Webcam modelling in Korea: censorship, pornography, and eroticism

Abstract

ABSTRACT The South Korean government enforces strict censorship against pornography. In spite of such regulations, there is a vibrant webcam modelling industry in Korea that operates under the radar. I examine how censorship influences perceptions of Korean webcam models and their viewers. The central questions that drive this article are: how does censorship against pornography impact the ways that individuals engage with their sexual desires in online spaces; and what are the broader sociocultural consequences of such censorship? I explore these questions in conversation with feminist scholarship on webcam modelling, censorship, and erotics. I argue that webcam models and their viewers form an illicit eroticism whereby they derive pleasure from defying the norms of sexual propriety. I argue that the illicit eroticism that forms as a result of censorship against pornography may have negative outcomes for how women’s sexuality is conceptualized in the Korean cultural context.