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Lesbians in Korean
Society
Who are lesbians? Are they two women who lick each other until their male master
shows up in pornography for male consumers? Or, a femme-fatale who just walked
out from hell to ruin people¡¯s lives as shown in movies such as Bound or
Monster? Such images of lesbians are floating in Korean society, impeding our
effort to answer the question, ¡®who are lesbians?¡¯ Lesbians, who are not porn
stars or dangerous criminals, are hardly represented or visualized in Korea
today. This is because of people¡¯s perception that erotic relationship between
women is nothing but immature or asexual friendship. Thus, the representation of
lesbians seems to be allowed only under the rude and violent gaze of patriarchy
and heterosexism. However, despite the distorted images and social regulations,
these 'ominous' women have existed everywhere.
Social Minority, or Minority among Homosexuals?
Lesbians are women. Therefore, our accessibility to social and economical
resources is relatively low and we experience more severe discrimination. Both
patriarchy and heterosexism oppress lesbians and we have rather different
culture from gay men. In other words, lesbians should have subjects of our own
in order to advocate ourselves although lesbians and gay men are both sexual
minority. As the terms 'human being' and 'nation' tend to be gender-neutral or
gender-blind, the term, ¡®homosexual¡¯ seems to mostly refer to gay men. For
example, most papers delivered at ¡®Homosexuality inside Modern Art¡¯, a symposium
held by Korean Association for History of Modern Art in 2003, analyzed works of
gay artists, such as Robert Mapplethorpe¡®s phonographs or road movies directed
by gay producers. Indeed, the analysis was also for and of gay men and their
interests. On the other hand, any text regarding lesbian sexuality or female
homosexuals was not mentioned except Jun-Woo Lee¡¯s short comment on Ji-Hae Kim¡¯s
Bojidabang(Vagina Café) Project.
Lesbianism in Culture and Art?
Why the mainstream critique of culture and art makes rare reference to lesbians?
Is it simply because there has been no lesbians art? The answer is No. There
have been countless lesbian representations with lesbian sensibility; Movies
like Memento Mori, Hae-Youn Han and Jin-Kyoun Lee¡¯s comic books and lots of
texts can be read as lesbianism. The problem is not the absence of lesbian
representations but the attitude of intentional indifference denying lesbians.
Admittedly, the discourses and the works on homosexuality in the art world are
not capable of the languages for interpretation for both gays and lesbian! ! s.
However, representing gays and lesbians in art area in this heterosexist and
sexist society is different experience to lesbians and gays because the ways and
place for representation and the resources to cultivate their ability for
representing themselves are different across gender. That is why
under-represented lesbians¡¯ experiences need more support and respect.
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