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South Korea is not a permissive country when it comes to pornography, which is why it’s all the more surprising that it’s also home to several ‘adult theme parks’, including the newly-opened ‘Pinxy Adult Theme Park’ in Busan.
While Pinxy is the latest, it’s not the first: Juju Love Land opened its doors back in 2004. And in the most part, it keeps to the trend of adult artistic works, rather than a theme park as you might imagine it. Nestled inside, however, Pinxy has a more 21st Century approach to one of its rooms, which bring high-tech Western VR porn experiences to South Korea.
Admittedly, from the outside, it looks a bit less like a theme park and a bit more like a large shop with individual rooms coming off it, but who are we to judge. And it’s this position among other stores that Pinxy is trying to make the most of with the launch.
Navigating the cultural and legal challenges that poses, however, is no mean feat.
Changing attitudes, but not laws
The legality of pornography in South Korea shouldn’t be a gray area: pornographic websites, books, writings, films, magazines, photographs or other materials of a pornographic nature are illegal, although a spokesperson for NSMG, Pinxy’s parent company, says that the law is not regularly enforced. The result are regulations that mandate any pornography in South Korea is pixellated, so genitalia is not shown.
And it seems that these laws aren’t about to change anytime soon, according to NSMG. Nonetheless, it seems that there’s generally more interest in – and tolerance of – pornography in South Korea.
“Regulations are not changing but attitudes towards porn are. People are becoming more open minded and interested [in it],” the spokesperson told SEXTECHGUIDE.
“Since regulations in South Korea mandate that western porn be pixelated to not show certain body parts, these limitations have compromised the full user experience… The only way to access uncensored Western porn online is by using a VPN.”
The company is hoping that it can take advantage of these changing attitudes, and the growing number of physical ‘adult’ stores on the high street by bringing new experiences to the fore.
Bringing VR porn to South Korea
Arguably, the most ‘hi-tech’ of these experiences is the VR experience room, which has – like the rest of the rooms – been produced with help from a partner in the space. In this case, it’s BaDoinkVR and its associated brands.
In the VR room, there are three Dragon Eye 2 headsets, showing one-minute demos of 16 different scenes, from across BaDoinkVR, VRCosplayX, BabeVR, KinkVR and 18VR.
These demo videos, however, are obviously pixellated, in keeping with the laws of South Korea.
It’s no coincidence that the room is an open space either – there’s no VR porn booth with tissues, and no expectation that visitors will do anything explicit in the space. It’s a brief taster session only.
Since it opened, the VR room has been free, but starting in May it’ll cost ₩ 10,000 KRW (around $10) to get into the VR section.
Alongside its online store, Pinxy is also selling sex tech accessories to visitors wanting to take a souvenir of their visit home.
And while 16 one-minute demos probably won’t keep people interested for too long (it’s not really intended to, to be fair), there are upgrades planned for each room to ensure that visitors get a fresh experience each time.
In comparison to the static art of the other six rooms, it’s going to be positively dynamic if any new content is added at any point.
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