In June 2022, a senior adult film actress in Japan caused heated discussions among everyone. However, this time, it is not her new work that everyone is paying attention to, but that she was actually nominated for the Wasagawa Award.
The Wasagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize are two of the most influential and authoritative awards in the field of Japanese literature. Among them, the Wasagawa Prize is selected from the works published by new writers or unknown writers. Once awarded, the winner goes from an obscure writer to a sought-after literary rookie.
To have such an important award shortlisted an adult film actress is a literary depravity? Or is there something else?
1. The rebellious princess
Ryomi Suzuki was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1983. Her father was a university professor and her mother was a well-known children's writer and translator.
Growing up in this environment, Ryomi Suzuki is not only very beautiful and cute, but also a top student with excellent grades.
According to common sense, when she grows up, Ryomi Suzuki will be admitted to a prestigious school, have a decent job, marry the right lover, and enjoy a beautiful and happy life.
But Ryomi Suzuki's life took a huge turn in high school.
At that time, Japanese babes culture was prevalent. Many young girls like to wear miniskirts and short T-shirts, dyed multicolored hair, exaggerated smoky makeup, and a pair of thick-soled super heels.
At that time, Ryomi Suzuki regarded Namie Amuro as an idol, dyed her hair blonde in imitation, and after school, she and her friends wore mini uniforms and high-heeled boots and wandered around bars and karaoke halls in Shibuya.
At the age of 16, Ryomi Suzuki walked into the original store under the demagoguery of a friend. There, Ryomi Suzuki took off the underwear and panties she wore and sold them to a variety of men. Those men didn't shy away from doing disgusting and obscene actions on the spot when they got these things.
This is the first time that Ryomi Suzuki has faced men's sexual desire, and the naked look makes Ryomi Suzuki deeply feel how disgusting men are, which laid the groundwork for her to enter the AV industry in the future.
Ryomi Suzuki used the money earned from the original store to live a life of drunken gold and absurdly spent her first and second years of high school. One day in her third year of high school, Ryomi Suzuki suddenly got tired of this kind of life and wanted to study hard.
Since that day, Ryomi Suzuki quit all entertainment and devoted herself to studying.
Perhaps it was the unique student genes in her bones that played a role, and it took Ryomi Suzuki only one year to be admitted to the Department of Environmental Information Science at Keio University, a prestigious Japanese university.
The derailed life finally returned to the right path, but Ryomi Suzuki chose to fall again.
This time, Ryomi Suzuki became a wine escort at the instigation of a cowherd friend, and the night world made Ryomi Suzuki completely lose herself.
Just at this time, an AV actress scout appeared in front of Ryomi Suzuki, and she did not hesitate to start her career as an actress.
In 2004, Ryomi Suzuki debuted under the pseudonym "Ruriri Sato" under the label G Cup, when she was just 21 years old.
2. From actress to writer
In just 3 years, Ryomi Suzuki has shot nearly 100 works. Just when everyone thought that Ryomi Suzuki wanted to deepen her career in this industry, she chose to retire.
From Ryo Go, Ryoki Suzuki chose to continue her studies.
She has written about what she has seen and heard in the sex industry, and interviewed many of her peers to document their working lives and unbearable experiences. She wrote these materials into her thesis and was successfully admitted to the University of Tokyo as a master's student.
When she graduated, Ryomi Suzuki became a reporter for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun with her excellent essay "The Sociology of AV Actresses".
This time Ryomi Suzuki's life is really on track, but reality has hit her hard.
A report about Ryomi Suzuki being an AV actress made public the experience of Ryomi Suzuki. For a while, Ryomi Suzuki became a slut that everyone scolded.
The company fired her for the sake of image. After her parents, who did not know before, found out, they did not comfort her, but scolded her for not knowing shame.
However, Ryomi Suzuki was not easily knocked down. She will continue to speak up for the custom industry and for women. So she became an independent writer. She is sharp and bold, and has been hired as a columnist for several magazines.
Later, she used herself as a prototype to create the novel "Gifted" (ギフテッド), which tells the story of a drinking girl who has many conflicts with her mother, but because her mother is seriously ill, she has to live together.
It was this novel that made Ryomi Suzuki a candidate for the Wasagawa Prize. And this once again made Ryomi Suzuki stand on the cusp of the storm and caused criticism.
However, Ryomi Suzuki was undaunted and continued to write her legendary story with words.
3. Practitioners of "feminism"
In 2023, a book called "Starting at the Limit: A Reciprocating Brief of Feminism" will become a bestseller, and the Douban score will be as high as 9.1 points.
In the book, Ryomi Suzuki and another author, Chizuko Ueno, discuss sharp topics such as "sex" and "feminism" through letters.
Similar to Ryomi Suzuki, Chizuko Ueno is also a maverick woman who single-handedly challenges Japan's entire patriarchal society.
Chizuko Ueno was born in Japan in the 40s of the last century and saw from an early age how unfair society treats women.
At that time, women could not go out to work. Although her mother worked day and night at home and took on all the chores, she did not receive her father's gratitude and approval. This gave Chizuko Ueno the idea of running away from her family very early.
After graduating from high school, Chizuko Ueno rejected the "Sofu Jiaoko" education school arranged by her father in order to leave home, and was admitted to Kyoto University to study sociology.
At school, Chizuko Ueno once again witnessed the injustice that women were treated.
Boys categorized girls according to "use": "rescue angels" who participated in rescue operations, "Wudou Rosa" who held martial sticks, and "public toilets" who were more active in sexual relations.
These men obviously took advantage of women, but they insulted them behind their backs, which made Chizuko Ueno very angry.
With the development of the Japanese women's liberation movement in the late 60s of the last century, Chizuko Ueno began to study Japanese women's issues and became a feminist.
In Japan at that time, it was inevitable for women to get married and have children, and Chizuko Ueno only lived together briefly and chose not to have children. Although she has not done anything too out of line, but with this alone, the concept has been ahead of her contemporaries.
Seeing through the truth of society, she often wakes up women through public speeches and writing books, and fights for more rights for women's voices.
In 1987, Chizuko Ueno publicly supported Japanese female singers to bring nursing children to work on TV stations to defend the reproductive rights of women in the workplace.
In 2019, Chizuko Ueno spoke at the opening ceremony of the University of Tokyo, boldly attacking the University of Tokyo for being sexist and that the acceptance rate of female students was less than 20%.
She has devoted her life to uncovering the true face of male power, making people re-examine sexism, and advocating that women arbitrarily control their bodies and pursue the life they want.
In Chizuko Ueno's mind, feminism is that women are free to choose their own lives and can live freely. As long as you like it, you can live in any state without violating basic morality.
The reason why Chizuko Ueno chose Ryomi Suzuki to talk to herself is because every step Ryomi Suzuki takes is unexpected, but extremely determined. No matter what choice she makes, she knows exactly what she desires, even if she is not understood, not supported, and fearless.
In the book "Starting at the Limit", we see the reasons behind each choice of Ryomi Suzuki, and the struggles and efforts she goes through in order to "be herself".
Whether it is the story of Ryomi Suzuki or Chizuko Ueno, we can see the meaning of feminism. Whether to marry or not, to have children or not, we are all free to choose. Without the approval of others, we can also be ourselves.
Our lives are determined by ourselves. As long as we are sure about what we want, and we are sure of our bottom line and choices, then we can open up a vast world of our own.
What does feminism look like in you? And what do you think of the experience of "Ryomi Suzuki as an actress"? Welcome to leave a message to discuss.
Author: Night Rain Dream Creek