This began a huge movement to have the antiquated law overturned. The Constitutional Court of Korea, which initially said overturning the law would harm the morality of the country, eventually ruled that the law itself was unconstitutional. The official statement was that the law "infringes people's right to make their own decisions on sex and…freedom." The statement went on to say that the law "Violated the principle banning excessive enforcement."
An Unexpected Economic Boost
After this bombshell ruling, stock in Unidus Corp. (they make latex goods, including condoms) skyrocketed by 15% in a single day. Hyundai Pharmaceutical Company's stock also soared. They make morning-after pills and pregnancy tests. Was this in anticipation of increased infidelity? Did people really rush out of their homes to stock up on adultery supplies like condoms and pregnancy tests? Either way, it seems clear that extramarital sex is good for the economy - not that I necessarily condone that sort of thing. If there really was a spike in condom sales, could that mean that the anti-adultery law was actually keeping spouses from cheating? Does its repeal mean that South Korea is about to become the extramarital sex capitol of the world? Or does it just mean that the government is finally butting out of the sex lives of married people? Maybe we should just be happy that cheating spouses still think condom use is important.
South Korea Isn't the Only Country With Government Intrusion
Even in the United States, government intrusion into the sex lives of citizens is nothing new. While we don't have adultery laws, there are laws prohibiting "indecency," or sodomy. They can be found in the legal history of every state. When the U.S Supreme Court determined that sodomy laws were unconstitutional in 2003, 14 US states still had them on the books. To be clear, this means that anything other than penis-in-vagina sex with consenting adults was a crime. Lucky for me (and everyone I went to college with), arrests for alternative sex acts were rare. Let's think about this for a minute. Giving your own husband a blowjob was a crime punishable by arrest, fines, and jail time. Many people would also say that sodomy laws are nothing more than a tool that gives cops a pretext to harass homosexuals.
