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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Where there are soldiers, there are women who exist for them. This is practically a cliché. History is filled with examples of women as war booty and “camp followers,” their bodies being used for service labor of various kinds, including sex. Contrary to common assumptions in the West, prostitution is not “part of Asian culture.” Just about every culture under the sun has some version of it during times of war and times of peace.
In some ways, military prostitution (prostitution catering to, and sometimes organized by, the military) has been so commonplace that people rarely stop to think about how and why it is created, sustained, and incorporated into military life and warfare. Academic interest and analysis of this issue gained momentum only in the last twenty years and still remains scant and sporadic. Even as interest in women and gender as categories of analysis has increased in many academic disciplines, there is still a question of intellectual legitimacy, that is, whether prostitutes, prostitution, and sex work warrant serious scholarly attention and resources, especially for students of international politics. After all, it is a highly personal and therefore subjective matter and prone toward the proverbial he said/she said contestation. To boot, many have turned the feminist emphasis on women and agency on its head by glibly claiming that most military prostitutes sought out the work and life of their own free will and therefore are exercising their agency. In this view, it is primarily about women's personal decisions and responsibility to face the consequences; governments and other institutions of society need not be held accountable.
[1] Aida Santos, “Gathering the Dust: The Bases Issue in the Philippines,” in Let the Good Times Roll, eds. Saundra Sturdevant and Brenda Stolzfus (New York: New Press, 1992) p. 40.
[2] Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001).
[3] See Katharine H.S. Moon, “South Korean Movements against Militarized Sexual Labor,” in Asian Survey (34:2), 1999.
[4] Norimitsu Onishi, “Abe only partly successful in defusing ‘comfort women’ issue,” International Herald Tribune, April 29, 2007. Access date: May 2, 2007.
[5] Yun Geumi's body was found “naked, bloody, and covered with bruises and contusions—with laundry detergent sprinkled over the crime site. In addition, a coke bottle was embedded in Yun's uterus and the trunk of an umbrella driven 27cm into her rectum.” From Rainbow Center, Flushing, NY, News Letter # 3, January, 1994, p. 8.
[6] For more detailed discussion, see Katharine H.S. Moon, “Resurrecting Prostitutes and Overturning Treaties: Gender Politics in the South Korean ‘Anti-American’ Movement,” Journal of Asian Studies 66:1 (2007).
[7] Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “SACO Final Report,” December 2, 1996.
[8] For a comparative analysis of decentralization and its relationship to the U.S. military in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, Katharine H.S. Moon, “Challenging U.S. Hegemony: Asian Nationalism and Anti-Americanism in East Asia,” in The United States and East Asia: Old Issues and New Thinking, G. John Ikenberry and Chung-in Moon, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
[9] Indianhead, October 4, 2004. (Access date: 11 January, 2009).
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