women during this time but that it was sanctioned by the American military and the Korean government is alarming. As such, the illegal business were allegedly managed by local police and enforced by club owners. Negative impacts on society such as rampant spreading of venereal disease, racial tensions among white and black soldiers (and local business owners) and the social stigma of association was the women's to bear alone. The book's objectively is called into question by placing virtually all blame on both governments' efforts to promote prostitution as a means of recreation for soldiers; the women to sacrifice themselves to be "personal ambassadors" from Korea. Many of these objections were addressed in a mass cleanup effort in the early 1970s.

The story Professor Moon tells, however, is unmistakably genuine. The social stigma of such work forced many women, mostly from low educational backgrounds, to be stuck in a constant cycle of debt and abuse with little chance to better themselves. The book's position is clear: the unfortunate circumstances regarding the shantytowns that erected around U.S. bases places an even shame on all parties involved; those who set up shop and those who patroned the illict clubs. However dated the book may be, as many of these camps have since shut down or moved, the book's mere existence surely are evidence of change.

This book isn't exactly coffeebook reading material. However biased the view taken in the book may be, the history of such affairs and the arguments presented are well-sourced and difficult to fully refute. Take the book's stance with caution but embrace it for exposing a shameful past in hopes of not repeating it.

Book review:
"Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S. Korea Relations" by Professor Katharine H. S. Moon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Review by Rhonda Tintle, Ph.D.

240 pages.

Author:
As of 2012, Prof. Moon is a Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. (Katharine Hyung Sun Moon)

Thesis:
Sexual use of Korean prostitutes by the South Korean and United States governments shaped South Korean culture.

Time Frame:
1950-1971

Summary:
Korean prostitutes during the U.S.-Korea War shaped images of Korea's culture. Six million soldiers from the United States served in Korea between 1950 and 1971. During the same period, over one million Korean women worked in camptowns near U.S. military bases in South Korea. Then these women were referred to as sex providers. Professor Moon, in her book Sex among Allies, more appropriately refers to these women as prostitutes. South Korea's leaders propagandized Korean prostitutes as personal ambassadors to Americans. South Korea's officials cast Korean prostitutes as patriots who provided the U.S. military with comfort, thereby encouraging the U.S. army to stay in South Korea. The South Korea government used Korean military prostitutes as a negotiating tool. Before the U.S.-Korea War, Korean culture stigmatized women who had intimate relations with foreigners. During the U.S.-Korea War, South Koreans accepted the institutionalization of prostitution because it protected normal Korean women from U.S. soldiers. Conflicts about Korean military prostitutes played a crucial role in the U.S.-South Korea liaison. The relationships between soldiers from the U.S. and Korean military prostitutes reached a critical point during the early 1970s when South Korea's rulers feared the withdrawal of U.S. troops due to implementation of U.S President Nixon's morally motivated Doctrine.
Prof. Moon interviewed current and former prostitutes in Korea to ensure that "the voices of living Korean comfort women of the many U.S. camptowns will be heard" (16). Sex among Allies contains disturbing case studies about the economic and social conditions that led Korean women into military prostitution. Moon explains the daily work lives of Korean women during the U.S.-Korea War. Korean military prostitutes suffered severe physical abuse not only by Korean pimps and Korean club owners, but also by Asian and American customers, as well as South Korean government authorities and Korean medical practitioners. Nevertheless, the prostitutes have goals, dreams, and a surprising level of political savvy. Prof. Moon gives agency to Korean military prostitutes, encouraging their collective memory and their oral histories.
In the early 1970s there was a U.S. crusade to close the camptowns in South Korea. This campaign involved several conflicting groups: 1) U.S. military officials enforcing the U.S. anti-prostitution policy; 2) U.S. military enlisted men and U.S. military officers who contended that paying for sex with Korean women was a soldier's right; 3) black U.S. soldiers who complained that they were being discriminated against by South Korean pimps because black soldiers received sex services from inferior quality Korean prostitutes, and 4) career U.S. military officers in South Korea who did not want to retreat from the North Koreans and China.
Ultimately, Korean prostitutes suffered before and after the U.S.-Korea War. Eventually, military officials on both sides demanded regulations in camptowns in order to reduce the high rate of sexually transmitted venereal disease among soldiers. By 1971 widespread venereal disease motivated U.S. military personnel to demand that Korean prostitutes have identification. Private Korean-owned medical clinics charged Korean military prostitutes for identification cards, sold the women treatments for venereal disease, and provided abortion services.
Prof. Moon, a political scientist, has written a model work of international history. Her archival research is of interest not only to professional historians and political scientists but also to general readers fascinated by the complicated relationship between the U.S. and Asia.

