Songs of Sexuality and Thought from the Perspective of Postmodernism——The Metaphor of Body Politics Behind Three Kinds of "Sexual" Narratives in Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age"

Introduction: Wang Xiaobo who "turned out of the sky" and "sex" as a taboo

History often shows such a picture: some people were famous in life, but were quickly forgotten after death; others were unknown in life, but were remembered for a long time after death. The writer Wang Xiaobo obviously belongs to the latter category: In 1997, Wang Xiaobo, who was at the peak of his creation, died suddenly of a heart attack. Not long after that, his works left behind suddenly became almost "crazily" spread and sought after, and this writer who had been drifting outside the mainstream literary circle seemed to be "born out of nowhere" and became known to countless people overnight. Some people even regard it as the two spiritual benchmarks in the cultural world in the 1990s alongside Haizi, a poet who also became famous after his suicide in the late 1980s. This incident aroused great repercussions in the Chinese folk and intellectual circles in the 1990s, and was even dubbed the "Wang Xiaobo Phenomenon" by cultural historians.

This writer, who was lonely during his life and brilliant after his death, was unique in his life, and his works are no different. On the one hand, his writings have been enthusiastically sought after by the folk intellectual circles, and on the other hand, they have caused huge waves among the authoritative cultural circles. In addition to his extremely colorful, strange, unconstrained style (even casual to messy) literary talent has aroused the interest of many scholars, his extremely strong personal style and bold exploration in form and content have also aroused a lot of interest. There are many controversies, among which there is no lack of denunciation and even lashing against this "dark horse" in the literary world. The reason for this is that Gai Xiaobo’s novels and essays are always unafraid to touch on those things that are “discursive taboos”. This includes not only images such as the “Cultural Revolution” and “Great Leap Forward” that have become political taboos under the “post-totalitarian” system, It also includes content that is shameful and unspeakable at the traditional moral and cultural level, and is considered "indecent", the most representative of which is the taboo "sex".

Sex is a biological phenomenon as well as a cultural construct. More precisely, sex is a modern device, "The ancients took sex or sexual desire for granted, just as they took death for granted. It is only in modern times that we take sex, on a considerable scale The successful separation is our main concern." Today, except for a few scholars who are extremely critical, most scholars are open to the description of "sex" in Wang Xiaobo's novels, and regard this " Sexuality is studied as a concept that has been separated from everyday life and reproduced as a specific metaphor. However, the current research in this area is still far from satisfactory. On the one hand, Wang Xiaobo’s novels are strongly influenced by postmodernist literary trends and have distinct postmodernist features, which makes the text itself have Hassan ( Ihab Hassan put forward the "two core constituent principles" of postmodern literature: indeterminacy and immanence, whose connotations include ambiguity, discontinuity, pluralism, etc. It is particularly important and difficult to clarify the logic of the text, which is what many current researches lack. In Wang Yi's discussion, Wang Xiaobo was simply "liberalized". He believed that Wang Xiaobo's valuability lies in his "anti-system" "freedom" thought, and at the same time attributed him to Chen Yinke and Gu Zhun as the "freedom" since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Among the successors represented by the doctrine. Similarly, Zhu Xueqin pointed out that Wang Xiaobo was in the tradition of liberalism, "Talk about Gu Zhun, Chen Yinke, and Wang Xiaobo, but inadvertently squeezed out a 'liberal' way of speaking. 100 years of history, 50 years I started chattering today because I have been silent for too long.” These discussions are not based on a detailed study of the text, but copy the “liberalism/new left” binary opposition thinking mode and ideas that were popular in the 1990s Resources, generally speaking, gave Wang Xiaobo the crown of "liberal knight", but never went deep into the narrative depth of Wang Xiaobo's novels.

