Seoul arts collective challenges Korea's erotic film censorship

A Seoul arts collective and an Amsterdam-based Korean curator have launched a screening series challenging South Korea's restrictions on erotic film, with a third event scheduled for May 9 in Seoul, according to The Korea Times.

The project pits artistic freedom against a 2004 law that criminalized buying and selling of sex in South Korea — a cultural debate with broad resonance for Korean diaspora communities worldwide who navigate dual expectations around sexuality and expression.

One More Pink, a Seoul-based cineclub collective founded by artist Jeon Suhyun, partnered with Hyeisoo Kim — a Korean curator who organizes the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam — to launch the series in 2025. Two screenings were held last year before a third was planned, according to The Korea Times.

The series carries the English title "The Love," chosen deliberately to navigate venue restrictions that banned explicit terminology in event titles. Jeon said the name also functions as wordplay evoking the Korean word for "dirty" — and that the ambiguity worked in the project's favor.

"Love by itself is a commercial word that we see everywhere. The title fits with us because we are a team who can accept naivete and innocence. Though we didn't expect people to fully understand it, many people came up afterward and said 'Please do more dirty screenings.' So we realized that the title fit really well," Jeon said.

Jeon framed the screenings as the opening move in a sustained campaign, not an isolated provocation. "People come and realize that it's not the existing porn that they're used to. The strategy for any kind of sex liberation is that we can make it by doing it. Holding screenings, collaborating with related groups, conducting research and challenging people's long-engrained self-hate. It takes time," she said.

Kim said the project challenges narrow assumptions about erotic film. "In my case, I see porn as primarily not just about sex but about showing the relationships between people. Porn that mistakenly emphasizes penetration has conditioned us to think that's all it is, but it's actually about suggesting a kind of intimacy that we can all enjoy. It's a source of pleasure for all genders and body types," Kim told The Korea Times.

South Korea's Special Law on Sex Trade, enacted in 2004, criminalized buying and selling of sex — a sharp contrast to the Netherlands, where sex work is legal. That legal divide shapes how sex workers can participate in events like these. "But in Korea, it's life-threatening for sex workers to be on a stage. They also struggle with poverty. So I'm very careful about asking them to be involved in any kind of art projects, especially since we can't really pay them for survival," Kim said.

The third installment, scheduled for May 9 in Seoul, will feature documentaries about Korean sex workers. Earlier screenings drew a mixed audience that included a spycam crime victim and an adult film actress, according to The Korea Times.