The Limits of Family: Military Law and Sex Panics in Contemporary South Korea

Abstract:This article explores the limits of family in contemporary South Korea by simultaneously examining the discourses and practices of anti-LGBT protesters and the state alongside an ethnography of queer and HIV/AIDS activism. The author argues that the limits of family in Korea ought to be conceived as a problem with sex incorporating both “substance” and the practice of having sex. He explores these limits of family through a broadening understanding of family law in Korea, focusing on the anti-sodomy clause in the Military Penal Code and mandatory HIV/AIDS testing. The author contends that to broaden the concept of family law to laws such as the anti-sodomy clause and mandatory HIV/AIDS testing demonstrates the intricate and unexplored ways the Korean family is produced through military laws and regulations. This is a recursive process, for the heteronormative expectations of family members are inscribed within military law, rhetorically casting the family as a threatened body that needs protection. However, the normative experience of the family in crisis produces violence against gender and sexual minorities. The author concludes by discussing the dangerous implications of these family laws.