Abstract
This study offers a postcolonial, intersectional rereading of John 4:1–42 that juxtaposes the Johannine encounter of the Samaritan woman with the historical legacy of Korean “comfort women” to illuminate the ethnosexual dynamics of colonial and patriarchal power. Employing an intersectional lens that foregrounds ethnosexuality—how ethnic boundary-making and sexualized stigma mutually constitute regimes of exclusion—the essay proceeds in three steps. First, a historical and discursive analysis of the contested public memory surrounding Korean “comfort women” shows how Japanese colonialism and postcolonial Korean patriarchal nationalism sustain mechanisms of sexualized ethnonational marginalization. Second, a close rereading of the Samaritan woman's dialogue with Jesus exposes how ethnosexual identity and nation-building shape the narrative's power relations. Finally, the essay reflects on the implications of the Samaritan woman's decolonizing agency for understanding the testimony and resilience of formerly enslaved and stigmatized women. The study argues that the Samaritan woman, as an ethnosexual other, enacts a form of decolonizing agency by transforming personal stigma into persuasive public witness, thereby disrupting the communal and imperial structures that seek to silence her. A postcolonial, intersectional reading of John 4 thus uncovers the Gospel's embedded colonial tensions and invites both transformative engagement with contemporary injustices and advocacy for the marginalized in the name of solidarity.
Keywords
Introduction
As Fernando F. Segovia aptly suggests, the social location of an interpreter plays a significant role in the act of biblical interpretation. 1 According to Segovia, any interpretation is inextricably interlocked with the lived experiences of a flesh-and-blood reader, shaping their vibrant understanding and engagement with the text. Drawing on my positionality as the grandson of a woman who experienced Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945) and as a scholar attentive to colonial legacies in postcolonial South Korea, I undertake a critical postcolonial analysis of the Johannine narrative and its characters, seeking liberation at both textual and contextual levels. 2 Even after the demise of Japanese colonialism (1945), contemporary Korean society continues to grapple with the lingering consequences of Japanese colonial legacy across various spheres—historical, social, cultural, and political. The impact of colonialism is not just a historical past; it manifests in persisting struggles for liberation, social justice, and the restoration of agency. By examining the Gospel of John based on this postcolonial Korean context, I seek to uncover the ways in which the text reflects and engages with issues of power struggles, identity politics, and resistance that parallel the lived experiences of those affected by the harshness of Japanese colonial rule. In particular, when read within an imperial–colonial framework, the Gospel of John presents patterns of marginalization—such as exclusion from religious spaces, surveillance by dominant authorities, and the stigmatization of subordinated bodies—which resonate with colonial practices that disciplined Korean subjects through legal, cultural, and ideological control. 3
More specifically, the postcolonial approach allows for a deeper exploration of the characters and narratives within the Johannine Gospel in light of a colonial-imperial framework, restoring the silenced voices and marginalized experiences of those who have been politically, socially, and economically oppressed. In doing so, the Gospel can become a site of critical engagement where the themes of oppression and liberation can be investigated in vibrant response to contemporary struggles. This decolonizing process fosters a richer understanding of the ongoing impact of colonial legacies—both in how they are embedded in texts and in how they operate in today's world—each calling, in different but overlapping ways, for an urgent commitment to social justice and the recovery of agency. As we wrestle with these legacies, the Gospel can serve as a catalyst for social engagement, inspiring individuals and communities to confront injustices and advocate for social change.
Among the many pressing issues in the postcolonial Korean context, I would like to draw particular attention to the plight of Korean “comfort women” as I explore the Johannine Gospel from a postcolonial perspective. 4 Historically, “comfort women” refers to young girls and women who were trafficked and coerced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, when approximately 200,000 women were forced into the Japanese military's system of sexual slavery. 5 Many were forcibly taken from Japan-occupied territories—Korea, China, the Philippines, and elsewhere—and subjected to repeated sexual violence and exploitation under the euphemistic pretext of providing “comfort” to soldiers. 6 Politically, the establishment and operation of “comfort stations” formed part of a broader colonial system of exploitation and violence under Japanese imperial expansion. The issue of “comfort women” remains deeply painful and contested across East Asia, particularly in Korea, where many of these women were recruited under false pretenses or forcibly abducted.
