Sex in Asia’s wartime prison camps – how POWs got passionate

[Kung-fu Hillbilly]

British architect Arthur Robert Fenton-Raven with a fellow internee at Stanley camp, in the 1940s.

Jason Wordie
21 Jul, 2019

When prolonged malnutrition takes effect, among the first things to go is a desire for sex

"So where did trysts take place? A dis­creet rendezvous in the cemetery or the undergrowth was an obvious solution. Part of the camp grounds, the cemetery was prized for its relative solitude and expan­sive views of the sea and southern islands, which allowed a degree of mental (if not physical) escape from the everyday stresses of confinement."

"In Hong Kong, wartime romances blossomed, aided partly by the “live-for-the-day” mentality of many internees. Where health and opportunities permitted, transient sexual relationships were an inevitable, mostly tolerantly observed fact of camp life, as this limerick makes clear:"

"Some married women came into Stanley in early 1942 already pregnant, and their children were born in the camp. By the war’s end, in August 1945, more than 50 children had been born there. Other babies were conceived in captivity, though intern­ment posed practical challenges. "

"Pregnancies in women-only camps, long after any possibility that a husband or boyfriend was the father had passed, were not unknown. Some civilian women in Southeast Asia provided sexual services to Japanese, Korean or Formosan guards in return for additional food, medical supplies, clothes or other items."

Full https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-mag ... ime-prison

[kgbagent]

Thanks for posting these articles - very interesting - appreciated

[Clemen]

J.G. Ballard touches on this theme in the internment camp he lived in outside Shanghai in his book Empire of the Sun.