School of thought: International History,
Genre's: History of sex, woman, gender, culture, Asia, Korea, oral history, diplomatic history, social history, Nixon, Developing Nation History (aka Third World History), Foreign relations and Foreign policy.

Of note:
In his effort to push for the Vietnamization of Vietnam Nixon offered a corollary called the Nixon Doctrine (in Guam 1969). It applied to the U.S. role in the Third World. Nixon stated that U.S. would evolve from military protector to helper.

Evidence/Sources:
Oral history from prostitutes, former prostitutes, customers, U.S. and South Korean military associates. Archives.

Criticism:
The publisher of the book should have included more photographs. Prof. Moon might consider using fewer acronyms for the sake of interested but non-specialized readers. The 1971 boycott of camptown clubs by black soldiers from the U.S. did not strike me as a blow to U.S. hegemony over the camptowns or as a rejection of the treatment of Korean women's bodies as commodities.

Relevant Timeline:

1950:
McCarthyism (1950-1954); McCarran Internal Security Act; Korea War begins; NSC 68.

1951:
22nd Amendment (term limits on presidency); Mutual Security Act; General MacArthur fired by Truman.

1953:
Eisenhower becomes U.S. President; Armistice in Korea.

1954:
U.S. CIA overthrows Guatemala's President Guzman; Brown v. Board of Education in U.S.; French retreat from Indochina; Geneva Conference; the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) at odds with U.S. President Eisenhower's foreign policy and the U.S. Navy; PRC attacks Quemoy and Matsu Islands.

1955:
SEATO (Bangkok) block communism in S/E Asia; Warsaw Pact (Soviet's mutual defense Treaty) so U.S. would not help Hungary.

1957:
Eisenhower Doctrine; Middle East power vacuum after England and France leave; Soviets launch Sputnik.

1959:
Cuban Revolution.

1960:
U2 incident.

1961:
U.S. breaks with Cuba; John Kennedy becomes President; 23rd Amendment (residents of Washington, D.C. can vote); Bay of Pigs; Trade embargo on Cuba; Berlin Crisis; U.S. versus Vietnam War officially begins.

1963:
U.S. President John Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon Johnson becomes U.S. President.

1964:
Tonkin Gulf incident, 24th Amendment (U.S. prohibits poll taxes), U.S. Civil Rights Act passed.

1965:
U.S. Immigration Act passed.

1968:
Tet Offensive; U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1968, people assassinated, Johnson signs Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

1969:
Richard Nixon becomes U.S. President; Vietnamization begins, Nixon Doctrine; Nixon bombs North Vietnamese in Cambodia and Laos.

1971:
"Nixon Shock" characterized by drastic economic changes in U.S. currency and in U.S. foreign policy; Nixon visits mainland China; China's official government representative seated at Panmunjom Korea conference.

Endnotes
* It has become increasingly commonplace to characterize this as the U.S.-Korea War or the Korean War rather than the more digestible US-Korea Conflict terminology used in post-1970s historiography. See "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" by David Halberstam (2007).
** See the book "Nixon: A Life by Jonathan Aitken" (1996) for further discussions about how Richard Nixon's revivalist Quaker up-bringing influenced his moralistic policy-making when he was U.S. President.
*** The Nixon Doctrine: "In Korea and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the arms, and most of the men to help the people of those countries defend their freedom against Communist aggression. Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was traveling in Asia as a private citizen. He said: "When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom, U.S. policy should be to help them fight the war but not to fight the war for them." ...Well, in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia: -First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments. -Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security. -Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense. After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy." Richard Nixon's Speech, November 3, 1969.