As such, the systematic exploitation of Korean “comfort women” under Japanese rule exemplifies the ethnicized, gendered, and sexualized oppression inherent to colonial regimes. This focus on intersectionality—where colonialism intersects with ethnicity, gender, and sexuality—provides a critical framework for interrogating the Johannine narrative. The insights, drawn from my personal knowledge of the lived experience of this colonial legacy, have sharpened my approach to the Gospel of John, enabling me to uncover the intersectional dimensions of colonialism under the Roman Empire, which are embedded within the text. Just as the bodies of “comfort women” became sites of imperial domination, the Johannine narrative reveals how imperial presence is inscribed within relations of authority, marginalization, and resistance. Situated within these overlapping colonial legacies, this study examines how John's portrayal of power reflects the layered oppressions generated by empire.
To develop this analysis, I adopt an intersectional lens that foregrounds ethnosexuality alongside colonial domination and patriarchal nationalism. Before turning to the ethnosexual othering of Korean “comfort women” survivors in postcolonial South Korea, it is necessary to clarify the concept of ethnosexuality. I use ethnosexuality to denote the inseparable intertwining of ethnic and sexual discourses: the ways ethnic identity and sexual meaning-making mutually inform and reinforce one another to produce inclusionary and exclusionary social boundaries. Joane Nagel, in Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers, persuasively describes how sexuality is woven into constructs of race, ethnicity, and nationalism, producing powerful boundary markers between self and other. She asserts: ethnicity and sexuality join together to form a barrier to hold some people in and keep others out, to define who is pure and who is impure, to shape our view of ourselves and others, to fashion feelings of sexual desire and notions of sexual desirability, to provide us with seemingly “natural” sexual preferences for some partners and “intuitive” aversions to others, to leave us with a taste for some ethnic sexual encounters and a distaste for others.
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Nagel's concept of ethnosexuality—where ethnicity and sexuality are conflated—illuminates how inclusion and exclusion operate in group identity formation. She shows that sexualized meanings are often covertly embedded in racial, ethnic, and national discourses (via slurs, stereotypes, and biases) such that ethnosexual prejudices quietly sustain power asymmetries and internalized exclusionary practices. 8 By exposing these subtle yet pervasive mechanisms, she invites readers to critically examine the societal norms that perpetuate discrimination and inequality within the realm of ethnosexuality.
Drawing on this intersectional framework that foregrounds ethnosexuality alongside colonial legacy and patriarchal nationalism, my postcolonial rereading of John 4:1–42 demonstrates that the Samaritan woman's marginalized voice echoes the silenced narratives of colonial subjects and invites a reclamation of agency within hegemonic structures. The current study, therefore, contends that the Samaritan woman, as an ethnosexual other, enacts a decolonizing agency by critically challenging the ethnosexual suppression imposed by her neighbors—the Jews—and even by Jesus. Through her speech acts and public witness, she resists the intersecting pressures of ethnic exclusion and sexualized stigma—pressures reproduced both by her Jewish interlocutors and, at moments, by Jesus himself—thereby reclaiming agency within hegemonic religious and social structures. Read through this postcolonial and intersectional lens, her narrative echoes the silenced yet resistant testimonies of colonial subjects, including Korean “comfort women,” while revealing the Gospel's capacity to engage questions of domination, resistance, and transformed agency.
First, I analyze the ethnosexual dynamics that continue to shape the contested discourse on Korean “comfort women,” showing how those mechanisms are sustained by the legacies of Japanese colonialism and Korean patriarchal nationalism. Second, I reread the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4:1–42) to expose how ethnosexual identity and nation-building inform the narrative's power dynamics. Finally, I reflect on the implications of the Samaritan woman for understanding the historical and contemporary trauma of Korean “comfort women.” Through a postcolonial, intersectional reading of John 4, the essay exposes the Gospel's embedded colonial tensions and invites critical engagement with the lingering structures of colonial-imperial power in contemporary neo-imperial contexts—construed here as global configurations of economic, political, and military dominance exercised by powerful states and institutions—thereby fostering greater awareness of global inequities and advocacy for marginalized communities.
