Chapter 53 Sexual Literature and the Emergence of Sexual Consciousness: "Memoirs of Manna" and "Girl Heart"

Whether the handwritten copies of "Memoirs of Manna" and "Girl's Heart" during the "Cultural Revolution" belonged to pornographic literature or belonged to the category of literature may still need to be debated.Regarding sexual literature, it is still a very sensitive issue. Sexual works such as, have been banned for a long time in Britain and the United States. In the 1930s, film censorship in the United States did not allow the existence of scenes of men and women kissing or men sitting on women's beds.Since the establishment of the film classification system in the 1960s, the society has become more tolerant of sexual works, and at the same time, sexual works have become unscrupulous, which has aroused people's dissatisfaction and protests.The scale of sexual works is not easy to grasp.Here, what needs to be clarified is not whether these manuscripts during the "Cultural Revolution" are yellow, but to distinguish whether they are literature.

"Memoirs of Manna" is about 10,000 words (maybe there is a longer version), female first person.The protagonist is a female student, and the sex life of three men with her is described in the article, but it is not so explicit.Compared with "Girl's Heart", this book focuses more on the reflection and changes of various emotions in the process of close contact between men and women.It is impossible to determine whether this book is a novel or a real memory. The full text of "Girl's Heart" is about five or six thousand words, similar to an enlarged diary, and the text is not long.The main content is the process of falling in love with the first-person "I" and my cousin.First, I met my cousin, and then fell in love. The process is relatively simple.The text focuses on the description of "sexual affairs", but rarely writes about emotional exchanges.From the acquaintance to the establishment of a love relationship, the physical contact between the two became closer.There were three touches in total: first stroking sexually, second and third further.In the end, they broke up peacefully without explaining the reason for the breakup.Maybe the author didn't think it was necessary to explain.It should be said that "Girl's Heart" is a "work" that ignores emotions and focuses on sexual matters.It mainly tells about the sexual experience of girls.The author uses the limited artistic vocabulary she has learned to describe her sexual horror and joy after sexual experience, and her style is boastful and flamboyant.

"Memoirs of Manna" and "Girl Heart" have a common feature: first-person speaking, they regard themselves as "secret reports".It is the report of the "pioneers" who have fearlessly touched and penetrated the realms of "terror", have landed on the "new land", and then proclaimed themselves "discoverers".This may be understandable in an era when sexual culture was extremely poor and almost equal to zero, but it seems naive and shallow today. The reason why these two manuscripts have a market among young people is because young people want to use them to understand sexual and physiological knowledge.

During the "Cultural Revolution", almost every educated youth had a small notebook, which was filled with aphorisms and aphorisms extracted from various "porn books". Of course, secret knowledge about men and women was also included in the scope of their collection.However, the gap in sexual knowledge is not easy to fill. The society, including teachers and parents, deny the existence of "sex".It takes a lot of courage for young men and women to penetrate this restricted area. The authors of "Memoirs of Manna" and "A Girl's Heart", these two "rebellious" women, went deep into the restricted area and returned with "full loads", presenting them to the young people.From this point of view, these words may indeed have a little "literary factor".Because they reflect a spiritual phenomenon, they paint a layer of "literary" color on the sexual things that are common to everyone in normal society.

The girl in "The Heart of a Girl", after being seduced by her cousin, describes the beauty of sex as if it were an unknown world.This "awakening" and "discovery" has typical social and "cultural" meanings. According to articles in some newspapers, many girls and boys "made mistakes", or "lost their virginity", or even completely "degenerated" after reading "Girl's Heart". The authors of "Girl's Heart" and "Memoirs of Manna" openly and unambiguously issued their call for sex in the era of asceticism during the "Cultural Revolution". Although "Memoirs of Manna" confided more bitterness, she still regarded herself as entering a "mysterious world".In "Peking People" (a large report) published after the "Cultural Revolution", a woman once stated that after reading "Girl's Heart", she was confused by it, and after trying sex, she was not as magical as the book said. Very disappointed. The exaggeration of sex in "Girl Heart" does contain a certain cultural psychology.

Probably only in the era of asceticism such as the "Cultural Revolution" can such a peculiar literary phenomenon be produced. The 14th-century Italian humanist writer Buccaccio's work was born in the initial stage of the transition from the feudal Middle Ages to the capitalist modern times.In 1497, it was used as a "obscene book", thrown in Lawrence Square, burned, and almost out of print. (During the "Cultural Revolution", it also became the target of dictatorship.) Today, it has been rated as a masterpiece of the Renaissance.Here, I am not trying to compare "A Girl's Heart" and "Memoirs of Manna", but to explain that they were all produced in a specific historical period, and have some reminiscent internal connections with history.