Xin Xin Mo Cun | Wang Wusi: In a society that forces people into prostitution, everyone loves to advise people to be good

I’ve had an observation over the years: in a society that forces people into prostitution, everyone loves to persuade people to turn over a new leaf, just like the screens in every nightclub’s private room always broadcast the message ‘prostitution is strictly prohibited.’ It’s more like how many places recently installed protective nets with huge spikes on the side of bridges to prevent suicide attempts, and even more ridiculous, they hung a sign: ‘Suicide is strictly prohibited, violators will be fined.’ These things are vividly reflected in Wu Liufang’s entire process of being banned, then unbanned, with forward rolls, backflips, and single-arm giant swings.

In the Wu Liufang incident, I’ll make a comparison that doesn’t offend the parties involved but is easily understood: there’s a colleague, Guan Chenchen, showing disdain: ‘We’re all in hotel apartments, how can you go streetwalking?’ There’s the platform’s one-size-fits-all approach: ‘This concerns the national system, don’t cause us trouble, we were just criticized by Zhong Shanshan.’ There are also in-depth investigators: ‘She’s forced to make a living, she’s saving money for her father’s medical expenses, she’s doing charity… how can you ask me for money, I’m here for an undercover investigation.’ There are also enthusiastic johns: ‘Why not do something with your hands and feet? If you have problems in the future, find Big Brother, Big Brother will pay monthly.’ There are also pure johns: ‘You’re a good girl, come with me, I’ll support you in the future… how can you be so ungrateful, you slut?’ Of course, there are also free johns: ‘I’ve always advocated for legalized transactions, this can promote industry development and service quality improvement and reduce crime rates, can you give me a discount this time?’ But few people say to her, ‘You’re fine, this is a society that forces people into prostitution,’ because if you say that, everyone will think you’re crazy, even Wu Liufang herself might think you have a problem. After all, among all such victims, she’s not the worst off, she’s had far more opportunities than many people, she had the chance to speak out a few days ago, and today, with millions of fans, she can be said to have completed her life-changing endeavor, while many others, who they are, where they are, how they are, we don’t know, but we know, ‘they’ exist, they exist in large numbers.

Tonight will probably usher in a historic climax for the ‘persuading people to turn over a new leaf’ industry, because they feel that Wu Liufang has been brought ashore by them, and she has also soared. Persuading people to turn over a new leaf has always been ridiculed and criticized. Milan Kundera said: ‘Chinese men have two major hobbies: dragging good women into the water and persuading prostitutes to turn over a new leaf.’ This is like when we watch movies, we often sigh, ‘It’s a pity such a beautiful girl is in this movie.’ And when we meet a beautiful girl in real life, we often sigh, ‘It’s a pity such a beautiful girl isn’t in a movie.’ In different scenarios, based on different needs, I become another me, a two-faced person. We need to see through the phenomenon to understand the essence, to return to our true selves. What is the true self? I am no more ‘good’ than her, so how can I persuade her to turn over a new leaf? In a society that forces people into prostitution, what am I prepared to give up if I persuade her to turn over a new leaf? If I don’t give anything up, isn’t that cutting off her path? What can I give up? Can I fuck the society that forces people into prostitution and completely change the ecosystem, or can I offer my spiritual and material wealth to save the prostitutes? I’m afraid I can’t do either, so there’s no point in talking about persuading people to turn over a new leaf. Saying ‘persuade people to turn over a new leaf’ is just a cheap phrase, a phrase of superiority after the fact, a phrase that allows oneself to continue standing on the moral high ground.

Persuading people to turn over a new leaf is a double-edged sword, because if you want to persuade someone to turn over a new leaf, you can’t just randomly grab someone on the street and persuade them, in which case I’d advise you to become a doctor. To persuade someone to turn over a new leaf, you must like going to bad places. Someone who likes going to bad places and also likes to persuade people to turn over a new leaf, isn’t that a mental problem? Or isn’t that just being utterly despicable? You persuade people to turn over a new leaf, I advise you to be kind. People who like to persuade people to turn over a new leaf probably read too many books, especially those idle books. In Tang Dynasty legends, Song Dynasty vernacular stories, Yuan Dynasty plays, and Ming and Qing novels, there are many themes about brothels. The aesthetic orientation of Tang Dynasty legends was influenced by the Wei and Jin Dynasties, advocating freedom and ease, pursuing equal emotions between men and women. In Song Dynasty legends, however, most of them focused on preaching, and the heroines inside valued their reputations, strictly adhered to ethics and morals, endured humiliation and suffered hardships, and in the end, they only wanted a formal marriage from a man, which was truly reactionary. This is a condescending and peremptory attitude, both hoping that women will be content with their situation of selling smiles and demanding that they understand the principles of propriety and human relations. It can only be said that the scholars of the Song Dynasty were psychologically distorted by Neo-Confucianism. And later generations, deeply harmed by it, didn’t learn the good things, but deeply understood this distorted psychology. Therefore, tonight, when Wu Liufang becomes a top female streamer with millions of fans, many of those who supported her in the beginning will not be able to sleep, and even start to criticize her, what is it with the same-level empathy, it’s all gone, she is already a goddess high above, and you are still the two-faced person on the ground.

