The Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday booked the owner of a sports massage parlor in Dogok-dong in Seoul's Gangnam-gu district for violating the Special Law on Prostitution. The owner, identified as Chung, employed some 20 women offering manual relief, colloquially known as hand jobs, to customers at W60,000.

This is the first time police have charged someone for involvement in such acts since the Special Law on Prostitution came into force on Sept. 23.

Current law and Supreme Court precedent defined sexual acts other than intercourse as those involving internal penetration of bodily orifices such as the mouth or anus. Investigators therefore did not consider manual stimulation as falling under the act. Prosecutors had occasionally cracked down on "hand jobs" as "lewd acts" by applying a law against businesses corrupting public morals.

The law had a loophole, however, in defining such acts as lewd only if they took place in certain businesses, such as bathhouses, lodgings and barber shops. Taking advantage of the loopholes, so-called sports massage establishments thrived by providing sexual services, with an estimated 70 parlors operating in Seoul alone.

A police official said men looking to avoid the crackdown had flocked to such establishments since the Special Law went into effect.

(englishnews@chosun.com )