In his recent analysis of sexuality in North Korea, proposed on his Youtube channel in Russian (https://www.youtube.com/?lankov?official), Andrei Lankov, a leading expert on Korea, offers a rare and in-depth look at an almost unknown aspect of this hermetic society. “In North Korea there is sex, too, but it is not talked about,” Lankov begins, making a parallel with the famous saying about the Soviet Union. According to the historian, North Korea, with its 25 million inhabitants, has experienced an evolution of sexual morality parallel to that of the Soviet Union, but with peculiar characteristics. Inspired by Marxist-Leninist (or, as Georges Labica put it, “Stalinist-Stalinist”) ideology, in the 1940s, the new North Korean regime adopted a formally progressive approach to gender equality, enacting, in 1946-47, an equality law that eliminated practices such as the concubine system and banned prostitution. This policy represented a break with the Korean Confucian tradition, especially through the abolition of the aristocratic institution of the “kisaeng” – elite entertainers who, similar to Japanese geishas, often provided sexual services in exclusive contexts reserved for the nobility and the political elite.
However, by the 1950s the revolution began to “petrify”, abandoning its initial impulses. The government imposed a strict public morality that erased any reference to sex from official culture, promoting for decades a Puritan view of human relations from which the erotic dimension had been completely censored. Officially, women were supposed to remain virgins until marriage, and extramarital affairs were harshly condemned. Pregnancies outside of marriage were huge scandals that could lead to removal from one’s place of residence or the loss of social privileges, while the “songbun” (hereditary social status) system also discriminated against the descendants of kisaeng, negatively influencing their career prospects. Lankov reveals an interesting contrast between this rigid public morality and the private life of the North Korean elite of the 1950s, documenting how many senior officials, including figures such as Li Sang-jo and Ho Jeong-suk, had extramarital affairs, sometimes known and tolerated in powerful circles.
State control over female sexuality
An interesting aspect highlighted by Lankov concerns the control over the sexuality of women who chose to join the North Korean army. Until recently, the candidates were given a gynaecological examination to verify their virginity, considered an indispensable requirement for serving in the armed forces, in particular in the anti-aircraft defence units where women were enlisted. The historian recounts the emblematic case of a young servicewoman who, in the late ’70s, had an affair with her fiancé shortly before her discharge, and got pregnant. The couple only avoided serious consequences because the young man belonged to a powerful military family, obtaining an early discharge with a false medical diagnosis, followed by an immediate marriage that “normalised” the situation, demonstrating how the rules could be bent for influential people with powerful connections.
An exception to the total absence of commercial sexual services in the 1980s was a special club at the Potonggang hotel in Pyongyang, reserved exclusively for foreigners, where young Thai women hired on official contracts worked. For ordinary North Korean citizens, access was strictly forbidden, emblematic of a system that maintained a double moral standard: extremely rigid for ordinary citizens, more permissive for foreigners, for diplomatic and commercial reasons.
With the collapse of the North Korean centralised economy since the 1990s, the situation has begun to change radically. Lankov describes in detail how the emergence of an informal but gradually tolerated market economy has led to a significant loosening of the social control and capillary surveillance exercised by neighbourhood committees (inminban). This has created previously unthinkable spaces of autonomy, particularly in cities and border areas with China. Women, no longer obliged to report to factories that no longer functioned, took on a central role in small and medium-scale trade and entrepreneurship, especially in the informal markets (jangmadang) that have gradually replaced the state distribution system. This dynamic has allowed them to accumulate significant economic resources and acquire a previously unknown form of independence.
The economic empowerment of women and new balances of power in the family
This new economic autonomy of women has provoked deep tensions in traditional gender roles, destabilising established family structures and sometimes leading to the breakdown of marriages. Lankov cites a novel written by a North Korean refugee that illustrates the conflict between a successful businesswoman and her husband, who is unable to accept this new situation, in which his wife has become the main source of income and social status. In this narrative, emblematic of the social changes taking place, the marriage ends in a contentious divorce, while the protagonist, maintaining her economic success, develops a relationship with a man who accepts her independence, but, significantly, not as a husband but as a lover. This literary representation reflects, according to Lankov, the ongoing real transformations in contemporary North Korean society.