“Comfort Women,” Ethnosexuality, and Patriarchal Nationalism in Postcolonial Korea
The current study emphasizes the psychological mechanisms involved in the othering of “comfort women” within the postcolonial context of Korean society. This phenomenon highlights the long-lasting impact on survivors and their communities, as these women have faced significant stigmatization and marginalization upon their return. I foreground an ethnosexual framework that links sexualized stigma to ethnic boundary-making and patriarchal nationalism: survivors were portrayed as sexually tainted through association with an imperial enemy, and thus excluded from the moral and civic community of the nation. 9 This mechanism operates on the premise that bodies deemed sexually contaminated by impure out-groups must be expelled from the imagined boundaries of a pure ethnic in-group. The result is the sustained marginalization of survivors and the intergenerational transmisson of harm within their communities.
Examined through the lens of ethnosexual mechanisms, the issue of “comfort women” in postcolonial Korea highlights how societal perceptions construct these women as outsiders within a framework closely bound to patriarchal nationalism. A revealing episode is the failed plan to locate the War and Women's Human Rights Museum—intended to commemorate Korean “comfort women”—on the grounds of the Seodaemun Prison History Museum, a site dedicated to the independence movement during Japanese colonial rule. 10 Between 2007 and 2008, this initiative faced considerable opposition, particularly from male descendants of the independence movement, who argued that it dishonored and tarnished the legacy of the independence movement itself. 11 As Carmen M. Argibay observes, many survivors reported that, “even after the ordeal they had survived, being stigmatized as prostitutes cruelly exacerbated their suffering”; rather than “being welcomed back to their communities as victims of a terrible wrong, they experienced indescribable shame and isolation.” 12 This response illustrates how nationalism, when fused with patriarchy, often reduces former comfort women to shameful victims defined solely by the violence they suffered. 13 Such a framing both erodes their agency and compounds social stigma, further marginalizing their experiences within the national narrative. 14
This horrendous conflict between Korean patriarchal nationalists and the women's rights movement exemplifies the complex interplay of ethnosexual marginalization, patriarchy, and national identity in the case of “comfort women” survivors. 15 Deep-seated patriarchal and nationalistic sentiments produce an ethnosexual politics of othering in which “comfort women” survivors are sexualized, stigmatized, and cast as threats to national purity and honor. Their bodies, often deemed sexually tainted by other ethnic groups, are excluded from the perceived nobility of the Korean ethnic group, reflecting a broader tendency to marginalize those who do not conform to normative standards of purity and honor based on both ethnic and sexual criteria. 16 The ethnosexual mechanism operative in patriarchal nationalism transforms Korean “comfort women” survivors into ethnosexual others within the national narrative, branding them as internal outsiders to the very identity they once belonged to. 17 As a result, “comfort women” are erased from the national collective memory, their testimonies silenced, and their struggles and suffering overshadowed by a narrative that seeks to uphold national integrity and honor.
In this way, the case of Korean “comfort women” in the postcolonial context underscores the need for an intersectional approach to colonial legacies. It reveals how race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality intersect with national narratives and with ongoing struggles for recognition and justice for marginalized groups.
Boundary Makings, Ethnosexual Otherness, and Nation-Building in the Shadow of Empire (John 4:1–42)
Drawing on the issue of ethnosexual othering of Korean “comfort women” as a means of nation-building in postcolonial Korea, I seek to reread the Johannine narrative of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4:1–42) through the lens of ethnosexual mechanisms within the context of the Roman Empire. This approach provides a deeper understanding of how marginalized identities are constructed and highlights the potential for liberating transformation. The current section proceeds in three steps. First, it analyzes the intersective formation of ethnic identity as it unfolds in the ongoing interactions and boundaries present in the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Second, it delves deeper into the mechanism of ethnosexual othering attached to the Samaritan woman as part of the Jewish nation-building enterprise under colonial conditions. Third, it recognizes the decolonizing agency of the Samaritan woman as she grapples with the dual ethnosexual othering imposed by patriarchal nationalism, represented by both Jesus, a Jewish man, and her own Samaritan community. My aim is that this postcolonial interpretation will bridge biblical characters and contemporary individuals who experience intersecting ethnic and sexual forms of stigmatization and marginalization within neo-imperial structures.