On the other hand, the "Wang Xiaobo craze" in the 1990s led to the public's familiarity with and pursuit of Wang Xiaobo's works, which reversely weakened and leveled the profundity of this cultural phenomenon, which is also reflected in the research. In social forums like "Wang Xiaobo's lackeys", and in the pages of cultural magazines that commemorate Wang Xiaobo's 5th and 10th anniversary, people vulgarly compete for the interpretation of Wang Xiaobo. The unique research pattern of Wang Xiaobo also counteracts the historical energy of Wang Xiaobo's research in this confrontation. Wang Xiaobo, who wears such reputations as "free knight" and "troubadour", seems to be well-known, but he fell silent again amidst the noise.

This is undoubtedly a great irony. As far as the "sex" narrative is concerned, in the trend of humanities scholars rushing to equate "sex" and "freedom" in general, only Li Yinhe divides it into two categories: normal and abnormal, which can be said to be truly close to the content of the text However, the complete category of sexual description cannot be exhausted; as for the sexual psychology and body politics behind the "sex" narrative, it is buried in the wave of liberal discourse.

This article studies Wang Xiaobo's text based on his most representative novel collection "Golden Age", citing Dr. Hu Shaoqing's research on the aspects of contemporary literary sexual narrative, and divides the sexual narrative in "Golden Age" into three categories-life narrative , Restorative narratives, and sadomasochistic narratives are all based on the natural attribute of "explosive sexual desire". Behind the sexual desire is the metaphor of body politics-it originates from the struggle practice of social power and human body-emphasizing the body itself. political attributes. This kind of metaphor surpasses the previous logic of putting politics above "sex", and it can better reflect the deep-seated attributes of Wang Xiaobo's own thoughts: he opposes all systems that enslave and control people, and it is by no means monopolizing "freedom" and overthrowing oppression. , but to respond and resist with more transcendent concepts such as beauty, vitality, nature, and love, to hedge against what Foucault called "the hairy form of power". The weaving of the three types of sexual narration is intended to show how body politics will seek self-preservation and redemption of human value and dignity in the "network" of absurdity and oppression.

The Narcissus Complex and the Beauty of Vitality: The Narrative of Life in The Golden Age

In the long history of metaphysics, "spirit" and "flesh" have always been a pair of contradictory unity of opposites. Since Plato's Phaedo, the body seems to have always been regarded as representing impulse, passion, desire, temporality, and limitation, while the complex soul stands with knowledge, wisdom, reason, and even truth. Enjoying great superiority and immortality. This situation was not changed until the appearance of Nietzsche. He paid great attention to "sexuality" and the body, claiming that "the body is a more amazing thought than the old 'soul'."

"Golden Age" has a distinct feature of exalting "carnal desire" in a metaphysical sense. It is worth noting that these texts intended to give "sex" a key position have an obvious Narcissus complex, behind which is a youthful and passionate worship of sexual power and the extension of "vitality" worship, intended to Construct a vitality aesthetics with symbolic meaning.

For example, in the novel "The Golden Age", there is such a "thrilling" passage:

I awoke to a bright sun, an eerie blue sky, and a fine layer of dust on my body, like a layer of talcum powder. The countless erections I have experienced in my life are not as powerful as that one, probably because I am in a very remote place with no one in the wild.

There are also slightly more subtle expressions elsewhere, such as:

I heard the mighty tide of air rushing over my head, and it was the time when the tide was in my soul. Just like the flowers blooming in the deep mountains, the dragon bamboo shoots are peeled off, and the shells are removed, and they are straight up.

The text unscrupulously outlines the shape of the male genitalia during erection, and exaggerates its visual shocking feeling to the utmost, which is essentially constructing a kind of psychological worship. In particular, this kind of worship is actually self-referential, that is, "I" appreciates "my" own genitals, and is proud and satisfied with it. This kind of psychology is reflected in women slightly differently from men:

She told me to do that thing again, don't wear that ragu. She's going to give me a litter of pups...

The wind blows in from under the clothes and blows over her erogenous zone, and the sexual desire she feels at that time is as unpredictable as the wind. It spreads out like the wind in the mountains.

