1. open relationship
Yesterday, after hearing an explanation of this 'relationship,' I suddenly thought it'd be really nice to leave it as a post, so on impulse I grabbed my laptop. According to a very close friend, the 'benefit relationship' spoken of here means going on trips together, eating together, having sex, and kissing, but not being 'lovers' or a 'partner.' Hmm, is this possible? I decided to turn it over in my head a bit. Within this institution where I am now, maintaining a relationship as an 'open relationship' must surely be very difficult. For one, because we're isolated, the chance of becoming intimate is really high. And once you become intimate, of course there's a high chance it develops not into a slightly distant 'dating partner' but into a lover or a partner.
In my case, since I've never experienced a sex partner, it isn't easy to readily understand the concept of an open relationship, and I don't have a suitable point of comparison either. But for people like me who spend almost every moment seriously, forming this kind of relationship really isn't easy. I want to be light, but because I know how truly difficult it is to live lightly, I can't be light. Living heavily is, in a way, more comfortable. Because easily erasing the burden in your heart is no easy thing. People like me who aren't good at lying have a high chance of quickly developing feelings, so it's better to give up from the start. Focusing on even one person is hard enough. I probably couldn't do it.
2. Tangents
I think what makes an open relationship possible stems, after all, from cultural difference. Korea still doesn't take that open an attitude toward sex, but the fact that society is changing, centered on the younger generation, can't be ignored. Moreover, thanks to the influence of popular culture, tolerance toward exposure has risen considerably too. But that doesn't change the culture right away. Korea is clearly still a 'conservative' society. From foreigners' viewpoint, it's all the more so; it may fall short in terms of 'absolute conservatism,' but from a relative perspective it belongs on the conservative side.
Coincidentally, when the topic of Asia recently came up with friends, I told them that Japan's sexual culture is quite developed, and since they asked why, I told them <the basis for that is precisely the existence of 'cultural difference'>. Korea is still within a Confucian cultural sphere. After all, when I told my friends that young women in their 20s living in Korea can't go out all night without their parents' permission until they live independently, everyone was shocked. To say this is simply because of 'sexual crime' seems, in a way, like gender discrimination too. Because among friends living in big cities like Sao Paulo, Brazil, which generally has a higher crime rate, or among the girls among my friends living in Colombian provincial capitals, they still go around outside at night just fine, so it's ambiguous how to view this. I'm not sure whether to interpret it as burning down the whole thatched house to catch a rat (to keep everyone safe) (the existence of curfews for most women in their 20s), or whether to accept it as 'that's that and this is this' since cultures differ. What's clear is that the friends over here are a bit freer and Korea can be seen as a bit less free. There's the social awareness of gender equality and sexual crime underlying this, so I think I need to think about it a bit more.
The following is one of the British government's reports on crime rates.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales continues to show steady declines in violent crime over the last 20 years. Between the 1995 and the 2013/14 surveys, the number of violent crime incidents has fallen from 3.8 million in 1995 to 1.3 million in 2013/14.
Violent crime victimisation rates have fallen by more than half since peak levels of crime in the mid-1990s. In 1995 4.8% of adults aged 16 and over were a victim of violent crime in the previous year, compared with 1.8% in the 2013/14 survey.
Homicide has also shown a general downward trend since 2002/03. The number of currently recorded homicides for 2013/14 (526) and 2011/12 (528) were the lowest since 1989 (521). The number of homicides in 2013/14 was equivalent to 9.2 offences per million population.
As in previous years, children under one year old had the highest rate of homicide (23.9 offences per million population) compared with other age groups. With the exception of those aged under one year, adults generally had higher incidence rates of being a victim of homicide than children.
The numbers of sexual offences (64,205) in 2013/14 was the highest recorded by the police since 2002/03. As well as improvements in recording, this is thought to reflect a greater willingness of victims to come forward to report such crimes.
From http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/focus-on-violent-crime-and-sexual-offences--2013-14/index.html
Just as Britain's violent crime rate overall fell over 10 years, sexual crime also fell. Of course, the fact that even here the victimization rate of women is still high is regrettable, but unless I know this culture well, it's hard to find anything more here. However, considering that Britain's sexual crime rate isn't low overall, that Sweden's rape crime rate reaches a top level, and that it's followed by developed countries like Britain, Norway, Finland, and France, I think whether there's a correlation between the conservatism of Korean culture and the rape crime rate is a matter worth thinking about. Just because the crime rate is lower than in other countries doesn't mean it's 'safe.' But while the fact that the main targets of sexual crime are women is a common phenomenon worldwide and thus hard to call a distinctive point, which of women's freedom and safety takes priority will differ in view from person to person. Korea is, on the whole, likely to choose 'safety.' Rather than enjoying freedom, living safely is probably the more Korean culture. But in the West, recognizing individual freedom seems to take priority. The same goes for countries influenced by the West. Just as it's hard to judge whether the Northern European countries that teach sex education early are wrong or doing well, I'm not sure which to choose between freedom and safety. Safety is something individuals must protect, but I also wonder if it's something the members of society create together.
2016/01/13
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