ABSTRACT
This chapter is a history of sex work in modern Korea which begins by examining the first modern brothels of the early twentieth century and ends with an account of the economics of sex work today. While kisaeng are important and notable figures in the history of sex work in modern Korea, they account for only a portion of the varieties of sex work in the colony. A number of returned former "comfort women" found careers in the South Korean sex industry, as sex workers and later as Madams. As the authors have noted, the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of people saw a proliferation of sex workers and kisaeng as widows, orphans and lone women sought employment in the war-shattered economy. Jin-kyung Lee has written about the clandestine nature of sex work in South Korean society where prostitution is everywhere but it is nowhere.
