Queer Seoul Series
An Expat Guide to Queer Seoul
Part I: The Hidden Ten Percent
Seoul is a city teeming with millions. Millions! Wikipedia puts the number of Seoulites in the metropolitan area at 23 million. Now as an expat I naively thought that meant the gay population of Seoul would be bursting at the seams, so to speak. A population of 23 million should, at least according to Kinsey, equal two million three hundred thousand queer folks! That’s bigger than most cities back home.
As you can imagine I envisioned Seoul as a hidden gay Asian Mecca; the San Francisco of the East. I pictured rainbow flag covered streets, openness, and wall to wall gay guys. And once I arrived what I saw didn’t exactly dissuade me from that notion. Everywhere I looked I saw guys in skinny tight jeans, fitted shirts, and huge over sized man bags. Men wore so much pink that I thought it was the new black. Out in the open I would glimpse guys playfully getting all touchy feely with PDA that, if displayed back home, would draw pointed looks if not outright stares. Here? Nothing. Just walking a few blocks would set my gaydar off like a Geiger counter in a nuclear reactor. San Francisco had nothing on Seoul or so I thought.
Reality came crashing down soon enough thanks to a friend explaining the close knit social structure of the Korean people. As I understood it, it’s not that all the touching and hand holding between K guys is gay. It’s more like those primates in the National Geographic Specials that groom each other to show affection and brotherhood. OK, I accepted that explanation of homo-social behavior even though back home the same thing would only happen if the two guys had just beaten each other to a bloody pulp. And even that would just amount to a brief arm around the shoulder or an obligatory punch in the arm as they awkwardly tried to make amends.
Everything else he chalked up to fashion. I hardly believed it. As we sat in front of the Coffee Bean sipping iced coffee I’d randomly point out a guy.
Me: Two O’clock in the bright neon pink shirt muscle shirt. Totally gay.
Friend: No. Fashion.
Me: Three O’clock with the big man bag?
Friend: Convenient.
Me: The guy in the skinny black jeans and his friend in the Capri pants?
Friend: Stylish.
I have to admit I was somewhat relieved that my gaydar wasn’t actually broken until I realized it would be completely useless. Applying the social norms from back home to the land of morning calm just wouldn’t work. I had to throw out all I knew and start again. In Korea, metrosexuals aren’t just fictional creations seen on television. No, they actually exist out in the real world roaming the city streets in such large number that it’s a wonder my gaydar didn’t induce an aneurism.
With my new understanding of Korea firmly in my thoughts I asked the only question I could think of:
Me: Where are all the gay people?
Friend: Gay? There are no gay in Korea!
Me: That’s like saying there’s no air in Korea.
Friend: True. Korea no gay.
This left me even more perplexed considering the whole conversation occurred with his hand squeezing my thigh while he spoke so close to my face that we were a hairsbreadth shy of an Eskimo kiss. If the straight guys were all like this I feared I’d never find any gay ones. So I did what anyone faced with a problem today does: I ran to the nearest PC bang, jumped on the internet, and Googled.
To be Continued in Part II: Thar be gays in dem online waters, matey!
This post was some time ago, but I just noticed it now and was wondering if you could give me some words of wisdom.
I’m in Japan and informing people that you are gay is not exactly easy, but most of the reactions have been positive to simply Oh, okay.
That being said, I befriended a Korean guy and for the most part we spent a lot of time together and most of our friends said we acted like brothers.
Since our mutual language is Japanese, there was a slight word-choice misunderstanding in an email and the following day he asked me if I was gay. It was a conversation I was unprepared to have, but I didn’t want to lie to him and frankly I felt close enough to him that I thought it might be better to come out.
In an instant, it felt like our friendship evaporated and he proceeded to shout at me and explain that we could only be friends and nothing more. Another friend, Japanese, witnessed the event and was caught off guard by his reaction as well.
Our mutual friend attempted to bring us together and explain the misunderstanding (I showed him the original email).
My Korean friend apologized for his reaction and wanted to quickly move away from the issue.
Unfortunately, our friendship hasn’t been the same since. He is 26 and non-christian (and given the fact that he almost never talks about being with girls and gets upset when other friends are chatting up girls, I half suspect he was gay), so I thought he would be a lot more understanding and during his apology he vaguely stated that no one understood his perspective, though he never told me anything more than that. As long as friends are in the room, we talk. If he needs my help or I can be of some service to him, he’ll initiate a conversation with me. Beyond that, the friend I thought I had isn’t there anymore.
So, I’d like to know, how ingrained is the homophobia from your perspective and does military service engrain any homophobic values?
Hey there,
Having not met your friend or spoken to him all I can give you is speculation. I don’t want to generalize about Koreans, but the society here is very homosocial. Maybe he felt you were too close and minsconstrued his behavior? Based on his own reactions and from what you’ve told me it does sound like he’s battling his own demons whether he’s gay, bi or not sure or maybe he’s just homophobic and wrestling with that? If he were truly your friend he would take the time to digest this new information about you and realize that it doesn’t change who you are. If he can’t accept you or treats you differently, then perhaps this isn’t a friend worth having. However, I would tell him that if he valued the friendship then to go deal with his feelings. You don’t need a friend who doesn’t value you you.
Brian,
I think that is a fantastic idea and lesbian community can be represented. I would love also add something about Themeetmarket Seoul group that hosts parties.
That’s a great idea! Lets do it!
Do the lesbian clubs still bar guys from going in though? I guess I can snap pics from outside, lol.
Very well written and insightful! Thank you for the interesting commentary that reveals the truth!
Thanks Aiden! I’m thinking of an update to the series focusing on bars and clubs. What do you think?