Military Service, Militarism, and Digital Sexual Violence in South Korea: Militarized Masculinity and the Epidemic of Spy Cameras and Revenge Porn

This thesis explores the fields of gender, sexuality, and military studies to determine how military service and militarism contribute to the exponential growth in incidents of spy cameras and revenge porn in South Korea. The focus is placed on the role of the military and mandatory military service in South Korean society and how conscription constitutes masculinity, diffuses ideas, beliefs, and values among young Korean men, and how this can have an influence on their behavior. Factors such as the instilment of military values, domination and control, the militarized culture of sexuality, and gender power structures within the military draft system are of particular importance. This paper shows that military conscription and militarism contribute to an intensification of the frictions between gender and sexuality within Korean society through the systematic promotion of hypermasculinity. In this regard, this thesis argues that Korean women have been continuously portrayed as the...Show moreThis thesis explores the fields of gender, sexuality, and military studies to determine how military service and militarism contribute to the exponential growth in incidents of spy cameras and revenge porn in South Korea. The focus is placed on the role of the military and mandatory military service in South Korean society and how conscription constitutes masculinity, diffuses ideas, beliefs, and values among young Korean men, and how this can have an influence on their behavior. Factors such as the instilment of military values, domination and control, the militarized culture of sexuality, and gender power structures within the military draft system are of particular importance. This paper shows that military conscription and militarism contribute to an intensification of the frictions between gender and sexuality within Korean society through the systematic promotion of hypermasculinity. In this regard, this thesis argues that Korean women have been continuously portrayed as the weaker and lesser ‘other’ by the military over the course of history, and that this othering has helped affirm masculinity and dominance over the ‘weaker’ other, which in turn legitimizes and contributes to sexual violence. Here, the internet provides a communal space for the extension of sexual violence, and with this the exercise of this dominance over and shaming of the ‘other’ with more ease and anonymity, which contributes to the growing spy camera and revenge porn epidemic in South Korea.Show less

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Military Service, Militarism, and Digital Sexual Violence in South Korea: Militarized Masculinity and the Epidemic of Spy Cameras and Revenge Porn