In the "worship of sexual power" in "Golden Age", the difference between men and women's pleasure objects depends on inherent physiological differences-male penises are more prominent in visual senses than women's genitals, so men tend to have an "artifact-style" Sex power worship; women have a longer orgasm time than men, and there is an advantage that men can never match, that is, the metaphor of strong fertility, so women tend to have sex in the "peak experience" style called by Maslow power worship. These self-referential cults of sexual power are all narcissistic complexes in a broad sense, intended to highlight the aesthetic attributes of sexual desire itself, and to implement a "great rejection" of the repressive sexual order that resists sexual desire. As repression and shackles are overthrown, sexual desire can sing and gallop in the vast physical and emotional space.

In "Golden Age", in stark contrast to the high-pitched sexual passion is the sluggish sex. In the novel "Like Water Flows", the 40-year-old Wang Er lost the sexual desire that flourished in the "golden age":

But I was in panic all day long, lost interest in everything, and thought all day long about having an extramarital affair with the line. More specifically, I want to have sex with her, and of course, I don't want to do too much,... He hesitates once a week, and reluctantly twice.

Also in "Standing at Thirty", the author imagines that the old Wang Er, who is a high-ranking official but has died in bed, "is like a dead tree in the mountains, with shaggy pubes and few black ones. It looks like a soft noodle,... ...How come it shrinks so short when you are old?...Only the urethra is hot, and a drop of liquid flows out." And Chen Qingyang, who is old and frail in "The Golden Age", also shows signs of female "sexual power" decline:

I stepped out once in the middle, and saw bloodstains on the little monk. She said, getting older, the inside is a bit thin, so don't push so hard.

Wang Xiaobo very intentionally juxtaposes aging with the decline of sexual function and libido. From high-pitched sex to sluggish sex, between "erection" and "impotence", "Golden Age" builds the text logic of "sexual power = vitality". This leads the "sex" narrative to a more grand "life narrative". The worship of sexual power is also the worship of my own vigorous vitality. When "I" appreciates my own genitals and sexual desire, "I" is also appreciating the vigorous vitality of "I" and the existence of "I", just like "Golden "The Age" said: "In my opinion, this thing is extremely important, just like my existence itself." The reason why "Golden Age" can place sexual desire on the same level as vitality and existence itself is the reason behind it. Facilitation is essentially an intentional aesthetic activity. Only by realizing the important and basic aesthetic attributes of sexual desire can it be possible to fully appreciate the beauty of vitality, and the vigorous, impulsive and real "dionysian spirit" in Greek mythology is in harmony with "sex" and "vitality". Among them, they are actually equivalent.

So far, the logic of "life narrative" in "The Golden Age" is already clear at a glance. The body and sex in the narrative are the best symbols of vitality, temporary but irreplaceable. It itself is a kind of body politics, praising the aesthetic attributes of life’s flourishing and free development, and pointing the finger at the aging of life and the decline of desire. They may be helpless life phenomena, or they may be the enslavement and suppression of people. Forced to happen with oppression. The idea implied by this body politics, in a word, is the supreme pursuit of vitality and beauty.

Deconstruction of "Other" and Capitalized "Man": Reductive Narrative in "The Golden Age"

Marcuse pointed out in "Eros and Civilization" that the images of Orpheus and Narcissus in Greek mythology are intended to deny the order of Greek mythology and reveal the reality governed by a new principle. In the text logic of "sexual narrative" with a distinct "Narcissus" meaning in "The Golden Age", this "great refusal" also implies that it overthrows a huge external object and at the same time establishes a Set up new principles and systems. If we say that the "life narrative" of "The Golden Age" is a set of "personalized" transcendence principles, that is, to find things (sexual power) that can represent their own value and meaning from the oppressive order that resists sexual desire, Then, the love and appreciation of life and existence are born, which has nothing to do with others (or only related to the two people who make love), so the second narrative buried in the text——"Reductive Narrative" shows the relationship between sex and others. Closer connection, these others not only have other people on the sidelines, social and political concept shackles, but also a wider natural space. The "sexuality" in the latter helps to establish a new system that cannot be realized by the "life narrative" alone after the "great rejection"-specifically, it plays the role of deconstructing the relationship between these "others" mentioned above. The concept system contained in the book puts people back into more essential attributes. This "reduction" is not only the interaction between the characters in "Golden Age" and others, but also contains the author Wang Xiaobo's implicit statement to the readers.

