Making the ‘modern’ family: The discourse of sexuality in the Family Planning Program in South Korea

Abstract

Sexuality in the Family Planning Program (FPP) has been largely overlooked, even though the practice of birth control is inextricably connected with procreative behavior. Focusing on the sexuality discourse of the FPP in South Korea, this article examines the process of constructing an intimacy sphere and making modern families in a non-western society. The FPP was adopted as national policy and implemented by the military junta during the repressive dictatorship in the 1960 and 1970s. However, contrary to the public perception of FPP as a coercive intervention into people’s personal lives, the FPP took a critical stance regarding the repression of sexuality and stressed the pleasurable aspect of sexuality, disconnecting it from procreation and associating it with love. By analyzing this unexpected aspect, this article highlights that the emphasis on the association of sex, love and marriage was a western concept ushered into the modern Korean family in a postcolonial context. Women’s sexual desire was justified and encouraged—but conversely, women’s autonomy became bound to a sexual dimension and embedded in the marital relationship as the core of the South Korean ‘modern’ family.