In May 2020, Ueno Chizuko and Ryomi Suzuki began a year-long communication. The two women are 35 years apart. One is a well-known Japanese sociologist and the other is a novel creator who has just been shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize. "Start at the Extreme" records their 12 letters over the past year.
Although life situations are very different, the two women share their growth experiences in the book and discuss the twists and confusions in their respective lives. Starting from the topic of sex and love, they talk about marriage, mother-daughter relationships, work, friendship, independence, and feminism. Ryomi Suzuki repeatedly asked Chizuko Ueno why she could not feel desperate about men, while Chizuko Ueno kept asking about those words that were not "speaked" in Ryomi Suzuki's life choices.
Chizuko Ueno delivered a speech at the admission ceremony of the University of Tokyo 2019.
Interestingly, in the back and forth replies, Chizuko Ueno, a scholar who always emphasized that "I sell my thoughts, but I don't sell my feelings", kept breaking the precepts and involuntarily wrote down content that I have never said or written to anyone or anywhere. For example, Chizuko Ueno gave a more self-responsive answer to what feminism is:
"...Feminism is a concept of self-declaration. People who claim to be feminists are feminists, and there is no right or wrong distinction between feminism. Feminism is a movement without churches and pastors, and there is no centrality, so there is no heresy trial and no expulsion. Feminism is not an intelligent machine. As long as the problem is stuffed in, it will spit out the answer...I have always thought so."
The following is authorized by the Press to extract it from the second chapter of "Mother and Daughter" in "Start at the Extreme". In this round of communication, Ryoko Suzuki revealed the influence of her mother on her life experience, while Chizuko Ueno analyzed the interlaced relationship devices between generations. As she said: "The one who can see through her mother's 'seemingly reasonable but actually conflicting' is her daughter, and the one who is teased by these contradictions is also her daughter."
"Start at the Extreme: A Book of Feminism's Return", [Japan] Chizuko Ueno/[Japan] Ryomi Suzuki, translated by Cao Yibing, New Classic Culture | Xinxing Publishing House, September 2022.
Letter
Ms. Chizuko Ueno:
Thank you for your lovely and sincere reply last month. Actually, you are my tutor, so I think you are my tutor, but since you mentioned it in your reply, I don’t need the title of “teacher”. Teacher Eiji Xiaoxiong, Teacher Xiaoda Kita, and Teacher Fukuda Kazuya have all guided me directly. Now when I think about it carefully, I have never had the opportunity to have such a formal and long one-on-one communication with them. Their guidance is so valuable, but I never thought of starting from my own experiences and inner entanglements and vomiting my worries and thoughts at them. The only person who has been talking to me through letters for a long time was my mother who passed away four years ago, so I haven’t written a letter seriously for a long time. Please allow me to thank you again for giving me this valuable opportunity.
For me, it is not easy to face the misogynistic and vulnerable tendencies you pointed out. If it weren't for the opportunity created by this communication, I might not have the courage to dig them out. Looking back, my mother always digs out the parts of my heart that I don’t want to be touched through dialogue, and puts them in front of me without hesitation. I felt a wonderful shock when I read your reply. Because you pointed out many things that my mother was worried about until the last moment of her life. Be willing to admit "stupidity" but not "victim"; do not become a newspaper reporter and change to an industry as a writer; think that he is using his body to a man's value... These things make my mother worried. It was not until my mother passed away that I personally felt how deep her worries and fears were, because I was consumed by people in my reluctant way again and again. The theme this time is "Mother-daughter relationship", so I want to talk about the various things about my mother and me based on the questions you pointed out in your reply. But for some reason, it is always very physically consuming to write about things between us mother and daughter, and I am very worried that I will not express my words.