The "sex" images that appear frequently in "The Golden Age" once brought Wang Xiaobo and his works into a very embarrassing situation. Li Yinhe's evaluation of these sexual descriptions is "different from Lawrence's description of sex as beauty, and also different from "Jin Ping Mei" who described sex as ugly, with the purpose of warning the world and persuading the good. The sex in his writing is like life itself, healthy, clean, Vigorous and serene." This obviously has the meaning of partiality and praise. The sex she said is "like life itself, healthy and clean" only belongs to the first type of "life narrative" in "Golden Age", while for those sexes that are not so "crafted" and "lingering sound", it is like "Revolution The characters "Zhanba" and "X Haiying" named after their genitals in "Love in Time", and the wanton genital swear words in "The Golden Age" such as "It's all the fault of Chicken Balenon! He always sits on the dam, puts the dam on the The dick is down!" "XXX (the name of the military representative), fuck your mother", how can it be called clean or even calm? These sexual terms that appear at high density in the text and have no intention of creating a "beautiful artistic conception" are essentially completing a "reductive narrative". For most conservative readers, even all sexual terms in "The Golden Age" The descriptions are all in line with the logic of "reductive narrative", because writing "sex" so directly is enough to deter and subvert the moral concepts of "sex" in the minds of these readers.

In the novel "Golden Age", there are many descriptions of Chen Qingyang's shame and disgust in the face of genitals:

I'm not ashamed of showing my ugly penis in front of her. The thing didn't feel ashamed, and inserted it straight between her legs. It doesn't make sense for a man to use a girl because she has such a cut.

Ever since she publicly exposed that she was a broken shoe and I was her wild man, no one said she was a broken shoe, let alone mentioned Wang Er (except Luo Xiaosi) in front of her. Everyone is so afraid of this kind of blatant blatant shoe-breaking that they dare not even speak out.

Later, Chen Qingyang wrote down his and Wang Er's experience of "committing a crime" (infidelity) and handed it over to the party organization. The reaction of those in power was also intriguing:

When this material is handed in, the team leader will pick it up and read it. After reading it, my face was flushed, just like your little monk. Afterwards, everyone who saw her material was red-faced, like a little monk.

It is not difficult to find that the protagonist throws his naked "sex" to others, which in itself can deconstruct the various "noble" or "natural" values of others. For Chen Qingyang, although the unreasonable insertion of Wang Er's genitals was shameless and "infuriated", it completely saved Chen Qingyang from the absurd "broken shoe accusation". A complete victory of the sanctimonious social concept (Chen Qingyang's own sexual concept has also been transformed and liberated); although the military representative and regiment leader are symbols of ideology and power, they still have to deal with the real "sex" written in straight pen. I can't help "grabbing it immediately" wanting to return the favor, and then unconsciously "blush". Any lofty moral and political discourse will inevitably be humiliated and deconstructed by this straightforward and primitive meaning when confronted with "shameless" sex, so "everyone is so afraid of this kind of blatant act of breaking shoes that they I don’t even dare to say it.” In the end, the People’s Insurance Team had no choice but to let “both of us” go.

Similarly, the author Wang Xiaobo also tries to use the original stimulation of "sex" to make readers understand this deconstructive relationship. In "Love in the Revolutionary Period", the secretary of the Communist Youth League, which symbolizes the "political benchmark" of the tofu factory, has a female genitalia as the surname. When Er died, the dignity brought to him by his lofty social and political status was nothing more than "the piece of cotton stuffed into the rectum after he died." Whether it is "X Haiying" or the rectum, these "sexual" images in the characters in the book that do not set off the plot waves will generate great psychological stimulation for the readers. What Wang Xiaobo presents to the readers is the "times that flow like water written in a straight pen", the years of educated youth hidden behind the lofty political archway of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" but essentially "open flames" and the nature of ideology and political propaganda The hypocrisy of reality, such "scams" are ubiquitous no matter in the revolutionary era or the post-totalitarian era in which readers live. Wang Xiaobo's words full of "sexual desire" are just to awaken readers to these others—namely, Introspection and deconstruction of complex and unnecessary social relations and political concept structures.

