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Modern Marionettes: The Naked Truth
Wing Yick, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
We are born beautifully bare – but raised with strings attached.
Modern Marionettes: The Naked Truth
By Wing Yick
In the dining room of a typical Hong Kong family, everyone is chatting happily in a harmonious atmosphere when the good cheer is abruptly halted by a tramp intrusion from the matriarch.
Everyone falls silent.
“What’s this? What are you doing?” the old grandmother enquires with a deep frown as she pushes a tablet into the hands of her niece, who sits stunned on the sofa.
The screen shows a picture of that very same girl completely nude and posed in a sexy position. The suddenly exposed model seated on the couch has the appearance of an angel but a body clearly shaped for evil in the photo. Her eyes grow big with rising terror as she looks at herself.
“I…I,” begins the niece, but her grandmother cuts her off with a dinosaur roar that extinguishes the family glow.
“How dare you do that! You are a… a chicken,” flies the accusation with the colloquial used in Hong Kong to mean prostitute.
Ancient eyes, tinged rose-red and blurred with anger, hold the victim of the wrath in place as the condemnation continues: “Why can those daughters of others be teachers and nurses?! I don’t mind if my girl is just a clerk with low pay, but how can you be so cheap to sell your flesh?”
“That’s when my family first discovered I was a nude model,” Hei-Yi recounts in a far-away voice during a recent interview. “Their accusations hurt deeply, just like some of the hateful comments I’ve received online.” Her voice trails off quickly, but the painful memories remain.
“Now, however,” she continues more confidently, “I see how absurd these words were.” She then adds with a sincere smile,
“I am proud of being a nude model.”
With clear eyes, this young woman begins the dive into the naked truth about nudity.
Models who pose nude for erotic photography used in exhibitions, magazines or the internet are certainly not the same as prostitutes – not that there is anything wrong with safe and force-free prostitution, believes Hei-Yi. Nude modelling is truly a liberating free expression of the human body that should be celebrated, not met with illogical derision. It’s ridiculous, after all, that women can bounce around on the beach in tiny bikinis, but the minute they show a nipple, all hell breaks loose and the world comes to an end, apparently. The nipple apocalypse.
Hei-Yi remarks on this absurdity with a question: “Why do we view our own body every day without feeling ashamed, yet we cast aspersions on those showing their bodies in front of the camera’s unblinking eye? It’s a rather incoherent approach, isn’t it,” she chuckles softly.
Hei-Yi can laugh now, but she had to overcome much to gain full autonomy over her body. Pushing back against her liberation was not only her family but also centuries of tradition that still encloses us all like a great wall.
Traditional Chinese culture and beliefs are etched deep in Asian people’s hearts, creating suspicion and rejection of the erotic industry – at least when speaking in public.
From the earliest days of primary education, students were taught about Confucian morality, which was established by a long-bearded guy, now long dead, named Kong Qiu. Stemming from one of its cornerstones, modesty, Confucianism suggests that when in public, women should hide themselves in many ways ranging from appearance to emotions; modesty is decency. Under this philosophy, keeping women unexposed to others is considered as pure and loyal. The virtue of a woman is further expressed through being cautious and obedient. Under this catch-22, a “good” woman dares not challenge this notion of the “ideal” female.
However, how can a 21st-century woman – a real living thing – be defined by such terms and mindsets as being “clean” or “uninfected,” just like a product sold at a shop?
Confucianism is not the only belief that shaped Chinese women. The concept of YinYang, proposed by Zou Yan, had linked women with Yin, meaning that females should be subordinate to their fathers, husbands, and sons. This gave value to the belief that “men want sex and women endure it.” As such, women have traditionally been shackled by the chains of external judgment, compelled to prioritize the perceptions of others over their own desires.
Under such cultural traditions, any “overexpression” of females’ bodies and thoughts is considered beyond the pale. However, when seeing ancient women wrapped with layers of clothes in photos, just like an onion, one may find themselves admiring the resplendent silk rather than the allure of the women themselves. Is this type of modesty a virtue, or just the shackles used to hold women in place? Isn’t it time to remove these crowns of thorns that don’t elevate women but rather suppress their freedom?