My mother is a sentimental person, but she speaks logically.She never gave up on reaching verbally with others, and never cared about verbal confrontation, so the dining table facing her often turned into a white-hot debate venue. When I was a child, I hated this feeling. When I grew up, I realized that I was fortunate to be born in a unique environment of growth - my mother always collided with me in her own words and hoped that I would respond in the same way, rather than unilaterally telling me "If I say no, I can't do it" or "If the teacher says no, I can't do it." However, when I was young, the environment where I was not allowed to be silent and was always forced to explain my own thoughts made me feel that I had no freedom outside of words.
movie "Mom! 》 Stills.
However, when I reached the age of junior high school, I noticed the contradictions my seemingly reasonable mother was born. My mother was born in 1950 and is about the same generation as you. Of course, her career and achievements are far less than you, but she grew up in an environment with excellent financial and educational conditions. After graduating from college, she worked as an interpreter in BBC for a period of time, and later she was responsible for the editorial work of propaganda magazine in the publicity department of Shiseido . It was then that I was born, and my father was just a part-time lecturer. So during that period, our family was always in a state of "the heroine is the outside and the male is the inside". The father had a relatively free time, and he basically took care of the children, and the mother became the main source of income for the family. This is not a rare thing, but in the Catholic primary school in the countryside at that time, our family was still quite special.
The mother's remarks and opinions on weekdays are obviously liberal and very high-sounding, but I feel that in that environment, my mother seems to look down on the housewife around her a little. Although she hadn't specifically said contempt, she would at least call the housewife she met at the parent-teacher meeting "that group of moms", as if she didn't think "that group of moms" were the same women as her. During the discussion, the mother classified herself and them as “female”, while in her private life, she treated them as creatures that were completely different from her, which was a cunning practice. During the period after her father became a full-time lecturer, she also focused on raising her children and did some fragmentary translation work, but she certainly did not regard herself as a housewife. She is very resistant to the word "madam", but I don't think she thinks that the word itself has a discriminatory meaning against women. She probably thought that "wife" was a special name for "that group of mothers" and should not be used on her. She denies all discrimination, but I feel that she has a deep-rooted discrimination complex and wants to draw a line with "that group of mothers". Stills from the Japanese drama "Home on the Ramp".
She hates people who use "feminine" business more than housewives. She is used to explaining everything in words, but when she meets a prostitute and a drink girl, she completely gives up logic and denies it completely. In addition, she also has an essentially similar dislike for women’s unique work (such as flight attendants and company receptionists), although not as disgusted as a drinker. She also realizes that her exclusion of sex workers and cafeteria goes beyond logic, attributes it to “growing up in a family in the service industry”, but I don’t think this explanation is sufficient. Her mother (that is, my grandmother) was the adopted daughter of a Japanese restaurant, and later married into a ryokan run by my grandfather's house. So in the mother's opinion, her grandmother, grandmother and mother are all drink lovers who greet male guests at the banquet. My grandfather successfully started a business elsewhere and paid great attention to education, so my mother and her younger brothers were fortunate to receive a good education, but my mother often joked that her mother's family was a businessman without the fragrance of books, and her grandmother and mother dealt with drunken guests all day long.
Generally speaking, she strongly rejects showing off her "feminineness", but at the same time, she also has a slightly abnormal tendency to be supremacist. Needless to say, the number of cosmetics and clothes is that after becoming a college teacher, she will even spend a week repeatedly reshooting photos used in lecturer materials, which seems particularly stubborn. Moreover, her stubbornness is not simply a love for clothing or beauty, but obviously a stubbornness to "continuously be the object of male desire."If she doesn't get the praise of "beauty" and "really young" and is not wanted by men, she would rather not show up in public. When I was in the sixth grade, my family lived in the UK. She re-educated graduate school and became a children's literature expert. But there are few people dressed up in the Children's Literature Association and the laboratory. Most of them are relatively simple and do not care whether they are sexy or not. My mother is very reluctant to be compared with those "rustic scholars". American dramas in the 1990s had a stereotype of "feminists" and always portrayed them as fat as bulldogs, and hated men and had a bad temper. I remember my mother often laughing at the women she met at the children's literature academic conferences, comparing them who were not attractive to men to such roles. But I feel that the stereotypes in the TV series are more self-consistent, and my mother is full of contradictions and perversions. In short, she seems to regard "being a woman who attracts men" as valuable than anything else, but she sincerely looks down on women who openly exchange it for money.
