His superiors would forcefully subject him to a public sexual display with the soldier he defended, later ostracizing both of them for their alleged “perversions.” The abuse would lead them both to turn to suicide, beating their heads against the boiler-room wall until enough blood came out for them to die. After finally mustering the courage to report his superiors’ actions, Park would be rewarded with a kind of humiliation that would rot him to his core. He knew his superiors suspected the man of homosexuality, and he could not continue to submit himself to complicity in the man’s abuse. On one of many occasions, Park, a member of the South Korean military, witnessed a fellow soldier being hazed into drinking from the filth-ridden toilet bowls located within their army base. The South Korean military, due to its compulsory and hierarchical nature, has become a primary site for institutionalization and propagation of hegemonic masculinity within Korean male populations. As a result, many women and sexual minorities experience still harassment and abuse at the hands of men who ascribe to these masculinities. While the two appear to be in conflict, the former has actually acted as a foundation for the latter’s influence in patriarchal Korean society, and both exclusively promote the greater privilege and authority of the men who conform to their standards. Korean masculinities can be roughly divided into two parallel umbrella categories: the more obvious forms of traditional masculinity, and aesthetic androgyny, a softer masculinity that appropriates from feminine gender presentation while still benefiting from hegemonic institutions. This article discusses the evolving dynamic of modern and contemporary South Korean masculinities in popular media, which blend hybridized masculine and traditionally feminine attributes in a culturally transcendent form to attract global audiences. Air Force Right: “ 170614 Taeyong NCT – Cherry Bomb Showcase (1)” (2017), Only Ü Flickr ( CC BY-SA 2.0). An Evaluation of South Korean Masculinities Left: “ ROK soldiers intergrate into Bagram’s base defense” (2011), Senior Airman Sheila deVera, U.S.

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