"I know men like to count that kind of stuff, like 10, 50, 100. But I don't see the point of counting," she said last week in an interview at a coffee shop.

Written in candid and terse prose, her columns chronicled everything from her penchant for multiple orgasms to fascination with masturbation. With details and anecdotes that would make even Paris Hilton blush, her columns became instantly popular with readers and one of the most blogged articles from Esquire.

"I received many e-mails from readers. Some were letters thanking me for educating them about how women perceive sex," she said, "but many of them were more blunt, like, let's have sex tonight."

Sex columns are regular treats in trend-setting magazines, often crisscrossing the thin line between pornography and journalism. Though Kim's columns lean toward the former, she says, there is an underlying cause in her columns.

Sexual freedom, particularly that of women, is a novel concept in Korea, where for decades people's lives were concentrated on rebuilding the economy and facing the communist foe on the north. In the 90s when the economy blossomed, the influx of Western culture and the fading Confucianism resulted in a peculiar mixture of double standards, in which women were expected to keep their sexuality under wraps while men earned admiration for promiscuity.

The case was highlighted in the fall of 2000, when a raunchy videotape of pop diva Baek Ji-young having sex with her former manager was exposed. Public outcry crucified Baek and she was forced to follow Korea's unspoken rule for disgraced celebrities - she held a press conference, crying uncontrollably, and apologized for her misconduct, then walked away with her head bowed.

Her former manager, Kim Si-won, gave interviews to SBS, a major television network, discussing the nature of the video. He never faced any charges.

"Why did Baek Ji-young have to become the victim?" Kim the columnist said. "When news of sex spreads, why do women always have to be singled out as nal-la-rees?" she said, referring to a Korean idiom that roughly means unorthodox individuals in English. "Through my columns, I wanted to show that women are just as interested in sex as men. Women should speak up about their sexuality, instead of hiding behind the counters."

But Kim's columns may just be a snippet of the sexual revolution that is transforming Korean society. These days, young Koreans are copulating earlier and more often.

Today, 48.4 percent of female college students say they have had sexual relations before marriage, according to a recent poll conducted by Rep. Ahn Myung-ok of the Grand National Party, which surveyed 318 female college students throughout Korea by e-mails. A similar study done by Seoul National University found that of the 554 college students surveyed, ranging from Yonsei University to Kyung-buk University, 52.5 percent of the students said that sexual relations before marriage is permissible as long as "each person loved each other."

Kim Yu-jung, 39, who is currently writing a book about Korean women's increasingly active role in seeking sex, said: "The more the society tells you not to do it, the more you want to do it. It's as simple as that. I think open debates and sincere discussions can actually educate the young people of safe sex."

Sexpo, the organizer of the 2006 Seoul Sex Education Expo, planned to hold exhibitions on sex toys, lingerie fashion shows, strip shows and other events from last Thursday to Sunday at the Seoul Trade Exhibition Center. But after heavy opposition from various women's rights and civic groups, Sexpo was forced to cancel some of its major events.

This is cache, read story here