Religion and Sex in the DPRK

After former North Korean agent Kim Hyun Hee was arrested for blowing up a South Korean airliner in 1987, she was put in a room watched over by a female Muslim guard who prayed five times a day.

The guard would face southwest and prostrate herself toward Mecca, "a strange practice" to Kim at that time, "praying to a God that one couldn’t even see."

Kim recounted that North Koreans were taught from birth that religion is abhorrent, unnatural, and above all counter-revolutionary. They were told that religious practitioners were hypocrites, "and I would react in contempt whenever I heard someone use the word "faith"." (The Tears of My Soul, William Morrow and Company, 1993).

"I felt that it was far superior and more rational to look to the Great Leader (pictured) as our hero and inspiration, who was visible to us all the time. But I noticed the serene expression on the guard's face, the look of total piety, and I wondered whether North Koreans felt as reverent in front of Kim Il Sung's or Kim Jong-Il's portraits."

Kim added that under North Korean law, anyone who insults the Kim family "is punished by being bludgeoned to death with an iron bar."

As for sex, Kim remembered that from childhood, North Koreans were taught that sex was forbidden outside marriage. Even throughout college, men and women were separated. And once a couple was married, sex was permitted only for procreation, "since our socialism had little use for concepts such as romance. North Korea was a distinctly unsensual society."

But despite that, Kim said it was ironic that their superiors expected female agents "to be able to seduce men and manipulate them as a mission might require."

In the days after Kim was arrested for blowing up the airliner, questions were asked about Kim’s relationship with her older male companion Kim Seung Il who succeeded in killing himself after the two were found out.

Kim maintained that the older Kim was "the perfect gentleman", but "I was after all a mature young woman and I could see how other cultures might naturally suspect some romantic involvement between us."

At one interrogation, Kim was asked: "You stayed in the same room while travelling. I suppose nothing happened between you?"

"Of course not," I snapped. "He was like a father to me."

"Did you stay in rooms with a double bed or twin beds?"

"Twin."

"Where did you change your clothes?"

"In the bathroom."

"When you took a bath, did you lock the door?"

"Yes, dammit!"

"Have you seen Shinichi (Seung Il's Japanese name) naked?"

My jaw dropped. "What?"

"For example, did you ever notice the surgical scar on Shinichi's abdomen?"

"No, but I knew that he had had a stomach operation."

"Tell me," said Okubo, her eyes boring into me. "Have you had sex with other men besides Shinichi?"

I was so flabbergasted that I couldn't say anything. She took this as an admission of guilt and proceeded. "How many men have you had sex with?"

No response.

"Did you ever have an orgasm?"

No response.

"Did you ever seduce men as part of your job as a spy?"

No response.

"Was Shinichi the best lay you ever had?"

"Fuck you!" I shouted at her, in English. "He was an old man, for God's sake!"

"Ah!" Henderson piped in. "So you're saying that he tried but was unable to?"

I stared at him, my blood boiling. I groped for a response, but I was so enraged that I could only, between deep breaths, sputter something incoherent.

"Too bad," said Okubo. "I understand from the autopsy that he was rather well endowed."

That did it. I jumped across the table before anyone could react and dealt her a classic martial arts blow – a palm-heel strike to the nose. I heard the cartilage crack, and blood splattered everywhere.