"Miscovite: Japanese Female Dislike", [Japanese] by Chizuko Ueno, translated by Wang Lan, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore , January 2015.
So as you have pointed out accurately, my entry into the sex industry that directly commoditizes sex is indeed related to my mother's dislike and refusal to understand that world. I once wrote in an essay that my mother said in person: "I would rather you get involved in violence or fraud than be a prostitute, so that I can support you at least." Even when I was working in " Nikkei News ", I would take time to go to a nightclub to accompany me, and after leaving, I found a club to work. I left this job in 2016, the year when my mother passed away. On the one hand, it was because I was busy taking care of her and then had to handle the funeral. On the other hand, it was because of the idea of "at least listening to her advice at the last moment of my mother." But the fact is that as soon as she left, the attraction of the night shift and the significance of me being in the night world were immediately folded.
I don’t know how much the idea of “wanting to break out of my mother’s understanding” accounts for, nor do I know how much the idea of “I want to understand what my mother’s most violent denial, refusal to understand, and does not want to explain it with logic” accounts for. But I do hate my mother's mentality. She was absolutely aware of the male gaze, but never actually traded. She hopes to be taken by scout , but she will never agree. She clearly desires to be an expensive commodity, but despises the women who actually betray her, which makes me uncomfortable, so I completely sell myself. This is certainly a bit reckless, but it is also to relieve this uncomfortable feeling.
and my mother refused to understand my behavior until the end. On the surface, I thought I wanted to be understood, and her lack of understanding made me suffer, but in fact, I might not want her to understand me. My mother also said that I might be "getting my parents' love and understanding too smoothly during my growth, so I want to test how solid it is." In a way, I really want to understand the limits of parents’ love and understanding by doing what they hate the most and are unlikely to understand. Looking back now, for mothers, "things beyond words" are where love is and disgust for prostitutes. Testing absolute love and becoming a prostitute are indeed inseparable from my mother and daughter. Stills from the Japanese drama "Home on the Ramp".
Mother loves me with all her strength. At the same time, I have always been the subject of her research. What the mother originally studied was how picture books can show children what kind of world and how to have relationships with them, and I was her only real sample. She never shy away from mutual understanding at the verbal level, and this personality prompted her to chase me and try to understand me. I have lived a very free life since I was a child. Adults never force me to study or work, nor do I ask me to dress up like they like. But this freedom also made me creepy, as if my mother was experimenting with me and observing the experimental results with great interest. When talking to my mother, I always felt that every word I said had a sense of déjà vu for her, and it was a phenomenon that she could name her, without any new surprises.One of the reasons why I feel that mothers are keen on parenting is to verify their own research.
When my mother is mentioned, my words will become scattered and endless. Although she is no longer here and I am free, several questions about my mother are still entangled with me like a ghost, and about three of them are directly linked to my current problem.
I wrote in the previous letter that I was very resistant to the "harm" I suffered and spoke up as a victim. And you guide me to say that claiming to be a victim is a powerful proof. I am particularly resistant to the fact that I am an "weak person" as a victim.
Actually, I feel very guilty because I entered a world that my mother characterized as "unlike, unsightly, stupid and dirty" so that I can't help but think that even if I suffer insults and sexual violence for it, it's my own fault. But I'm not sure if this is the same as fear of weakness. I recorded the conversation with my mother sporadically, and there was a paragraph in it: entering the night world and handing over the body to a man for a little money means giving up the right to "say you were injured when you were injured."
