SKorean men 'allowed to lie for sex'

South Korea's Constitutional Court on Thursday put an end to penal code 304 under which offenders who deceived women "with no penchant for debauchery" could be punished with up to two years in jail.

The law placed unnecessary restrictions on individual rights and ignored women's rights to make their own decisions concerning their sex lives, the court said.

It also pointed out that the old law forced "traditional, male-chauvinistic morals" upon women by protecting only those the law deemed had "no penchant for debauchery".

"Those who have been punished in the past under the old law can now ask for re-examination of their cases so that their criminal records may be wiped out," court spokesman Noh Hee-Bum said.

Female blackmailers had also used the 56-year-old law to extort money from men, Noh said, by threatening to sue after sex, claiming they'd only gone to bed with the men after they'd been proposed to.