As colorful as candy store

Sex toys and edible underwear are on display at an adult toy shop in Seodaemun-gu, northwestern Seoul. The owner said customers range from those in their 20s to 80s. / Korea Times file

Adult shops evolve from seedy to fun place

By Park Jin-hai, Kwon Ji-youn, Yoon Sung-won

Two female customers walk arm in arm, reading the instructions on the back of each item displayed inside a small adult shop that resembles a candy store.

"After I visited the store out of curiosity last year, I became a patron," said Kim Su-jin, one of the pair, holding up a pair of edible underwear at the condom specialty store "Condomania," located near Hongik University in western Seoul.

"I have seen it here when passing by. Since the edifice looks like a candy store, I felt less hesitant to go in," Kim, the 35-year-old housewife, said.

What she usually buys are flavored condoms that come in all kinds of shapes. "Sometimes I come here with my husband when we feel that we need something to spice up our love life," she added.

Minutes later, a couple entered the store.

"We learned about the store online, and we come by once a while to see what else there is to buy," they said.

Condomania is unlike the shady adult toy stores located in the basements of decadent buildings with dark curtains covering every inch of the walls and boxes collecting dust. The sign out front is inscribed in pink and condom characters welcome the customers as they swing by the glass door.

Condoms in packaging resembling lollipops, decks of cards and messages-in-bottles adorn the shelves, and rubber hats shaped like condoms lie next to gel tubes of various sizes and scents. Cute is written everywhere, on everything.

"It's less awkward and intimidating this way," the couple said. "And there are products that we can purchase as gifts for our lovers here on St. Valentine's Day or White Day."

Condomania, a condom specialty store near Hongik University in western Seoul, is unlike the shady adult stores located in the basement of dilapidated buildings. It resembles a candy store, selling condoms and toys wrapped in colorful packaging. / Korea Times photo by Park Jin-hai

As more and more television programs like "Witch Hunt," a straight talk show aired on the cable TV channel JTBC, come out of the closet, so to speak, Korean society has taken on a much more open attitude toward sexual intercourse and the pleasure that comes with sexual acts.

Audiences, people cast on the street and show hosts don't hesitate to share worries about their love lives, which had previously been kept a taboo for so long.

On the Internet, men and women alike are sharing information on how to maximize pleasure during intercourse, and many are visiting such adult toy stores to give themselves a treat.

"If the past patrons were older generations who needed something to boost their sexual potency, nowadays I see a lot of 20- and 30-somethings who see adult products as something to increase enjoyment," said an industry watcher.

If not like Japan, where people buy adult toys from sex shops as casually as they buy toothpaste from convenient stores, Korea is starting to witness a wind of change in the mindsets of people toward sex.

Shops like Condomania are helping it in a way. Under the concept of a fun shop, it makes its products somewhat lighter and more enjoyable.

The domestic adult market in fact has been rapidly expanding, with its presumed market size amounting to some 100 billion won, or the equivalent of the local computer vaccine software market, according to a recent Economic Review estimate.
It also has a wide spectrum of customers with regard to age. According to a 2012 survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, two of three Koreans aged 65 or older lead sexually active lives, and of them, 55.3 percent use condoms. Some 51 percent have purchased impotency drugs, signaling further growth potential.

What's more, there has been an increase in the number of women who purchase condoms or toys to make the most of their sex lives.

In America, Debra Herbenick and her colleagues published a 2009 paper in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that more than half of the 2,056 women surveyed, between 18 and 60 years old, proclaimed to have used a vibrator during intercourse, foreplay or alone.

On G Market, an online shopping mall, there are more than 34,000 adult items available, some with up to 460 reviews, proving that Korea women's interest in adult toys is not much less than that of women living in developed nations including the U.S.

But despite this dramatic change in people's mindsets, laws governing the import and export of adult products, or rather simply the lack of such laws, makes it difficult for the market to grow.

"The moment you write down adult products on the customs' clearance paper, it is highly likely that the order will be pending for a while, whatever the design," said Lee June, CEO of local condom manufacturer MS Harmony.

Korea, a rather conservative country, has "rules," rather than clear laws, about what can and cannot be imported. Under article 243 of the criminal code, lewd books, pictures and films are not to be distributed, sold or exhibited.

However, the criteria for "lewd" are vague. In 2003, adult toys for men were banned for obscenity. But only five years later, the Supreme Court ruled that adult toys were "not illegal" because they only resembled and outlined male genitalia and therefore they are not obscene.

According to a staffer at the Korea Customs Service, there are no specific rules as to whether adult toys can be imported or not. Adult toys are not considered a separate category she said.

"Rather, we make our evaluations based on what type of materials it is made out of, among others," the staffer continued. But she stressed that according to article 234 of the Customs Law, any item that can corrupt, degrade or cause an outrage against public morals is not to be imported.

"So it wouldn't be impossible, but it would be difficult to import adult toys to sell in Korea," she added.