The long-term goal of Fang Si-Qi’s First Love Paradise as a cultural and activist intervention is to dismantle the normalized structures of gender-based violence, coercion, and silence—especially those cloaked in the language of mentorship, love, or literary idealism. The novel aspires to reframe how society perceives abuse: not as isolated tragedy, but as a systemic failure of education, family, law, and language.
By offering a vocabulary to articulate trauma that resists erasure or beautification, the work aims to foster long-lasting feminist consciousness across East Asia. It seeks to inspire reforms in legal systems, educational ethics, mental health discourse, and media narratives, ultimately demanding that stories like Fang Si-Qi’s be prevented, not just mourned.
In the years following the publication of “Fang Siquei’s First Love Paradise,” many readers have engaged in structural reflections linking the novel to real-world society. As the afterword of the novel states, “Any violence related to sex is ‘social,’ or to put it another way, any violence related to sex is not carried out by the perpetrator alone, but rather by society as a whole assisting the perpetrator.”
In the years following the publication of “Fang Siquei’s First Love Paradise,” many readers have engaged in structural reflections linking the novel to real-world society. As the afterword of the novel states, “Any violence related to sex is ‘social,’ or to put it another way, any violence related to sex is not carried out by the perpetrator alone, but rather by society as a whole assisting the perpetrator.”
In the years following the publication of “Fang Siquei’s First Love Paradise,” many readers have engaged in structural reflections linking the novel to real-world society. As the afterword of the novel states, “Any violence related to sex is ‘social,’ or to put it another way, any violence related to sex is not carried out by the perpetrator alone, but rather by society as a whole assisting the perpetrator.”
The article “What Killed Lin Yichang? The Despair and Discourse of the Lower Ranks in the Field of Power | Thought World” summarizes the discussion on how power inequality contributes to sexual abuse of minors and emphasizes the importance of constraining and regulating power. There is a huge power disparity in the relationship between minors and teachers. Whether it be connections, social resources, or literary skills (i.e., what Lin Yichang referred to as “sweet talk”), Li Guohua far exceeded his underage student. Fang Siquei’s pleas for help to her friends, parents, and netizens only earned her skepticism and ridicule. The person in a position of power in a relationship does not need to explain themselves; instead, the victim is blamed, lectured, and burdened with the responsibility of explaining themselves and suffering permanent trauma.
Additionally, an education system that prioritizes academic achievement as the sole goal makes students more eager for teachers’ praise and recognition, leading to excessive trust in teachers. In the novel, more than one teacher exploits tutoring sessions to sexually assault minor students, presenting such behavior as care and a test. As Lin Yichan wrote in her book, the college entrance exam system is one of the accomplices of violence: “He injected such immense desire into the beautiful girl, injecting the pain, cruelty, and inhumanity of the Taiwanese college entrance exam system into her. He multiplied the will of a night spent studying by 365 days a year, then multiplied that by the tens of thousands of people an ugly girl must outshine, and injected it all into the beautiful girl. A magnificent climax, an epic seduction. Great exam-oriented education.”
The lack of sexual education for minors is also an issue that has garnered increasing attention and calls for improvement following the publication of “Fang Ssu-chi’s First Love Paradise.” “Xi Xi Academy,” an organization dedicated to providing sexual education for children, points out that over the past six years (2015–2020), there have been over 300 cases of child sexual abuse annually, with the youngest victim being just one year old. In 2020 alone, 332 cases of child sexual abuse were reported by the media, involving over 840 victims, with the youngest being one year old, and the perpetrators ranging in age from 10 to 86. Sex education—whether in family or school settings—is a glaring shortfall. In the novel, Fang Siquei twice attempted to tell her parents about her experiences but ultimately refrained from doing so due to their reactions when she tested the waters. When Siquei told her mother, “Our family seems to have everything, but we don’t have sex education,” her mother looked at her in surprise and replied, “What sex education? Sex education is for those who need it.” Another time, she said, “I heard that a classmate is dating a teacher.” Her mother responded, “Who? At such a young age, she’s already so promiscuous.” In that moment, Siquei decided she would never speak again.