This book of personal research is done excellently. It describes how the Korean Prostitutes in and around military installations in Korea were treated and harassed on a almost daily basis. This was not only done by the Korean National Police but also by the Military and Security Police of the U.S. Military. It also talks about how the woman of these camp towns were treated and abused by the South Korean government and were used as a pawn chip in a much larger game - Politics. They were used to help the Korean Government keep the United States in the country and not withdraw their forces, but also help deter the North Korean threat of invasion. I could relate to this matter, based on firsthand knowledge of what went on and what I saw on a daily basis while stationed there for 15 months. It is a very interesting reading especially for people who have been stationed in Korea and know first hand how the whole situation works. This book will give people insight on how things operated in order for other governments to keep our military within their own country; even if it meant that certain people were going to get hurt or if people were going to be disgraced.

This book is neither as titillating as its title nor its cover photo would suggest. Rather, it is a middling academic volume documenting the unsurprising notions that when a foreign army is in town, a) local elites cooperate with the military authorities to provide commercial sex, b) when the army in question is the US army, black and white troops frequent different establishments, and c) the women involved do not regard their activities as manifestations of their patriotic duty.

Martin Limon's 'Jade Lady Burning' set in the same Korea demi-monde covers the same ground in the form of a detective novel and is an easier read.

I am sorry to disappoint you but the "world's oldest profession" did not begin in Korea in 1950 with the American allies. Ms. Moon ignores important aspects of Korea's cultural sex industry: such as the fact that Korea's "Room Salons" have no equivalent in the U.S. However, the same room salons are found in China, Japan, and a number of other Asian countries. Other aspects such as prostitutes reversing the ties on their hanboks to advertise their profession are not even addressed. The Korean sex industry today services almost exclusively to Korean men. It is illegal for U.S. servicemembers to frequent prostitutes, though granted some can do it without getting caught. Ms. Moon follows too many tangents and inconsistencies throughout her book. For instance, she criticizes the new generation of sexually liberated Korean women who hook up with GI boyfriends, buy them gifts, and give them sex for free. This is taking business away from the prostitutes who are trying to make a living. Isn't that what she wants in the first place, to get rid of the sex industry? Another example is of the Korean woman who continued to turn tricks at the age of 60, as though this were the fault of the Americans that she couldn't go find a real job (when in fact they were the only ones giving her anything). The answer to the problem is simple. The Korean government will not develop programs to help victims of nor even acknowledge the social problems of the sex industry, because to do so will acknowledge that the industry exists. There are a few accuracies in the book, but their context is set in such a way as to promote her personal agenda.

Facts, figures, episodes, yes, this book has them all. But objectivity is sadly lacking. I have had an extensive on line experience with the author, and real whoppers were commonplace. Like bemoaning the fact that men who have the two most common forms of VD are not tracked but the prostitutes are. (Ignoring that women do not ordinarily display the symptoms and have a huge increase in number of sexual partners, as is the nature of the profession.) And she would never backtrack

a step in her assertions.

This book mirrors her preformance on that academic discussion, sadly. No one is perfect, but expect a stronger dose than normal degrees of being fed jaded info nuggets. Read it, absorb the information, but avoid the "spin" is what I suggest. Get it in a library if you can like I did. That way you see if you really want that much data on the subject of "the world's oldest profession"

Very bias look at a all too real social problem in S.Korea. These same establishments wholeheartly welcome Korea customers just as well as the GIs. What about the Glass Houses, the babershops, the coffee houses,and the call up escort services all catering to Korean men? (Glasshouses,barber shops are off limits to GIs)
Pretty much all the establishments that cater to GIs have now imported women from the Phillipines and the Russian Republics.
Many suffer abuse and many are cheated out of the measly monthly salary they get by the club managers.

Great fiction! So Korea made its way on the backs of its women.