You mentioned reporter Ito Shiori in your reply last month. I respect her from the bottom of my heart. But I can't express it like she did. I can only swallow the sexual violence and abuse I suffered by cursing and laughing at my stupidity. I'm afraid countless night shift women who are close to violence are like this. I also realize that this attitude is very close to the views of secondary harm and self-responsibility, which will cause the victim to be hurt again. To be clear, I have no intention of accuse the victim of the silly behavior. But when it comes to myself, I never get rid of the idea of “I have no right to be a victim”. Because before I was afraid of criticism and frustration, I had already said all the rash words to myself that would cause secondary harm, and there was no need for others to speak. I have this awareness: when I enter the world that my mother who deeply loves my own deep love for me, I have already taken down all the harm that may happen in the future.
documentary "The Shame of Japan".
I have never imposed this attitude on others, but as you wrote in your reply last month, how easy it is for a woman who “can’t stand being a weak person” is for men, and with that in mind, I cannot ignore the possibility that someone like me can promote the continued reproduction of the exploitative structure, which is one of my biggest troubles. At the moment when I have lost my mother, is it possible that I will be stronger, strong enough to forgive myself for my stupidity to some extent and call myself a victim? Will telling one's own stupidity hurt other victims?
has another question related to this. When I left the newspaper and became a freelance writer, my mother was very worried that I didn’t care how I was consumed. I was naturally reluctant to see the weekly magazine reveal my past, but this is my past, so I have no position to protest. Of course, since the experience of a former AV actress was exposed, as long as I continue to show up and publish articles, there will inevitably be people who will continue to consume me in ways I reluctantly. I think this unhappiness itself is something that everyone will face more or less. It is an indisputable fact that I have acted in AV, and I have no right to refuse others to regard me as a "former AV actress". When participating in events and on TV, the organizer and program team will make special dress codes for me. Media such as weekly magazines will also propose to place AV photos of that year instead of recent photos in the profile. I will accept these requests. On the one hand, I am worried that my strength is not as good as this experience, and on the other hand, I am afraid that I will be abandoned once I refuse. Another reason is that I always feel that being treated like this is the inevitable price, which is included in the reward.
Sometimes I feel tired and don’t know when I have to endure such treatment. This is not something to be proud of or pessimistic in itself. But I have been thinking lately that my mother’s worries may be even deeper. For example, the topic of the previous issue, "Erotic Capital", I accepted all the criticisms of my inappropriate use of words, because I did use "Erotic Capital" in the final draft of that conversation, but I did not use this word in the conversation.I use the terms "commercialization of sex" and "commodity value of the body" in all my books, because I am used to using these expressions, and I think they are more appropriate. The person who organized the conversation contacted me and said that because we started talking about Hakeem's book, they decided to unify the statements I used with the foreign language erotic capital used by Mr. Orange into "erotic capital". I agreed without much resistance or thought. The reason given by the other party was that we mentioned Hakeem's book, but I later realized that they probably valued the word "erotic" in the title and the photo. Before you pointed out, I hadn't thought about the inaccuracy of the term "erotic capital", so I was indeed not thinking about it carefully. The final result is that the report has no meaning in addition to hurting the self-esteem of some women and pleasing the majority of male readers. I have long been used to the media using my photos with the title "erotic" and so I don't think it's anything, but judging from the results, the consumption I have endured has indeed spread the words that make women uncomfortable, and I regret it.
"Politics of Sex", [US] Kate Millett , translated by Zhong Liangming, Social Sciences Documentation Press, January 1999.
I also know that some of my works are often used to excuse men. Not only that, I also know that some articles are used as weapons to attack feminists. So I'm often slammed by some feminists who are mainly acting anonymously online. This is not my intention. You know, those men will only scan my articles roughly, and it is inevitable that they will take things out of context. Actually, I have rarely written articles about women's issues recently because I feel that instead of letting conservative men use my words to attack women, it is better not to write them. These days I have been thinking that what my mother is worried about may be that I don’t care that my attitude of being consumed as a “night shift girl” will be exploited like this, which will hurt other women, rather than my own dignity.
