This talk addresses a paradox in the stream of legal changes regulating sexuality in South Korea since the 1990s, and locates such tensions within a particular formation of neoliberalism that we shall refer to as the “neoliberal sex hierarchy.” It examines how the new legal paradigm of liberalization since the 1990s has made room for, firstly, the recognition of “women’s right to sexual self-determination” as witnessed in laws on sexual violence and rape, and secondly, the decriminalization of most private sexual behavior between consenting adults, as in the repeal of laws on seduction and adultery. Yet this liberal understanding of sexual autonomy is moot when it comes to sex work — in fact, the criminalization of prostitution and its related activities has increased in scope and intensity in the name of anti-trafficking efforts and the protection of women’s human rights. The analysis argues that a discourse of liberal selfhood has come to inform the new sexual ideals manifest in criminal legal reforms in the last two decades.