A few months of sealing control, the mask has become a necessary cover-up like a garment, semi-permanently hanging on the face. Recently, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t put on any makeup for more than three months, and I lost the desire to buy new clothes even after the courier, so I just tied a pill and stomped on a slipper before going out. Wearing a mask, no one can see you, no one knows who is under this scruffy skin. You don’t have to care about the eyes and comments of passers-by, because you know that your face is blurred and you no longer need to cater to the gaze and judgment of anyone.
In this moment, I felt a different kind of relief.
Of course, I know very well that this so-called ease is not the real freedom of me as an individual, but only the freedom to be blindfolded by others.
Other people’s evaluation, social rules, self-suppression, can not control the flattering catering …… a rope of confinement in the long years tighter and tighter, and not only in the face of passers-by makeup dressing.
I can’t help but think when can be truly “liberated”? How can I be considered “liberated”?
Nancy’s moment came when she entered old age and was widowed.
Her pleasure began at the age of 16 with an exotic love affair, and then it was sealed for 40 years until it was unlocked by Leo. Enter, pull out, lie flat, 30 years never changed, the phone rings and answers immediately, never steal the thunder from her husband at a party, teach the whip to scold female students with short skirts slut (the beautiful name is protection and care), son bored daughter unconscious …… she and her friends are left in the 50s and 60s, can not understand the world in which they are What happened.
But human desire cannot be suppressed forever, as if boiling water, covering this end, will always pounce out from somewhere else.
After two years of hesitation, Nancy, widowed, booked Leo, a young and fit man, to make up for decades of missed sex. Interestingly, she is torn, hesitant, nervous, and even as the power player in the relationship, the woman cannot escape the shame and the discipline of the gaze. She begins to wonder if she is too old for Leo, who is full of young masculinity. Her strong insecurity makes her aggressive, interrogating Leo about his views on his job and his family’s attitudes – presumably returning to the role of a religious teacher, the role of the great superior, is her strongest armor.
A woman’s body leads to a woman’s heart. The four meetings were like four deep physical and psychological sessions. After facing and satisfying her own desires, Nancy seems to have reconciled with her world. She apologized for her past self, confronted her desires, learned to appreciate her body, respected her primal pleasure, and finally reached the shore of bliss through herself.
This moment makes many women empathize, is relief, is release, is freedom.
Leo’s success at work also gives him a sense of pride and dignity in his profession, so that he can face his own profession and confess to his brother and himself. At this moment, he was also liberated.
See, the underprivileged always have more ropes waiting to be untied. However, the long and winding search and questioning is always better than nothing, isn’t it?