Court rules filming sex with 17-year-old not a crime

Korea’s top court on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that filming sex with a consenting teenager is not a crime.

The Supreme Court acquitted a 27-year-old man surnamed Kim who was accused of producing and distributing pornographic material after he video-recorded himself having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend with her consent in January 2012. He later deleted the video upon the teenager’s request, law officials said.

Under the youth protection law, producing pornographic material of children or teenagers is a crime.

The court ruled that the filming did not violate the youth protection law because there was mutual consent.

“The victim, who is old enough to be legally considered able to consent, did agree to take part in the filming without anything in return, and Kim did so. Therefore, this should be considered (not as pornography but) as their privacy, which must be protected,” the verdict said.

“Since the concerned video was not produced for the purpose of sales, rental or distribution but only for personal record, the concerned video cannot be categorized as pornography of children or youth,” it added.

Kim, however, was sentenced to two and half years in prison with a stay of three years for raping the girlfriend twice after their relationship became estranged in May 2012.

He was also ordered to take 40 hours of sexual violence awareness classes, officials said.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)