In addition to the "Revolutionary Age" and its affiliated social and political entities, another huge object that cannot be ignored in "The Golden Age" is the natural world. Facing nature, the author's emotional tendency when describing "sex" has undergone a huge change, which implies that the natural world is by no means an ordinary and trivial object in "sex narratives", but that "sex" is likely to play a role in deconstruction and reduction end point. In nature, an ideal, "capitalized" person finally stands in the text.

Most of the most impressive sex in The Golden Age takes place in nature, such as:

Chen Qingyang rode on me, falling up and down, the sky behind her was white mist. It seemed that it was not so cold now, and the sound of cowbells came from all around. ...A huge monster suddenly appeared beside us, with water droplets hanging from the bristles around its ears. It was a white buffalo with its head turned sideways, looking at us with one eye.

as well as:

Chen Qingyang and I were on the blue clay, with our eyes closed, like two dolphins swimming in the sea. As the sky darkened, the sun gradually turned red. There was a cloud in the sky, pale and pale, turning the bellies of countless dead fish, and staring at the eyes of countless dead fish. There is a gust of wind on the mountain, blowing down silently. There is a tragic atmosphere between heaven and earth.

In these descriptions of sex, the metaphor of "sex" is further advanced, referring to the "nature" of human beings through "nature". At the moment when Chen Qingyang met the buffalo's eyes during sex, a couple in the wilderness contrasted with the hazy nature and natural creatures. This scene seemed so absurd and embarrassing, but so reasonable—human is nothing but a kind of animal , the nature is the same, and it may even appear inferior to others in comparison:

There was no one around, and suddenly he had an unprovoked erection, which was very strong, which made him terrified. He unbuttoned his clothes, only to see that the guy was as red as an overcooked prawn, and it was hot to the touch, but he couldn't explain why, and he didn't think of a woman either. The water is steaming, and there is a primitive desire here, long before men and women. Suddenly a burst of laughter broke the master's confusion - a pair of native men and women passed by on a strong buffalo. They were naked, embracing each other, watching the embarrassment of the master.

The overlapping of the sexual scene and the natural scene here is by no means using nature, the "source of vitality of life", to set off and arouse sexual desire as in Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover", but using nature as a mirror, using Perfect, exuberant nature projects imperfect, lonely, hypocritical people. "Sex" thoroughly washes away the meaningless and hypocritical "sublime" and "construction" of people through the natural scene. In this way, man can re-integrate with nature and "melt into the heaven and earth", so as to elute a capitalized "man" standing between the heaven and the earth and presented with the magnificent nature as the background. This is the idea of using body logic/sexual logic to return people from the social relationship and political concept system to the natural world and "instinctive nature" under the "reductive narrative" of "Golden Age".

From Sexuality to Eros: The Sadomasochistic Narrative of "The Golden Age"

Marcuse once explained Freud's theory of "sex" in this way: "(He) did not equate eros with sexual desire, but regarded sexual desire as the self-sublimation of eros to tenderness and admiration,...does not think that human The liberation of human beings is the unrestricted satisfaction of human sexuality." The end point of the "sex" narrative in "Golden Age" is "love", more precisely, "body love", whether it is regained in "sex" Whether one's own "beauty of vitality" is eluted to become a "capitalized person", it is all to get rid of the boundless loneliness and loneliness that "sorrow comes from and cannot be cut off", and to find the "love" that sublimates the "self".

