Reading List: Male Concubinage: Notes on Late Choson Homosexuality by an American Naval Attache


Check out Carter J. Eckart's article "Male Concubinage: Notes on Late Choson Homosexuality by an American Naval Attache" in Epistolary Korea. Partly available through Google Books, the article brings forth a comment American diplomat George C. Foulk made on homosexuality, which can help us understand the prevalence of homosexuality in pre-modern Korea. While the yangban may not have been writing about their sexual conquests, there surely was man-on-man love during the Joseon dynasty. Foulk wrote that:

'[s]odomy is widely practiced in Korea: indeed, it may be said almost openly. The youths who are used thus do not go from place to place nor are they used by many different people. They are selected for their good looks - and used generally by individuals who thus like them. Married men often use such boys, and cases in which the boy growing up falls in love with the woman of his master, runs off with her, or there is a mutual admiration society of three formed, are numerous. Such boys are called "Pi-ok".'

For me, it just makes sense that people have been having gay sex forever... I like that this article gives me more sources to find and more things to read, but just a warning if you read the article: the book preview is missing a few of the most interesting pages and quotes. If only I was still enrolled in a university and had access to all of those grand library databases...