The phenomenon of increased female autonomy reflects a paradox of the contemporary North Korean system: the collapse of the centralised economic system has unintentionally fostered a form of emancipation, as the state is no longer able to impose the rigid social discipline of previous decades. Lankov emphasises that this process is not the result of deliberate policies, but rather an unintended consequence of institutional decline and the necessities of survival. While the regime desperately tried to maintain the appearances of the traditional socialist system, everyday reality saw women taking on increasingly central roles in the informal economy. This led to the formation of spaces of economic autonomy that inevitably translated into greater personal freedom, including the ability to manage romantic and sexual relationships with fewer constraints than before.
Economic liberalisation has also led to greater freedom in sexual behaviour, especially in urban areas. Research conducted among North Korean refugees in China and South Korea documents a significant increase in the number of divorces, previously rare and made very difficult by the regime. There has been a growing tolerance of pre-marital and casual relationships, particularly among urban youth influenced by the limited but growing contacts with foreign cultures through films, music and smuggled products. At the same time, prostitution has re-emerged, particularly in areas close to railway stations, often practised by women in financial difficulties or involved in informal trade circuits. Lankov notes how controls on people’s movements, once very strict, have loosened in many areas, allowing previously impossible encounters and relationships.
In response to these social changes, a market for contraceptive methods has also developed, with intrauterine coils and condoms imported from China becoming relatively accessible in informal markets. This has enabled a more conscious management of sexuality, although sex education remains virtually non-existent. On the demographic front, Lankov points out how the falling birth rate has become such a concern that even Kim Jong-un mentioned it in a public speech in 2024, going so far as to show unusual emotion.
On issues such as pornography, Lankov points out that this is still severely punished by the authorities, with penalties comparable to those for distributing subversive political material. Despite the spread of electronic devices that would facilitate its circulation, fear of punishment significantly limits this phenomenon. As for homosexuality, the official North Korean position remains that of denying its existence in the country (‘this phenomenon does not exist in North Korea’), although there are no specific laws prohibiting it, unlike in the Soviet Union where it was criminalised.
Between economic openness and moral resistance
Overall, contemporary North Korea lives in a state of profound contrast between the still formally rigid official morality and a social reality undergoing a slow but inexorable transformation. Economic dynamics have triggered cultural changes that the regime cannot completely control, creating spaces of personal autonomy unthinkable in previous decades. Lankov concludes by observing how this evolution, while not representing a true sexual revolution, nevertheless marks a progressive departure from the extreme puritanism of the 1950s-1970s, gradually bringing North Korean society closer to models more similar to other Asian societies undergoing modernisation, albeit with the peculiarities imposed by the regime’s persistent political control.
Lankov concludes his analysis by pointing out that despite the significant changes described, North Korea is still a very traditionalist society by contemporary global standards. The influence of Confucianism, reinterpreted and instrumentalised by the regime, continues to permeate family and gender relations, creating a hybrid system where elements of authoritarian control, traditional values and new dynamics generated by the informal economy coexist. Particularly significant is the recent crackdown on the sexual behaviour of adolescents, officially defined as ‘subversive’ and considered the fruit of ‘decadent capitalist influence’, demonstrating how the regime still attempts to maintain control over the intimate sphere of its citizens. This tension between economic openings and moral closures represents one of the most characteristic aspects of contemporary North Korea, testifying to the complex transition the country is undergoing, even while it maintains its peculiar political structure.
Andrea Ferrario is an Italian international politics blogger with a focus on East Asia. He has collaborated with the weekly magazine Internazionale and is co-editor of the website Crisi Globale.
The Italian original of this article was first published on the author’s Substack. This English translation, by Daniel Mang, was first published on the Left Renewal Blog.