좌절하는 ‘남자다움’ : 섹스영화, 임포텐스, 그리고 ‘성’ 치료담론 (1967-1974)

Abstract

This paper explores the emotional construction of 'frustrated masculinity' in the late 1960s South Korea. In the late 1960s, increasing number of sexual/ medical discourses in popular magazines diagnosed the "sexual impotence" of Korean man, and propagated methods of medical cure through various kinds of surgery, medical treatment, and warm care at home. At the same time, many popular films of this time also dealt with sexual themes such as sexual impotence or marginality. Looking at both the medical discourses in a popular form and the increasing interest in the "sex movie" altogether, this paper argues that in the late 1960s, the sexuality of Korean man started be regulated as the body that suits in the modern family system. While this 'immasculinity' shows the cracks of the image of 'strong masculinity' that purported Park Chung Hee's militarized regime, the discipline of male sexuality in everyday life as the 'sexually strong man' took in shape in this time. In particular, melodramatically structured popular films expresses total frustration of male sexual inability that persuasively functions to control the emotions of man and woman, and coerces them to cooperate in reviving masculinity. However, films like <Insect Woman> displays this 'recovered masculinity' should be located only within family system by allegorically signifying the possible castration of a man, if man deviates the system. By analyzing both medical discourses and sex movies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, this paper ultimately argues that the myth of "sexually strong masculinity" was the social and emotional construction, which should be deconstructed for the freedom of human being.