The group of people who persuade others to turn over a new leaf are actually the same group as those who criticize others for being on the edge, only they are getting older, more cowardly, and softer. In the Ming Dynasty novel ‘San Yan Er Pai’, there is a story called ‘The Oil Seller Alone Occupies the Courtesan’, which tells the story of the oil seller Qin Zhong, who, upon seeing the courtesan Wang Meiniang, was captivated by her beauty and thought, ‘If I could embrace such a beautiful woman and sleep with her for a night, I would die happily.’ This is a normal psychological state for a man. If people see this now, at worst they will report Wang Meiniang for being on the edge, and at worst they will call the anti-pornography hotline, which is perverted. I watched a few of Wu Liufang’s dance clips, there wasn’t much beautification, she was quite beautiful, and her face was also rosy. I couldn’t help but think of a sentence by Mr. Lao She, ‘There aren’t many true words in the world, and a woman’s blush represents a long truth.’ If you have to say what Wu Liufang is on the edge of, it’s that she spoke too many truths. We must understand a truth, it is the existence of a big environment that likes to be overly critical that leads to the so-called being on the edge. If you don’t set a boundary and draw a line, I’ll fuck your mother, and you also provide so many tools for being on the edge, such as lengthening legs, enlarging breasts, and a pointed face. The Douyin platform is really not good at this. You run a chess and card room, and you just need to put up a sign that says ‘Gambling is strictly prohibited.’ ‘Playing games in the brothel is also widely spread,’ playing games in the brothel is to serve customers and enhance their experience, and your signs prohibiting gambling are similar to playing games. Fortunately, you unbanned Wu Liufang, otherwise your behavior would be equivalent to the masses playing mahjong for one yuan in your chess and card room, and you would really call the police.

A normal society should not have the phenomenon of forcing people into prostitution, but it can have the situation of persuading people to turn over a new leaf. Forcing people into prostitution is a social problem of no choice, while persuading people to turn over a new leaf is a matter of personal choice. We must also realize that there is a problem with forcing people into prostitution, but even if there is no such thing as forcing people into prostitution, she can still choose to be a prostitute, just as my friend, Teacher Zhu Xuedong, said, ‘I support Wu Liufang and others, not because of their difficult past experiences, nor just because of their struggle to change their fate, but based on a fundamental right that everyone cannot be deprived of, the right to choose their own way of survival and life. If we don’t defend this right, anyone, not just Wu Liufang and others, may be deprived of it. As you all can see.’ But I estimate that there are still many people who don’t understand this truth, and they still haven’t changed, just like those who donated fifty yuan to the Hope Project and felt that they were participating in public construction and exercising public power, and felt that they were good people. In fact, the only people who should say you are a good person are the Guo Meimeis, but she won’t say it, she will only think you are a little cutie.

There is a sentence in Dürrenmatt’s ‘The Visit’: ‘This world once turned me into a prostitute, and now I want to turn the whole world into a brothel.’ I admire this sentence very much. The wronged have their own heads and the debtors have their own owners, unlike the Unbeaten of the East in ‘The Smiling, Proud Wanderer’, who, after being hurt by Linghu Chong, actually decided to kill all the unfaithful men in the world. You should just kill Linghu Chong alone, what does it have to do with the other unfaithful men? This is like many people now, especially women, who, when they encounter problems, whether it’s the individual who caused them harm, or social problems, they always attribute the problem to men, and like to set men and women against each other, making us afraid to openly like women. Men have many problems, but whether men are good things is not really important, it is important that the society we live in is a thing. Men like to persuade people to turn over a new leaf, but men are not capable of forcing people into prostitution. Whether men like being on the edge or not, that edge is not drawn by them. Finally, I say these things because I remembered watching Uncle Dong Hao’s videos these days. The children who watched his programs back then are now in their thirties and forties, and many people leave messages for Uncle Dong Hao, telling him how tired, how hard, how difficult their lives are, how terrible their lives are, and how messy their lives are… Many things that they can’t tell their families, their relatives, or others, they also tell Uncle Dong Hao… like children, many of them are men, and I also felt the same way, and tears just fell down. Of course, these will be fine after a good night’s sleep. But what I’m worried about is, if a male gymnast encounters a problem like Wu Liufang, how should he be on the edge, and what should we do? A society that forces people into prostitution has become a fucked-up society, where do we go from here?