Exploring Ethnic Identity across Boundaries
A closer reading of John 4:1–42 reveals that the text is saturated with motifs of ethnic boundary-making that are entangled with geographical, gendered, religious, and, above all, sexual divisions. First, the geographical motif emerges at the outset of the narrative, where the narrator describes Jesus’ journey from Judea to Galilee through Samaria (John 4:3–4). 18 The region of Samaria serves as a middle ground between Judea and Galilee. As Josephus notes in Vita 269, it was a shortcut for traveling between these two areas; however, passing through Samaria is often discouraged due to the ethnic conflicts between Jews and Samaritans. Josephus recounts an incident in which a Galilean was killed while traveling through Samaria for pilgrimage, prompting the Jews—who were seen as brothers to the Galileans—to retaliate against the Samaritans, their common enemies (B.J. 2.232–46; A.J. 20.118–36; cf. Tacitus, Ann. 12.54). In this account, the Galileans are portrayed as Jews, indicating an ethnic connection that exists across geographical boundaries. 19 Additionally, 1 Maccabees 12:39–54 hints at the ethnic ties between Galileans and Jews. These historical accounts underscore the ethnic conflict between Galileans and Samaritans, as well as between Jews and Samaritans. Against this backdrop, the Johannine narrator's mention of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria highlights a geographical demarcation that alludes to the underlying ethnic tensions between Jews and Galileans on one hand, and Samaritans on the other, at a symbolic level.
The narrative links geographical and ethnic distinctions by identifying “a Samaritan city called Sychar” (εἰς πόλιν τῆς Σαμαρείας λεγομένην Συχὰρ) alongside references to Jewish forefathers such as Jacob and Joseph (John 4:5). In this way, the narrator frames genealogical and ethnic boundaries through the story's geography. The reference to “the well of Jacob” (πηγὴ τοῦ Ἰακώβ), where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman, further evokes patrimonial memory and signals that spatial boundaries also function as markers of ethnic and genealogical difference (John 4:6; cf. Gen 33:18). This connection accentuates the interplay between geographical locations and ethnic identities, which are shaped by the narrative.
The connections between geographical and ethnic boundaries become markedly more pronounced when the characters are introduced in the narrative. The English label “the Samaritan woman” reflects two Greek expressions: γυνὴ ἐκ τῆς Σαμαρείας (“a woman of Samaria,” John 4:7) and ἡ γυνὴ ἡ Σαμαρῖτις (“the Samaritan woman,” John 4:9). 20 Her appearance thus signals both a geographic origin and an ethnic identity. In the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the geographic marker quickly hardens into ethnic tension. When Jesus asks the Samaritan woman to “give me something to drink” (Δός μοι πεῖν; John 4:7), she replies, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Πῶς σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ὢν παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ πεῖν αἰτεῖς, γυναικὸς Σαμαρίτιδος οὔσης; John 4:9). The narrator then adds the generalizing comment, “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (οὐ γὰρ συγχρῶνται Ἰουδαῖοι Σαμαρῖταις; John 4:9), which moves the distinction from the level of individual interaction to a communal, ethnic boundary. 21
Second, the geographical and ethnic tensions are further inflected by the addition of gender differences between Jesus, a Jewish man, and the Samaritan woman. The woman's response to Jesus’ request for water illustrates how this gendered difference creates an awkward and unusual dynamic between a man and a woman from different ethnic backgrounds (John 4:9). As Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh observe, public conversation between unrelated men and women was generally discouraged in the first-century eastern Mediterranean, a constraint intensified across ethnic boundaries (cf. m. ‘Abot 1:5). 22 Upon their return from the city after purchasing food, the disciples are astonished to find him conversing with a woman (John 4:27). This reaction underscores the societal norms regarding gender interactions at the time. Through these interactions, the narrator demonstrates a keen awareness of the intersections of gender, geography, and ethnicity, demonstrating how these boundaries shape the characters’ relationships and the narrative itself. 23
The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is particularly noteworthy as it shifts an interpersonal ethnic tension to a communal plane. In Jesus’ mention of “living water” (ὕδωρ ζῶν) (John 4:10), which he implies he can provide, the Samaritan woman elevates the individual ethnic tension to a collective dimension by asking, “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it with his sons and his flocks?” (μὴ σὺ μείζων εἶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἰακώβ, ὃς ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν τὸ φρέαρ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἔπιεν καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ θρέμματα αὐτοῦ;) (John 4:11–12). The Samaritan woman's use of the first-person pronouns ἡμῶν and ἡμῖν in the genitive and dative cases, respectively, indicates her acute awareness of the distinction between herself and Jesus at a collective level. By introducing Jacob as an ancestor (πατήρ) and mentioning his descendants (υἱοί), she foregrounds ancestral and territorial claims that reinforce the ethnic boundary between Samaritans and Jews, thereby converting a private encounter into a dispute with communal implications.