But just as Wang Xiaobo said in "Love in the Revolutionary Period Preface", "Sometimes (sex) is not allowed, which makes things very complicated... If there is no direction of north, I will I had no choice but to go south, cross the South Pole and the North Pole, and travel more than 40,000 kilometers to get there." In "Golden Age", it is difficult for readers to see the "normal" love and desire—whether it is Chen Qingyang's inexplicable "great friendship" with Wang Erdun ", or the line went crazy and fell in love with Mr. "Glananitis" who was criticized to the death, or X Haiying who educated "me" actually started a "SM (sadomasochism) game" with "me" And as a masochist-these "perverted" sex are actually excellent black humor and carnival on top of nothingness and absurdity. And this part of the "sadomasochism" sexual narrative is the furthest and perhaps the most difficult step taken by Wang Xiaobo's "body politics" thought in "Golden Age", because here "sex" will break free from the huge paradox contained in itself Among them, the distorted and destroyed love surfaced.

For example, "Golden Age" has this description of the critics and Chen Qingyang who was criticized at the criticism meeting:

Just like those women who were caught raped on the spot, they were called to the stage to explain the details of the affair. When those people heard that they couldn't hold back their feelings and were full of ugly behaviors, they screamed strangely: "Tie her up!" Someone rushed up to the stage and tied her up with fine hemp ropes, and she stood in front of people like this, humiliated.

The rope was tied around her like a tights. At this time, her curves were exposed. She saw that the crotches of the men present were all bulging. She knew it was because of her,...

The crowd under the criticism meeting is the abuser in this sexual abuse game. What arouses this sexual desire is not only the physiological reaction of seeing female body parts as a man, but also a kind of desecration of the ideal body in reality/imagination, or It is the virtual pleasure brought about by destroying it because of love. The masochist also experiences special sexual pleasure in this sadomasochism game:

At that moment, she felt like a gift box, opening the package, so she was elated, she finally got rid of all troubles,... like a koala on that table, she was so happy that she often couldn't help shouting out.

Chen Qingyang, who thought he would not "call out in front of any man", had an abnormally high sex drive after going through the criticism meeting. This abnormal sexual pleasure obviously did not only come from physical stimulation. Since the masochists have completely deconstructed the political meaning and psychological concepts behind the "criticism meeting", they are completely dominated by the "sadomasochism narrative" and are stimulated by this kind of activity full of ritual and sexual meaning. The abuser is also sexually aroused in the face of "artifacts" with sexual implications such as collars, bondage and tights. The sense of ritual and the suggestion of utensils symbolize the further separation of "sexual intercourse" behavior and "sexual desire" psychology.

For the ignorant and enthusiastic "revolutionary masses", their sexual desire is the explosive release of their long-repressed nature under the revolutionary narrative through political activities. In a totalitarian society, sexual desire is often systematically suppressed, and the hotness that has nowhere to be released is passed on to crazy political movements; and the high sexual desire of the masses who are carrying out "slut humiliation" is actually the suppressed sexual instinct and acquired Crazy political enthusiasm superposition of the two. For Chen Qingyang and "I", although they have accepted the baptism of "concept deconstruction", the deepest power relationship is still buried in "sadomasochism"-the obsession with masochism is nothing but sexualized domination and obedience relationship. Here we can even assert that sex is no longer sex, but has become a tool, a primer, which is extracted from the "sexual narrative" and only used to mobilize the deepest desire of human nature—— Maybe it's a dark power obsession.

In the above discussion, the "sex games" between Wang Er and Chen Qingyang seem to have fallen into a strange circle of behavior—if we say that for the insensitive masses, sex paradigms such as BDSM are just adding fuel to their long-suppressed sexual needs, But for Wang Er and Chen Qingyang, their sexual vow of "great friendship" for each other has a deeper meaning-to resist the oppressive power order and absurd concept system. But the "sex" that is only for the pursuit of pleasure develops to the end, in order not to become sleepy and boring after excessive indulgence, it will often naturally lead to more "stimulating" perverted sex. The most absurd thing is that these behaviors that lead to the maximization of sexual pleasure for both practitioners are based on the principle of creating and simulating unequal power relations among practitioners. In sadomasochism, not only pain has become pleasure, but the power that "I" and Chen Qingyang fear to avoid has also become the core element of BDSM behavior. Power has become an inescapable nightmare—it is not only a thing outside the body, but also deeply rooted in the depths of human nature. "Sex" and all the resistance it claims suddenly become meaningless actions, a dream of trying to get rid of power to preserve personal dignity It has also become a mirror image.

