DECEMBER 25, 2000 - JANUARY 1, 2001 VOL. 156 NO. 25/26

Ki Ho Park/Kistone for TIME. Korean singer Paik Ji-Young.

Sex, Lies & the Internet
A disgraced starlet is emerging as an unlikely rallying point for South Korean feminists
By DONALD MACINTYRE

Baek Ji Young was hot, hot, hot. the Korean singer burst onto the scene last July with a racy salsa number, helping to kick off a Latin music boom in Seoul. With a successful debut album, her own radio show and an advertising contract with a Korean shoe company, Baek was on the fast track to stardom. But her personal star (lite) express may have been derailed after a raunchy videotape of Baek in a bedroom romp with her former manager turned up on an Internet pay-per-view porn site on Nov. 19. Radio stations scrambled to pull her songs off the air and television stations canceled appearances. The shoe company put its Baek ads on hold. If the singer follows Korea's unspoken rule for disgraced celebrities, especially women, she will quietly walk off stage with her head bowed.

ALSO IN TIME COVER: Person of the Year It was the closest and wildest U.S. presidential election in history. At the end of it all, the man left standing is George W. Bush, whose marathon victory makes him TIME's pick as the No. 1 headliner of 2000 • Asian of the Year: North Korea's mercurial Kim Jong Il steps out from the shadows CHINA: Farewell, My Concubine A new law may threaten philandering officials HONG KONG: Under the Sea Dredging for Disney's new park is churning up more than dirt SOUTH KOREA: Conduct Unbecoming Feminists rally to support disgraced starlet Baek Ji Young BUSINESS: Filling the Cheap Seats How one theater owner is challenging China's film monopoly CINEMA: High octane, fast trash in Gen-Y Cops Q&A: Greeting the future with Arthur C. Clarke TRAVEL WATCH: New tricks for buying old furniture in China

But guess what: Baek isn't following the script. Instead of slinking away, she has hired a lawyer and defiantly vows to continue singing "if a single fan wants me to." At a press conference held Nov. 29, she cried uncontrollably and apologized for arousing public criticism. Then she got feisty, denouncing her former manager and denying she knew he had the camera rolling. Instead of playing the role of the fallen woman, the singer made it clear she sees herself as the victim in this drama. Said Baek: "I decided to come forward to tell the truth to prevent other women from becoming victims like me."

That spunky attitude has turned the young entertainer into an unlikely cause célèbre for South Korea's growing women's rights movement. Korea Women's Associations United calls the scandal a "clear case of invasion of privacy and a violation of human rights," including Baek's right to earn a living. The group has filed a lawsuit against a producer at SBS, the television station that helped publicize the existence of the video. Activists say the case highlights the double standard that still holds in Korea's conservative society, where unmarried women are expected to keep their sexuality under wraps—at least offstage—while men score points for promiscuity. Says Park Cha Oak Kyung, spokeswoman for the women's association: "Why is it that women actresses and singers are expected to be squeaky clean, while the same standards don't apply to their male counterparts?"

The male star in this saga certainly is not facing much heat so far. Baek's former manager, Kim Si Won, phoned a live entertainment program on SBS to say the video was genuine and that he was the guy in it (throughout the 25-minute clip, he repeatedly pulls down the sheets to make sure the camera gets a clear shot of Baek). Claiming he had planned to marry her, he said he shot the footage in his office in October 1998. He did not say why. He concedes Baek may not have known that he was filming their tryst. He told SBS viewers he had not put the graphic footage onto the Net. But he failed to explain who did, and prosecutors are still seeking the culprit.

Kim's appearance on the show turned Korea's Pamela-and-Tommy tape into a must-see item. A student at a high-technology institute soon hacked the security code at the pay-per-view site where the video first turned up. In a matter of days, the footage was posted on private home pages and shareware sites and Koreans were downloading hundreds of thousands of copies. By the time the Ministry of Information and Communication stepped in to stop distribution on Nov. 24, Baek had fled temporarily to Guam to escape a public lynching in the press and on the Internet. A typical Net posting reads: "Is Baek Ji Young a prostitute who gave up being a decent human being?"

While feminists have rallied behind Baek, other activists are joining the fray. Media watchdog groups have condemned the sensationalistic coverage and sounded somber warnings about a slide in journalist ethics. Web activists concerned about a rising flood of porn in Korean cyberspace have also weighed in, throwing up makeshift sites in support of the singer. In Korea's increasingly wired society, a growing number of actresses and even beauty pageant contestants have turned up on the Web nude or in "see-through" bikini shots supposedly taken with infrared cameras. Most of them are fakes with famous faces spliced onto nude photos, sometimes courtesy of Japanese porn actresses who happen to resemble famous Korean stars, according to local press reports.

Baek has certainly fared better than popular actress Oh Hyun Kyung. After a video of Oh having sex with her boyfriend started circulating in April 1999, the media denounced the starlet and women's groups left her twisting in the wind. At a press conference, she apologized for her "crime" and then fled to Los Angeles. Now there is a growing awareness among women's groups of what the real issues are. The test will be—can Baek make a comeback? She'll find out New Year's Eve, when she is due to bring back her Latin rhythms at a concert in Seoul.

Reported by Stella Kim/Seoul

Write to TIME at mail@web.timeasia.com