Later, in a different register of the same exchange, the Samaritan woman states, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” (οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ προσεκύνησαν· καὶ ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐστὶν ὁ τόπος ὅπου προσκυνεῖν δεῖ) (John 4:20). Here, the contrast between the first-person plural pronoun ἡμῶν in the genitive and the second-person plural pronoun ὑμεῖς in the nominative underscores the woman's communal self-identification and her perception of Jesus as representative of a different group. The phrase οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν (“our fathers”) explicitly invokes ancestral claims, further highlighting genealogical and territorial tensions at the collective level. In this way the ethnic distinction between Samaritans and Jews is articulated not merely as social antagonism but as a central religious dispute within the dialogue.
Third, in response to the Samaritan woman's ethnic awareness, Jesus also articulates his recognition of these ethnic distinctions within a religious context by stating, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε ὃ οὐκ οἴδατε· ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν, ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν) (John 4:22). Jesus’ juxtaposition of the second-person nominative ὑμεῖς with the first-person nominative ἡμεῖς marks a deliberate communal contrast. 24 His declaration that salvation comes from the Jews highlights both the ethnic and religious distinctions between Jews and Samaritans. As Francisco Javier Higuera notes, “the woman is asserting the rivalry between Jews and Samaritans and therefore between Jesus and herself.” 25 Thus, Jesus and the Samaritan woman represent the ethnic groups of Jews and Samaritans at a symbolic level.
Finally, this discourse on ethnicity becomes further intensified when considered alongside the sexual dynamics present in their interaction. In the midst of the rigorous conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the discourse of ethnicity—intertwined with geographical, gendered, and religious boundary markers—transforms into a mechanism of othering when infused with the discourse of sexuality, particularly within a colonial context. 26 Jesus’ abrupt mention of the woman's husband (ἀνήρ) in John 4:16 reveals the complexities of her explicitly marital and implicitly sexual relationships. Initially, the woman responds to Jesus by denying the presence of a husband, stating, “I have no husband” (οὐκ ἔχω ἄνδρα) (John 4:17). However, Jesus counters her claim by affirming, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband” (Καλῶς εἶπας ὅτι Ἄνδρα οὐκ ἔχω· πέντε γὰρ ἄνδρας ἔσχες, καὶ νῦν ὃν ἔχεις οὐκ ἔστιν σου ἀνήρ) (John 4:17–18). Jesus’ reference to five former husbands and a present consort frames the woman's sexual and marital identity in a manner that renders her vulnerable to perceptions of sexual transgression and social shame. 27 In this way, the text uses sexualized language and marital status to mark the woman as both sexually and ethnically other, producing an intersectional form of stigma that compounds the communal tensions already at play.
So far, a close reading of the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman demonstrates how ethnic identity intersects with multiple boundaries—geographical, gendered, religious, and, above all, sexual (including norms of marriage, reputation, and bodily autonomy). This intersectionality invites a more critical engagement with the narrative, prompting attention to how these overlapping identities mutually shape the story's social dynamics and interpretive possibilities. 28
Ethnosexual Othering for National Building in a Colonial Context
For a postcolonial interpreter reading John 4:1–42 through the lens of Korean “comfort women,” the ethnosexual mechanism of othering in the Samaritan woman is particularly captivating. Given that Jesus and the Samaritan woman represent their respective ethnic groups in the narrative, the ethnic boundary becomes intertwined with the sexual boundary, generating ethnosexual dynamics at a collective level. 29 This ethnosexual boundary reflects the broader societal implications of such boundary-making in a colonial setting.
