A special event was planned in South Korea last weekend. The ‘2024 KXF The Fashion’ festival would take place there. Although the name doesn’t really reveal it, it was a sex festival where people who work in the porn industry had their say. But conservative South Korea managed to put a stop to it at the last minute.
The ‘2024 KXF The Fashion’ event was organized by Play Joker, a company that made soft porn in the past, but now mainly organizes events. ‘2024 KXF The Fashion’ was billed as “the biggest sex festival ever in Korea”.
Four locations
Normally the festival would take place in Suwon, but local civic organizations staged strong protests, prompting the city to cancel the event. However, Play Joker did not give up and started looking for a new location. It was first found in Paju, then on a cruise ship docked at Jamwon Hangang Park in Seoul and later in a cafe in Seoul’s Gangnam neighborhood. But there were also protests from local residents at all these locations.
As a result, the organization felt forced to cancel the event. In a video shared on YouTube just a day before the event, Play Joker said the festival was canceled to “guarantee the safety and privacy of the film stars.”
Gender issues
The protest against the festival mainly came from women’s rights movements. “Whatever the organizers say, this was not about a celebration of sex, but about the exploitation and objectification of women. The sex industry encourages violence against women,” Go Eun-chae, director of Suwon’s Women’s Hotline, a hotline for women who are victims of domestic violence, told BBC. The festival poster also clearly shows that the guests only include female porn stars, meaning the event was mainly aimed at a male audience.
But the abolition of the event has led to criticism from the men’s movement. “A society that restricts men’s sexual self-determination and demonizes male instincts is not a normal society,” New Reform Party Rep. Cheon Ha-ram wrote on his Facebook account on April 17. “While feminine instincts are recognized as legitimate and said to contribute to the empowerment of women, masculine instincts are criminalized, degraded and viewed with envy.” An online petition calling for the cancellation of strip shows that focus on women has already received many signatures.
Play Joker does say that it still plans to continue the sex festival. The festival would then take place in July at a new location in Seoul, with a larger capacity.
View the event poster here:
Tags: Cancellation sex festival South Korea exposes gender issues country