, but that's not free. I have written a lot of bad words about men, but my original intention of becoming a writer was to write stories about women. I have seen too many bad things about men, and sometimes I come to my senses and can see my stupidity. And like many people, I have seen all kinds of contradictions in women's hearts. My mother’s contradictions, my contradictions, my friends who are crazy about love, and women’s stupidity are all my themes and the root of my determination to write. I don’t write to please men, but I don’t want to choose not to write to not please men. I don't want me to be deprived of the right to speak because of "will please men."
I admit that my strength is not strong. Despite this, I have received many letters from readers, from women who are conflicted, hurt by conflicts, and enjoy conflicts. I don't want to ignore women who empathize with me. I know that if I consider all levels fully when writing, I will not be used against my wishes; I also know that if the things I write are refined enough, I can avoid men's wanton misinterpretation. I can tolerate others pointing my blade at myself, but I don’t want to see my words transformed into sharp weapons pointing to others. How to avoid this situation is another big worry for me. Is it possible that I only write about myself while avoiding all the possibility of pleasing men?
You mentioned in your reply that your "throwing into the gutter" remarks were protested by some sex workers. Actually, I heard about this when that interview was first posted. I'm also curious about why men are so ignorant and why sex workers are so overly self-aware. At that time, I happened to have an essay column on the website of Huandongshe, and I mentioned a few comments during the serialization. According to my guess, men are completely unaware that they are in the gutter, and the sex worker vaguely senses that they have thrown their body and mind into the gutter, so they are so angry. Men who are extremely ignorant and unconscious cannot realize that they may be looked down upon, but will intercept those sentences that seem to be used to attack women. They are really smart (on the contrary, women are very aware that they may be despised, so they are extremely sensitive to even the subtle expression).
Mother left another problem.That is, since I entered the Night World, I have never really faced love again. However, in her opinion, love is one of the most important things in the world. But writing it down will be too long. It just so happens that the theme of next time is sex, so I'll talk to you in detail.
June 10, 2020
Suzuki Ryomi
Reply
Ms. Ryomi Suzuki:
Thank you for sending the frank and honest reply.
The theme this time is "mother and daughter". After reading your reply, I felt so distressed that I could not choose the environment where I was born and raised. Your mother's attitude towards life must have had a huge impact on your choices, for better or worse. If she wasn't like this, you might not have chosen this path. At the same time, I felt my luck again, because I did not have such a wise and powerful mother, and would not be affected so far. But when I think about it carefully, the "legacy" left by my mother who lacks understanding of her daughter is my choice not to get married and have children. In this way, the influence of my mother still influenced my life to some extent.
Your mother "never give up on reaching understanding with others verbally", and your mother and daughter "have long-term conversations through letters", which is really envious and very rare. After my mother passed away, I found in her box postcard that I sent back from all over the world. She kept it carefully and didn't throw it away. But the words on the postcard are just perfunctory "consider your health". I and my mother never had a conversation that touched the core of their respective attitudes toward their lives. In contrast, the environment that requires you to "transform everything you think into language" is indeed a kind of control, but at the same time, you should also be trained. As a writer, the language ability you have at this moment is not only constructed by years of experience, but also cultivated in a family environment. It is not an exaggeration to call it talent. In this letter, your language skills were fully demonstrated.
The relationship between "mother and daughter" is not only affected by the mother's ability, but also closely related to the daughter's own ability. Among many daughters who are firmly bound by their mothers with great love and wisdom, there must be someone who cannot gain self-awareness and even embarks on the road of self-destruction, but you have enough strength to accurately attack your mother's Achilles heel.
movie "Mom! 》 Stills.