Let us investigate the entanglement of sexuality and ethnicity within a colonial milieu. Craig R. Koester, for example, interprets the woman's five former husbands (πέντε ἄνδρας) as symbolically representing the five nations that colonized Samaria in the Assyrian period, with the sixth husband signifying the Roman Empire (John 4:16–18; cf. 2 Kgs 17:24–34; A.J. 9.288). 30 Jesus, as a representative of the Jewish community, engages with the Samaritan woman in a manner that reflects the prevailing negative stereotypes associated with her ethnic group. This interaction underscores the deep-seated prejudices between Jews and Samaritans that carry sexualized and imperial resonances. 31
By eliciting the woman's history of intimate relationships, Jesus both exposes her social marginalization and activates the stigmas attached to Samaritan identity. The narrative thereby conflates sexual and ethnic markers: negative attributions in one domain legitimize and intensify stereotypes in the other. The story of the Samaritan woman thus demonstrates how individual sexual conduct can be generalized to stigmatize an entire community. Discourses of sexuality play a formative role in the construction of ethnic and national identities, operating through a discursive mechanism that sharpens boundaries between in-groups and out-groups. Read in this light, Jesus’ references to the woman's sexual past function to establish and reinforce ethnic boundaries between Jews and Samaritans. Consequently, her ethnicity is sexualized, and that sexualization reciprocally degrades perceptions of her communal identity.
Theoretical work on the sexualization of ethnic others helps explain how sexual discourse functions to racialize and ethnicize bodies and communities. Dominant groups often construe their own women as pure and those of nondominant groups as promiscuous; sexual stereotypes thus function to racialize and ethnicize sexuality. 32 Applied to John 4:16–18, this framework helps explain how Jesus’ reference to the woman's marital history implicitly sexualizes Samaritan identity and thereby reinforces ethnic division. In the Gospel's framing, Jesus is depicted as a member of the dominant Jewish group and the Samaritan woman as belonging to a nondominant community; by foregrounding her past marriages, the dialogue implicitly imputes sexual impropriety to her and, by extension, to her people. It is crucial to recognize that the discourses of sexuality and ethnicity intersect in such a subtle way that discrimination by a dominant ethnic group against a nondominant one can be both invisible and effective. It is important to recognize that ethnic identities are not only shaped by but also deeply intertwined with sexual norms and behaviors. As Nagel observes, “Just as ethnicity is sexualized, sex is itself racialized, ethnicized, and nationalized”—a process through which ethnic boundaries are maintained and policed through sexual regulation. 33 If this is the case, the negative sexual portrayal of the Samaritan woman functions to reinforce and perpetuate the Jews’ exclusionary attitudes towards the Samaritans.
Thus, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well becomes a potent example of how sexualized ethnic stereotypes can be employed to justify and maintain ethnic segregation and discrimination. The narrative underscores the powerful role that such stereotypes play in upholding social hierarchies and in rationalizing the marginalization of certain groups. In this way, the sexualization of the Samaritans functioned to bolster Jewish in-group cohesion and to legitimize their dominance and discriminatory practices. The narrative serves the interests of the Jewish people by providing a rationale for maintaining ethnic purity and superiority. This dynamic illustrates how intertwined sexual and ethnic identities are exploited to promote Jewish nationalism, particularly under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire. By othering the Samaritan woman through the perceived ethnosexual stereotypes of the Samaritans, the narrative positions Jews as a unified group with a shared identity that is threatened by external opponents.
Exploring the Decolonizing Agency of the Samaritan Woman in the Face of Patriarchal-Nationalistic Othering
Drawing on the vivid experiences of Korean “comfort women,” who have been doubly suppressed—initially by Japan's Imperial Army during the colonial era and subsequently by patriarchal nationalists in postcolonial Korea—I seek to call attention to the assertive agency of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John in the face of patriarchal nationalistic othering. 34 Building on the analysis above, which demonstrates how Jesus, as a Jewish representative, deploys ethnosexual stereotypes to otherize the Samaritan woman within a project of Jewish nation-building under Roman imperial rule, I turn now to the analogous operation of ethnosexual regimes within the Samaritan community itself. Through Jesus' Jewish male gaze, ethnosexual discourse helps to constitute an in-group identity by excluding the Samaritan out-group. At this point, I focus particularly on the stereotypes propagated collectively by her own community, which police gendered and ethnic boundaries and thereby marginalize the woman. By resisting and reworking these charges, the Samaritan woman enacts a form of decolonizing agency that challenges internal, patriarchal, and nationalistic processes of othering.