In fact, Freud once made a similar pessimistic judgment on human nature: "Human beings are not gentle, friendly creatures who expect love... On the contrary, they are such creatures that must take what they have, Strong aggressiveness is regarded as part of their instinctive talent." In many cases, tenderness and love are no longer a certain disposition, but a state that needs to be deliberately pursued and cultivated. Especially in the world of "Golden Age" that requires "a journey of more than 40,000 kilometers" to achieve sex, Wang Er and Chen Qingyang themselves had to take a rather extreme path—a carnival of sex—to Resisting the status quo of blackness, and this path proves to be a dead end in the end, they have to develop and cultivate another way out. At this moment, "love" becomes the only choice, even though it means a longer pursuit and a longer life. big uncertainty.

In "The Golden Age", "sex" and "love" were originally distinct, and the waters of the well do not interfere with the water of the river:

She told me to do that thing again, don't wear that ragu. She's going to give me a litter of pups that will droop here in a few years. At the same time, she grabbed the nipple and pulled it down to show the shape of sagging. I don't think drooping looks good, so I said, let's find a way, don't call it drooping. So I still wear that Lao Shizi. Afterwards she lost interest in the matter.

Chen Qingyang later told me that every time she had sex with me, she was deeply tortured. Deep down she wanted to scream out, hug me and kiss me, but she didn't want to. She doesn't want to love anyone, nobody loves...

Both Wang Er and Chen Qingyang did not formally define this "great friendship" as love at the beginning, but the two parties (especially Chen Qingyang's woman) had expressed their feelings frankly or implicitly many times. After getting tired of the monotonous day-to-day sex, the two actually more or less realized the existence of the path "from sexual desire to love". Finally, in a small dangerous situation, such a relationship was finally confirmed:

Chen Qingyang said that her real crime was on Qingping Mountain. At that time, she was carried on my shoulders, wearing a tube skirt that tightly wrapped her legs, and her hair fell down to my waist. White clouds are rushing in the sky, and there are only two of us in the deep mountains. I just hit her ass twice, so hard, the burning sensation is wafting away. After the fight, I didn't care about other things and continued to climb up the mountain. Chen Qingyang said that she felt powerless at that moment, so she collapsed and hung on my shoulder. At that moment, she felt like a tree surrounded by vines and a bird attached to a person. She didn't want to care about other things anymore, and forgot everything at that moment. In that instant she fell in love with me, and that can never be changed.

In fact, it wasn't at this moment that Chen Qingyang fell in love with Wang Er suddenly. Before that, she had already had countless heart-wrenching moments. In her body, love has been preserved as an emotional function, and if there is no such instinctive yearning for "self-sublimation" and "love", Wang Er and Chen Qingyang probably would not have cultivated the tenderness and admiration. Instead, they continue to stay in the endless cycle of endless sex, exhausting their youth and sexual power, or they are surrounded by endless loneliness after returning to their natural instincts.

How many normal elements are there in the love and desire after being ravaged by reality? Also, is it possible for "love" to become a murderous weapon? The love between Chen Qingyang and Wang Er is obviously the product of being tortured and distorted, because their own incompatibility and the tragic background of the times doomed them to miss the love of normal people; and love itself may indeed be incomparable Cruel, like "an ugly instrument of torture", but Chen Qingyang finally decided to go to the body to accept the torture, because that is the only way out of the "dead end", and the destination of "us" is cruel and warm love. This is the end of the "sex" narrative.

