SEOUL — Kim Kyu-jin doesn't describe herself as an activist. That's a label that tends to scare people in South Korea's conformist society. She sees herself as just a working woman who wanted to get married to the person she loves.

Same-sex marriage is not recognized in South Korea, so Kim and her fiancee flew to New York last year to tie the knot in a Manhattan marriage bureau.

Then they returned home and celebrated just like any ordinary South Korean couple — with what is known as a “factory wedding,” a cookie-cutter ceremony. Kim and her spouse, who requested anonymity to avoid possible problems with her employer, wore flowing white dresses.

“By doing a factory wedding, I thought that I might give a message: that we’re just people, we’re just Koreans, we just want to get married like everyone else,” she said. “So it was a political choice.”

Advocates for same-sex marriage in South Korea, and many of its East Asian neighbors, remain mostly on the sidelines of national debate. South Korea’s vibrant online culture, however, offers a forum to challenge views on a range of gender-related issues, from same-sex relationships to the pay gap for women to the definitions of beauty promoted by the country’s huge cosmetic-surgery industry. Read more via Washington Post