The exclusionary attitudes of the Samaritans toward the woman becomes prominent in their interaction with her testimony. Although the Samaritan woman's testimony that “a man told me all that I ever did” (πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησα; John 4:29) initially leads many Samaritans to believe her word (λόγος; John 4:39), they subsequently foreground the authority of Jesus’ own word (λόγος) in confirming their faith (John 4:41–42): “And many more [Samaritans] believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world’” (καὶ πολλῷ πλείους ἐπίστευσαν διὰ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τῇ τε γυναικὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι οὐκέτι διὰ τὴν σὴν λαλιὰν πιστεύομεν αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἀκηκόαμεν καὶ οἴδαμεν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ἀληθῶς ὁ σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου). The shift from accepting the woman's report to appealing to Jesus’ direct testimony may reflect discomfort with grounding communal belief in the testimony of a socially stigmatized woman. Since “everything I have ever done” (πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησα; John 4:29, 39) plausibly alludes to her marital and sexual history, the Samaritan community's statement that “for we have heard for ourselves” (αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἀκηκόαμεν; John 4:42) can be read as a form of boundary maintenance that distances her from full communal acceptance. Read this way, the Samaritan response participates in the same ethnosexual processes of exclusion that operate elsewhere in the narrative: patriarchal norms and communal identity politics work to marginalize sexually stigmatized women. Consequently, the Samaritan woman is doubly marginalized—both by the exposure of her past in the encounter with Jesus and by her own community's reluctance to rely on her testimony alone. This remains an interpretive reading; the text can also be read to underline her agency and effective role as a missionary for her community. 35
Confronted with this double othering, the Samaritan woman displays remarkable boldness by disclosing her stigmatized status—an act that can be compared, with due caution about historical difference, to the public testimonies of former “comfort women” in postcolonial Korea, who likewise risked social opprobrium to identify themselves and to speak about sexualized violence. The Samaritan woman testifies to Jesus as the Messiah, openly acknowledging her allegedly shameful past: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (Δεῦτε ἴδετε ἄνθρωπον ὃς εἶπέν μοι πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησα. μήτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός;) (John 4:29). It is striking because the narrative elsewhere implies the nature of those past actions (cf. John 4:17–18, which reports her five former husbands and her present non-marital relationship). This acknowledgment is further underscored by the narrator's observation that “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done’” (Ἐκ δὲ τῆς πόλεως ἐκείνης πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτὸν τῶν Σαμαριτῶν διὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς γυναικὸς μαρτυρούσης ὅτι Εἶπέν μοι πάντα ἃ ἐποίησα; John 4:39). By foregrounding experiences that her society would mark as shameful, she transforms personal discredit into persuasive public testimony, exercising notable agency and undermining the stigma intended to silence her. 36
From a postcolonial perspective, the Samaritan woman's decolonizing agency not only empowers her but also anticipates Jesus’ subsequent involvement in ethnosexual discourse—a discourse that conflates ethnic identity with questions of sexual/genealogical purity. This dynamic is evident when Jesus himself becomes the target of an ethnosexual and religious slur: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (οὐ καλῶς λέγομεν ἡμεῖς ὅτι Σαμαρίτης εἶ σὺ καὶ δαιμόνιον ἔχεις;) (John 8:48). At first glance, the reference to “you are a Samaritan” appears to be purely ethnic; yet within Jewish polemical discourse, the label fundamentally implies genealogical mixing through intermarriage, thereby transforming ethnic difference into an implicitly sexualized charge. 37 Jesus’ response—denying only the religious accusation, “I do not have a demon” (Ἐγὼ δαιμόνιον οὐκ ἔχω) (John 8:49)—and his silence regarding the ethnosexual aspect, is itself telling.
Accordingly, the Samaritan woman's bold agency thus exposes a broader truth: under patriarchal nationalism, ethnosexual othering functions as a mechanism for policing communal boundaries, and any individual may become its victim. Relations across difference are therefore relative, negotiable, and constructive, challenging essentializing notions of identity. There is an irony, moreover, in the narrative economy: the woman's λόγος initiates belief among her townspeople (John 4:39), but the community's subsequent reception centers increasingly on Jesus’ λόγος (John 4:41–42), effectively displacing her testimonial authority. Conversely, Jesus’ own λόγος is rejected by his opponents (John 8:31, 37, 43, 51–52, 55) in ways that deploy ethnosexual rhetoric against him. Taken together, these episodes reveal the pervasiveness and cyclical character of marginalization effected through ethnosexual discourse. 38
Concluding Remarks
Thus far, I have examined the contexts of Korean “comfort women” and the Samaritan woman in parallel. First, I analyzed the ethnosexual dynamics surrounding Korean “comfort women” within Korean patriarchal nationalism, especially in the postcolonial period. Second, I scrutinized the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4:1–42) to show how ethnosexual identity and processes of nation-building structure the narrative's power relations. Based on these observations, it is now necessary to reconsider the implications of the Samaritan woman's decolonizing agency for understanding the resilient agency of Korean “comfort women.”
