Juicy Bars and the Perks of Power

From Stars and Stripes:

Air Force Puts Squeeze on Juicy Bars

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — Juicy bars might soon be a thing of the past in the area just outside the gates here.

U.S. Air Force officials have in recent months been systematically putting the notorious bars in the Songtan Entertainment District off-limits and giving their owners a choice: Get rid of your juicy girls or American servicemen will not be allowed to patronize your establishments.

As a result, the number of juicy bars — where scantily clad women flirt with servicemen to get them to buy high-priced juice drinks for the hostesses in exchange for their company — has dropped from 44 to 10 over the past year outside Osan Air Base.

I don't recall spending much time around Osan (although I probably spent some). But I did prowl around Itaewon a few evenings back in the early 90s. I vaguely recall the term "juicy bar" now that I read it -- it may be local to Osan -- but the word I used at the time was cabaret. Years later, an officer described the environment around our Korean installations as "the Wal-Mart of sex", and I'm inclined to agree. Back then, everything was inexpensive, including the women.

The effort by Osan Air Base officials to put juicy bars off-limits or to force them to jettison their flirtatious hostesses -– even those not deemed to be in the business of prostitution -- marks a dramatic change from the way the U.S. military in South Korea has dealt with such establishments.

Seventh Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Jan-Marc Jouas said, “The Department of Defense, the U.S. Forces Korea (and the) Air Force (are) pretty explicit in the fact that we have zero tolerance toward trafficking in persons. What is new is that we are putting that into action and placing (off-limits) these establishments that, in our view … are trafficking in persons.

“The presence of juicy girls that are contracted, whose passports are held by the bar owners, who are moved from city to city and bar to bar – it’s indentured servitude and it’s inconsistent with who we are as a service, and the standards we’re trying to establish on base and within the sphere of influence we have outside the gate,” he said.

"Human trafficking." Much in the same way that liberals have ruled out-of-order objections to extra-marital sex and then stretched the definition of "rape" -- a real and bad thing -- to cover sex with legal minors, they have ruled out-of-order objections to immigration and then stretched the definition of "human trafficking" -- a plausibly real and bad thing -- to cover "sex" for money . . . which is now stretched to include conversation for money. So yes, if in fact Filipinas are being held in Korea under conditions of involuntary servitude, then absolutely the American military should cooperate with the Korean and Philippine governments in freeing them. But there are several levels of rhetorical dishonesty, the point of which is to communicate the message: "I have power, and you do not."

[I]n 2010, then USFK commander Gen. Walter Sharp said it would be unfair to punish the owners of all juicy bars for the sins of a minority of proprietors.

“The bottom line is that juicy bars … have women that are there to talk to soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines,” he said. “You can’t presume that things go beyond that, which is what you would have to do if you want to put them (all) off-limits.”

Which sounds reasonable to me. Personally, in my youth I was unable to sufficiently escape from the contrived nature of those kind of interaction to enjoy them. I remember being angry, upon subsequent visits to my dentist when I was in college, that the beautiful dental technician who asked the same questions about my engineering classes wasn't really interested in either me or my academic career. She was just doing her job of ensuring customer loyalty. I shrug about this now, but as a very single young man I felt like my emotions were being triffled with.

My personal reaction aside, I'm not sure why what "juicy girls" are doing is any worse than what psychotherapists do.

Jouas said most juicy girls are brought into South Korea illegally on visas saying they are here to work as entertainers. Instead, they are “put to work in bars to sell drinks at an exorbitant price, but what they’re really selling is their company and that oftentimes leads to prostitution.

I can't help but hear the echoes of my fundamentalist high school: holding hands is not permitted. Holding hands might lead to kissing, which might lead to petting, which might lead to . . . .

Not that I'm judging or anything. I'm all in favor of drawing defensible lines in an effort to uphold Christian morality.

Of course, that's not the agenda. We finally arrive at the real reason for the War on Juicy Bars:

Referring to juicy bars, Jouas said, “There’s nothing good about them. I think they further an attitude toward women that’s unacceptable. There are a lot of our servicemembers that don’t want to go into those bars because they’re pretty creepy.”

Robert Woltman, a 51st Security Forces Squadron investigator, said, “They’re selling women for companionship. They are selling time with females, which is leading to sexual assaults down the road. That environment is moving on base.”

A draft report by an 8th Army sexual assault task force – obtained by Stars and Stripes earlier this year – suggested something similar.

“Contradicting messages portrayed in the facilities patronized off-post, which send a message in support of sexual activity and contrary to the values of proper conduct,” the report said. “This may lead the malleable to engage in conduct that they know is not acceptable.”

Let it burn. The military has, at the highest levels, been busy attempting to extirpate Christian influence since 2004. If the feminists are now having trouble with what non-Christian morality looks like, they're on their own.