When I read your description of my mother, I couldn't help but imagine what the scene would be like if I had a daughter as smart as you. If I had a daughter who was extremely close to me, if she would mercilessly scoundrel my contradictions, my ambiguity, my limitations and cunning... how would she describe me?
The one who can see through the mother's "seemingly reasonable but actually contradictory" is the daughter, and the one who is teased by these contradictions is also the daughter. Recently, I was interviewed by a parenting magazine, and the topic was my upbringing experience. At the end of the interview, the interviewer raised the ultimate question: "What are parents to you?" I blurted out like a conditioned reflex: "Unset trouble." This answer was unexpected, and I was even more surprised by myself who reported this answer. Children cannot choose their parents. What kind of parents are "disturbing trouble" for children who are forced to become their children. Strong parents are a problem for being strong, and weak parents are a problem for being weak. After the late Ms. Tsushima Yuko became a single mother, she staged various emotional entanglements in front of her children. She told herself: "Involved in the life of parents in this way is the fate of being a child." I avoided becoming a "trouble" in the eyes of others by not having children, but sometimes I also feel that this is because I do not have strong enough self-ism (it is OK to say "vitality") and cannot force other people's lives into my field. I thought that as long as I called my parents a "disturbing trouble", I would be criticized by "unfilial son" and "ungrateful". Unexpectedly, most readers nodded and said yes. A young woman who had just become a mother sent me a speech saying, "I will try not to disturb my children", which made me a little overwhelmed. Maybe it’s because young parents still clearly remember their childhood experiences.But then again, every adult was once a child, but many people completely forgot all the sufferings they suffered back then (when they were completely helpless).
people are complicated. I have never met your mother and I don't want to describe her typed information based on fragmentary information, but the series of behaviors that make you puzzled are survival strategies that smart elite women often use, namely, "I am different from them." Unlike most women of the same age, your mother has received a higher education and is confident and proud of her intellectual abilities. Even though she was married and had children, she still felt that she was "different" from those "ordinary housewives". When she was in an academic conference where highly educated elites gathered, she also believed that she was "different" from the top female scholars who only knew how to study hard. Your mother's research direction is children's literature. This is a wise choice in terms of survival strategies. Because in such a research field where female scholars account for the vast majority, she does not have to compete with men, and others will not question her "motherhood" of "liking children".
documentary "The Last Lesson of Chizuko Ueno".
Women's awareness of "I am different from them" is also natural to link them to appearance supremacy. Women have been exposed to the sight of male evaluation since childhood, but men do not evaluate women's wisdom, but simpler and easier-to-understand appearance. I have seen several women in particularly sexy clothes among the elite women in America. Every time I see someone like that, I wonder how they view their gender. We can also say that it is precisely her pride in her social status and ability that in turn allows her to go the sexy route. This is actually a show-off, and the implication is: As a woman, I have enough product value, but I don’t want to sell it, and I can live a good life without selling it. I don't know how your mother is in the opposite sex, nor do I know if she has had dangerous encounters with men other than her husband, but in my opinion, her feminine appearance is more like a tool to show superiority in the female world, rather than an element to attract men. However, this awareness of "I am different from ordinary housewives" and "I am different from ordinary female scholars" is actually based on misogyny. Because this attitude refuses to empathize with women who can only become "housewifes" and women who have worked hard to become scholars, and also refuses to understand the life path they have taken.
In the eyes of this type of women, it is despicable for women who have no choice but to sell off their female elements and who have indeed taken this path in the end. For your mother, the choice she made is to reject what her mother and her two grandmothers had done. From this perspective, your mother is also subject to her own growth experience. And as a grandchild, you must want to test her limits with the choice that your mother hates the most, and in the cruelest way that both parties will bleed.
The price you pay for this is to give up the “right to be a victim” and not be able to “say you are injured when you are injured”. You choose to become an AV actress and are not forced by anyone or any environmental factors, so the "self-decision" problem always entangles you. The always-combined "self-determination and self-responsibility" does not allow you to blame anyone for the cost of choice. What you mean by "guilty" is also the guilt that comes with this self-decision.