Despite being ethnosexually othered within a postcolonial patriarchal society, many Korean “comfort women” survivors—like the Samaritan woman in John 4—have asserted their voices through testimony and sustained public protest, most visibly in the weekly Wednesday Demonstrations before the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. It is especially meaningful to recall the first public testimony of a Korean “comfort woman,” Hak-Soon Kim (1924–1997). Kim came forward in 1991, at a time when the Japanese government officially denied direct state involvement in the operation of military “comfort stations” during World War II. On August 14, 1991—one day before Korean Liberation Day—she appeared before television cameras to recount how she had been abducted at the age of seventeen and forced into sexual slavery. In her own words: “It was horrifying when those monstrous soldiers forced themselves upon me … When I tried to run away, they caught me and dragged me in again … I wanted to speak out before I died because no one else would on my behalf … I have no desire left other than to hear them say they are truly sorry.” 39 Kim's testimony emboldened other previously silenced survivors to break from the shame and isolation imposed upon them by a patriarchal social order that had long demanded their silence. To date, 240 former “comfort women” have formally registered with the South Korean government. Kim's courageous disclosure reframed the issue globally, situating it within the language of human rights, historical accountability, and transnational solidarity.
In early 1992, one year after Kim's testimony, the first Wednesday Demonstration took place when Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa visited South Korea. What began as a protest against the Japanese government's evasive posture soon developed into a weekly, ongoing demonstration held in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Among the most prominent voices to emerge in this movement is Yong-Soo Lee. At the 700th Wednesday Demonstration on March 15, 2006, she cried out before the Japanese Embassy: “Listen, you bastards! We’re here again. This is our 700th time out here. I can’t die until the han of the shame and dishonor inside of me from having suffered at the hands of you bastards when I was just sixteen years old is released.” 40 As Elizabeth Son observes, Lee refused the role of passive victimhood and instead became a catalytic figure in mobilizing global advocacy for survivors of sexual violence. 41 Alongside Kim and Lee, many other former Korean “comfort women” have raised their voices publicly, transforming sites of trauma into spaces of political assembly. 42
From these testimonies, vulnerability emerges not as political weakness but as a generative condition for embodied, collective resistance—one in which diverse bodies gather in solidarity without presuming a unified or homogeneous will. 43 The resilient agency of Korean “comfort women” disrupted the silence enforced by resentment, indignation, social shame, and nationalist patriarchy within postcolonial society. Through performative testimony and persistent public action, they reclaimed their subjectivity as ethnosexually marginalized others and exposed the structural violence embedded in imperial and patriarchal systems.
By placing these modern testimonies into dialogical tension with the Gospel narrative, this study seeks both to uncover the colonial-imperial dynamics embedded within the text and to challenge contemporary readers to confront and subvert the lingering colonial-imperial structures that continue to shape their own societies. The powerful testimony of the marginalized Samaritan woman in John 4 invites comparison with the voices of Korean “comfort women”—women subjected to sexual slavery under Japanese colonial rule whose struggles persist in postcolonial Korea. Both narratives reveal how vulnerable yet resilient marginalized voices can undermine and disrupt social norms and hierarchical structures that sustain systemic oppression. Their testimonies challenge prevailing stereotypes and misconceptions; by dismantling the narratives that legitimize discrimination, they assert dignity and advance claims for social justice through solidarity. The story of the Samaritan woman thus functions as an emblem of decolonizing agency, illustrating how marginalized individuals can resist the ethnosexual othering that often accompanies nation-building in the aftermath of empire. Her capacity to articulate experience and to contest social norms resonates with contemporary struggles against ethnosexual stigmatization and marginalization. In a world still grappling with questions of identity and power amid ongoing neo-imperial formations, the Samaritan woman's boldness offers a transformative model for reclaiming agency and fostering solidarity across divides.
