South Korea is a patriarchal, sexually conservative society where the subject of sex has traditionally been taboo. Korean women have long felt uncomfortable purchasing or openly carrying condoms, which are designed and packaged with a masculine message and arousing imagery. Being excluded from the branding and marketing of condoms has left Korean women more vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy and STDs, until now.
A progressive South Korean cosmetics brand is working to tackle this problem by creating products that are designed by and for women. A nation with egregious gender inequality despite its modernization, South Korea is one of the most patriarchal and conservative countries in the developed world. In comparison with Western cultures, South Korean society is much more sexually conservative. Moreover, lingering gender-based double standards make the problem much more complicated.
Although Korean men and women are increasingly sexually active and discuss these matters much more openly than in the past, they remain surprisingly conservative in terms of female sexuality. It is , but female sexuality is still a highly taboo subject that is not openly discussed.
When women talk about their sex lives publicly, they will likely be slut-shamed and possibly even become targets of misogynistic hate crimes. According to a survey by the World Health Organization, not only do more than 60 percent of Korean women not use any contraception at all, many also rely on their sex partners for birth control; they do not independently keep up with contraception or even insist on their partners using condoms. However, the burden of preventing pregnancy has long fallen on women in Korean society, who often have to turn to more serious methods such as the morning-after pill or abortion.
In , at least , abortions were conducted 1 , a number nearly as large as the , live births reported in that year. Although abortion is illegal in Korea, this statistic shows that the country has one of the highest rates among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD. Condoms are without argument the easiest method for having safe sex—specifically, protecting oneself against sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies.
