Massage Plus Plus: Indonesia, Happy Endings, and Child Sex Tourism

Michelle Kaufman’s second travel stop for the sake of relationship science was in Indonesia—Jakarta and Bali. This time she talked to many businessmen, expatriates, and local Indonesians about their experiences with sexual pleasure and transactions.

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Concubines, Comfort Women, or Trafficking? A Stroll through the Seoul Sex Industry

I recently spent a few days in Seoul, South Korea on my way to Indonesia. I have some friends in Seoul, so I decided to check it out for a few days. Being a social scientist who specializes in sexual behavior, I asked anyone who would speak with me questions about people’s romantic relationships, marriage, and social norms around the topic of sex. Based on these conversations I came to the uncomfortable realization that commercial sex work is very common, if not normalized, in Korea. This normalization is partly due to the Japanese colonialist roots when prostitution was legal, as well as the abundance of brothels that serve military bases and the large number of business travelers visiting the city.

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