Epilogue: Self-existence and redemption under the "hairy form of power"

Foucault once discussed the underground novels of the Victorian period in "A History of Sexual Experience": In the Victorian period, although sex was severely censored and prohibited, various mechanisms such as regulation, censorship, confession, and classification and classification were essential. However, it has led to a large number of reproduction and derivatives of sexual discourse; in an extremely depressive environment, sex has been proliferated in large numbers and has been widely obsessed. In a sense, The Golden Age is no different from a Victorian novel, and we—the characters, the author Wang Xiaobo, and all the readers—are “another kind of Victorian.” In "Golden Age", "sex" is used as a very special medium to carry rich metaphors of body politics, which includes the pursuit of the spirit of vitality aesthetics, and also calls for people to take off hypocrisy and embrace natural nature , and finally lead sexual desire to "love" to hedge against the huge social unconsciousness.

In fact, these sober people in "The Golden Age", through various "sex", are nothing more than seeking to break free from the restraint of huge and abstract power on people, so as to preserve their precious value and self-esteem. From the appreciation of life and existence, to the abandonment of obscene moral and political slogans, to loving someone, there is nothing better than this. But in this final confrontation, the complex intertwining of sex and power is also on display. Between every point in the social body, there are various forms of power, and they are by no means simple projections of the state governing apparatus on each individual, but intertwined, specific, and ever-changing. If it weren't for the "revolutionary period", "I" wouldn't have an affair with Chen Qingyang, and the line wouldn't be "confusing" to fall in love with Mr. Li, a "balanohematoma" with a head like ET, and X Haiying would never have sex with me relation. "We" are seemingly breaking away from the ubiquitous power discourse, but the act of breaking away has already been deeply branded by power. In the end, "we" really can't get rid of it completely, because the "fascination" for it is engraved in the deepest humanity of everyone. Such a complex "sex-power" function is described by Foucault as "the hairy form of power".

Inheriting this profound insight, Wang Xiaobo uses "sex" narration to make a black and humorous irony of power and taboos. The final result is similar to a form of "not forgetting the beginning, not seeking the end", "I" The pursuit of beauty, nature, and "love" is not a declaration of victory. Although "I" cannot overcome the ugliness in the depths of human nature, "I" has successfully preserved my dignity and value and realized self-salvation. Similarly, although the content of "Golden Age" is largely limited to a specific era, and the whole article is full of eye-catching political discourse, the author is obviously above all the mundane, and sings the beauty and life, nature, love and so on. These transcendental thoughts.

All in all, this article splits the sexual narrative of "The Golden Age" into three aspects, starting from the aesthetic "sex description" and the vitality worship psychology behind it, to the broader "sex" behind the article. The idea of putting people under scrutiny in front of pure nature and nature, and then taking a step further from the "perverted" sexual description, stepping out of "sexual desire", and moving towards the "love desire" that has been distorted and bruised to the point of being bruised, but still real, Finally, the redemptive meaning of the body political metaphor behind the sexual description in "The Golden Age" is achieved. In fact, they are all the products of complex functions under the "hairy form of power", or more essentially, they are a microcosm of the mutual mediation between "I" and "world". If it is said that "thoughts are formed in an asexual world where taboos define their scope, and thoughts are asexual", then Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age" is a song of thoughts with strong sexual desires.

This article is based on the background of sexual psychology and political philosophy, and mainly focuses on a collection of novels called "The Golden Age". In fact, the span of time and subject matter of Wang Xiaobo's creation is far beyond what "Golden Age" can cover, and the "sexual narrative" in it has many variants and evolutions. At the same time, Wang Xiaobo, as a "marginalized" writer, has a high degree of overlap with the educated youth literature and sex literature since China's reform and opening up, which is hard to understand as a coincidence. Compared with Wang Xiaobo's other novels and the voluminous contemporary Chinese literary works of the same period, what is the uniqueness of the sexual narrative in "Golden Age", and what is the subtle or intentional convergence? An article will be discussed separately. I also hope that this article can provide an index for academic research in this area.