Speaking of naked parties...
Thanks for the link, Mark. And I think I may just end up taking up your podcast suggestion.
And I do remember this link from a couple years back, but didn't think much of it. Now that I've not only had to prepare myself to deal with potentially stupid misinterpretations of the law, but have been on the receiving end of it being broken (as it relates to photography), I really wonder about the ability of the Korean police to enforce anything fairly, in terms of the laws on the books.
So why were these people busted again? What laws did they break? According to the story – see, Korea Herald, leaving your stories up actually BENEFITS your paper (kudos, English Chosun) – the police busted up a whole bunch of swingers identified through a swingers web site.
Busan police detained on Tuesday a 37-year-old man identified as Yu for founding and operating the website and arranging for what police described as "abnormal" sexual relations between the community's members.
Now, maybe it's the paper's problem and the result of misreporting, but are "abnormal" sexual relations actually illegal? Now, arranging the site may have been illegal according to Korean law, but where does one's sexuality come in? It's mentioned that the police admit they're on "shaky ground."
However, police admit to being on shaky ground. They say while swinging may be detrimental to public morality, it is a consensual activity and there are no legal grounds for punishing it.
Yeah, you think? What's chilling is the fact that they even assert they're "on shaky ground." If there are "no legal grounds" that strikes me as different than "shaky ground," don't you think? So what are they investigating all the other members of the group for?
Call me a wannabe lawyer, but if Internet porn is illegal, the only people who could get into trouble would be this guy Yu and anyone else who clearly violated Korean obscenity law, which I understand to be anyone depicting sexual copulation or showing genitalia. "Hooters," as it were, are legal. Penises, however, are not.
But just being a member of the group shouldn't actually be illegal. Go make a swinging group – just don't put naughty pictures online! But I'd assume you could just put up profile pics, though.
Hey, but it's the Busan police. They seem to interpret the law according to whatever floats their boat in the needed direction. They'll find something to bust you for, and if they can't, they'll make you take a pee test!
