UK BBC radio’s 4’s Korean correspondent, Lucy Williamson refers in last Tuesday’s Crossing Continents to a category of STI transmission through IVDU, which is unlikely to be familiar to our readers.  A recent article in the Korea Times  gives further details.  The individuals at risk are the 16% of South Korean seniors (65+) in Seoul who pay for sex (Korea Herald).  The means of transmission are the syringes used by elderly prostitutes carrying on trade in soft drinks (Korean-style Bacchus) to inject their elderly patients with Viagra, and then “recycled” – according to the interview, “ten or twenty times, or until the needle breaks”.  No surprise, levels of STIs among these elderly partners were found by a recent survey to be as high as 40%.

The proportion of seniors in Seoul who pay for sex (16%) (half of these five times over the last two years) seems high. The percentage of individuals who use sex workers varies enormously between countries, as does the age profile of the typical user (Prostitution: the Johns Chart).  By comparison, rates of use in the US and a number of European countries stand at around 20%, in Spain and Italy nearer 40%, though the typical user is likely to be in his 30s or 40s – not his 60s and 70s.  (For the situation in the UK, see STIs/Ward & Mercer).

Prostitution is illegal in Korea, and most safe-sex counselling is aimed at young people.  “There is a great lack of instructors for sex education for senior citizens”, says a welfare professor at Baekseok University.  “We also need to create quality programs, through which senior citizens can meet friends of the opposite sex and form wholesome relationships” (Korea Herald) .

This problem may currently be local to Seoul.  Commentators  attribute it, however, to rising levels of poverty among seniors – a consequence, they argue, of a fast ageing population in a culture that once placed a high value on Confucian values of filial duty, but has now ceased do so.  If these commentators are right, one can well imagine these conditions being replicated in other Asian countries, as they follow the trajectory of Korea.  In which case, Jong-myo Park may be the shape of things to come (Korea Times).