“I think images of the human body are quite natural and don’t need any modification. They can exude their own beauty.”
~ Zhang Xi, celebrity photographer
Due to modernity and the influence of sex-positive feminism spreading to not only China but to many countries, more females are willing to challenge the neo-Victorian attitudes that women are ignoble and non-privileged in sexual relations. People are awakening to the fact that women should have the ability to control their life and their bodies. Being a nude model or even selling sensual fantasy photos on Patreon shows that women also have the power to be, if they choose, sexually dominant, not to mention the ability to admit – gasp! – that they actually enjoy their sexuality.
A quote from a feminist at the Beijing Foreign Studies University sums it up succinctly:
“My vagina says: I get to say who to let in.”
Traditionalists, like Hei-Yi’s family, may argue that the popularization of eroticism would make women more prone to sexual harassment. However, a simple look at how women were harassed much more in the past before popular mass distribution of eroticism, places that argument on the dusty shelf. In fact, evidence suggests that the normalization of women’s equality with men in terms of sexuality and contribution to the erotic industry would likely reduce the dinosaur-like oppressive views that lead to harassment.
Hei-Yi knows these facts, but she also knows that progress won’t come without pain.
TANSTAAFL!!
The young model admits more of her painful memories: “Some of my friends and I grew apart after they knew I was selling my sexy photos to others on Patreon. They thought I was using my body to make money without any effort.” Hei-Yi then adds with a sneer, “There are no such things as a free lunch in this world.”
This experience illustrates one more reason why many people think that being an erotic model is unacceptable. They feel – and theirs is an emotion-based argument – that using the human body as a tool to make money is vulgar in its ease of earnings. However, what people have seen in pictures is only the tip of the iceberg. What lies below the surface are the countless nights editors spend working on photos, the thousands and millions of dollars used to buy tailor-made costumes, and the risk of being criticised by the public. It is hard to believe that typical 9-to-5 workers, who look for any chance to slack off or scroll on their phones to kill time on the job, put more effort than those nude models into their work. Instead, it is more likely that they are jealous of women like Hei-Yi who possess the audacity that they lack to be themselves and bravely make their own choices.
“You were born to stand out…”
~ Roy T. Bennett
Let us state clearly what most think but are not brave enough to say under the cultural camera’s unblinking eye. Women are sovereign entities, not marionettes to be controlled by the social constructs of a culture and its emotion-based rules. And women are certainly not mere adornments to their male counterparts. While promoting equality in the world, it is time for the Chinese of yesterday to take steps forward on an enlightened path and take off their rose-tinted spectacles.
Life is now a mosaic of choices, which should not be labelled simply as right or wrong. After all, nothing is more soul-sapping than witnessing the mothers of yesterday publicly shame their daughters of tomorrow for expressing the beauty of their natural bodies.
As the great philosopher Lady Gaga once said as she bravely pursued the right track,
“I was born this way.”
About the Author
Wing, a sophomore at PolyU, is studying to be an occupational therapist. When not volunteering or exploring other countries as part of the Eagle Leadership Program, this native of Hong Kong is on her bicycle exploring the nature of her home, Hong Kong.
Author’s Reflection
Originally, I was tasked with writing a feature article for ELC 2011. As I am interested in sensitive social issues that are seldom talked about, I chose nudity as the topic of my work. When I searched for related information on the internet, I found that most of the posts were negative and offensive.
However, I do not support those points of view nor the lazy thinking that produced them. I want to take this opportunity to express that nudity is not something to be seen as shameful, but rather as the beauty of humans. I hope to encourage people to have heterodox thinking, step out of their comfort zone, and be the bravest version of themselves.
The journey of writing this article was challenging. Luckily, I received lots of useful comments from my editor to help me express my ideas more effectively. Without this support, I would not have been able to polish my work. Thank you, Inscribe.