"Return to the family? 》, [English] Shani Ogad, translated by Liu Yu, Ideal Country | Guangxi Normal University Press , September 2021.
Nothing can satisfy the strong conceit of elite women more than "self-decision", nor can it keep elite women away from feminism like these four words. Maybe you inherited this strong elite consciousness from your mother. But ten years of night shift experience have taught you that "women and men have their own stupidity", and help you get rid of brainwashing, which may be a good thing.
But when I first entered the sex industry, I guess you might not have expected the cost to be so expensive. What I mean by the “cost” is not just that the stigma of the past will bother you for a long time. Have you actually been hurt at the scene?
The sex industry is built on overwhelming gender asymmetry.It is not difficult to imagine what kind of gender discrimination, insults, abuse, violence and exploitation women will experience on the spot... The director Nimura mentioned above once clearly pointed out that pornography is "commodification of (female) insults." And this "insult" is the embodiment of male sexual fantasy.
"It's no big deal." "I don't care, I can tolerate it no matter what." "I'm not that fragile, I won't be hurt by this little thing"... Countless women who work in sex have said similar things. Some girls even regard dissociation as a skill, saying that as long as the "soul leaves the body" is done for twenty minutes. They belittle their experiences in this way.
men skillfully take advantage of this. "Don't make a big deal", "It's no big deal", "It won't be a piece of meat missing"... Seeing this, it's not difficult to realize that these are the catchphrases of sexual harassers and perverts. In addition, "self-decision" becomes "it was obviously your voluntary", "What are you looking forward to me doing this?" "Look at how you enjoy it"... Beliefing (not good for men) female experience and disclaiming yourself of liability is a common routine for men. They wished that women internalize it.
"Femaleism from Stop", [Japan] Chizuko Ueno/[Japan] Nagako Taya, translated by Lu Lingzhi, Akimo Lucida | Beijing United Publishing Company, September 2021.
You are worried that what you write will be used to "in turn hurt other women, not my own dignity." You also wrote, "I can tolerate others pointing their sharp blades at myself, but I don't want to see my words transformed into sharp weapons pointing to others. How to avoid this is another big worry for me." Stop taking a detour. Before worrying about others, you should protect your "dignity" first, and you don't need to endure "the sharp blade aimed at you". For you and me, "pointing the sharp blade at your own" is painful and terrible. When your text is "transformed into a sharp weapon pointing to others", it is actually you, not others, who are hurt.
I am almost twice your age. Maybe what I want to say next sounds a bit arrogant, but I still have to say it. Face your own pain. When it hurts, it will hurt. Human dignity begins here. Be honest with yourself and don't deceive yourself. If a person cannot believe and respect his own experiences and feelings, how can he believe and respect other people's experiences and feelings? (That's why I wrote in my previous letter: Calling a victim is not a manifestation of weakness, but a powerful proof.)
Even so, I don't mean to excuse myself. The reason why I dare to say this is because I have a deep understanding of every point you say. I have also walked through a life full of shame and failure. I can never raise my head and say, I have no regrets about my past life.
documentary "The Last Lesson of Chizuko Ueno".
Today’s young girls no longer regard men’s misconduct against them as “nothing” and “can handle the past” trivial matters. They began to say "I don't like this" and "I can't stand it." And I, like you, think they are extremely dazzling. And I also feel that my actions inspired them to say these words. They have the power to say "no" to undesirable sexual relationships, but new questions follow: Can they establish ideal sexual relationships?
Sex is troublesome, but it is also wonderful. The next time the theme is sex. Looking forward to your letter.
June 19, 2020
Ueno Chizuko
Original author/[Japanese] Ueno Chizuko [Japanese] Suzuki Ryoko
excerpts/Qingqingzi
editing/Walking Qingqingzi
introduction proofreading/Zhao Lin
