Description: For the past fifty years, the easy availability of prostitutes to American servicemen in South Korea has been a matter of policy between the U.S. military and the Korean government. Focusing on the early 1970s, when the Nixon Doctrine threatened a sharp reduction of U.S. military presence in Asia, Sex Among Allies carefully traces the way in which the Korean prostitutes -- where, when, and how they worked and lived -- were controlled by the United States and the Republic of Korea as part of joint security arrangements.

Katharine Moon demonstrates how, in order to convince the United States to maintain its presence in Korea, government officials initiated a "Clean-Up Campaign" to stamp out venereal disease and extend control over the prostitutes in Seoul's camptown district. Moon also explores how the prostitutes became unofficial ambassadors between the two nations, and were made invisible in Korean society both because of the degradation of their work, and also because of its strategic importance to security.

Drawing extensively on U.S. and Korean archives, and interviews with government officials, prostitutes, social workers, and health-care providers, Moon analyzes the role of women in foreign policy from an empirical perspective. Weaving together issues of gender, race, military prostitution, the relationship between individuals and the state, and foreign policy, Moon has constructed a work of significance to those interested in U.S.Korea relations, gender studies, or international relations.

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