National Dignity Is Not a Penis You Can Brandish at Will

Ma Siwei

Dalian Polytechnic University recently announced its intention to expel a 21-year-old female student, Li Xinshi (李欣蒔), on the grounds of “improper relations with a foreigner, which damaged national dignity and the university’s reputation.” Her alleged offense? A consensual one-night stand with a retired Ukrainian esports player, Zeus, who then maliciously leaked a video of the encounter to his fan group, boasting with captions like “easy girl.” This act was a clear violation of Li’s privacy and dignity, and an affront to basic norms of gender respect. Yet, in the public discourse, the focus quickly shifted from the perpetrator’s offense to an imagined collective disgrace. The language of “female virtue” and “national dignity” swelled in volume, as if a woman’s genitalia were wired to the nation’s flagpole, meant to rise and fall in synchronized ceremony.

What exactly is “national dignity”? If it means a state’s ability to maintain equality, civility, and the rule of law in the international community, then dignity is first and foremost manifested in the protection of its citizens’ rights. Privacy, reputation, and sexual autonomy are not luxuries but basic entitlements in any modern legal system. In this context, Li—filmed and exposed without consent—is clearly a victim and should be the first to receive institutional protection. That she is a Chinese citizen only deepens the state’s obligation to seek justice on her behalf. But instead, the university has wielded “national dignity” as a cudgel to further humiliate her. This weaponization of nationalism, paradoxically, is what most deeply undermines the rule-of-law image the state claims to project.

The regulation cited—“improper contact with foreigners damaging to national dignity and university honor”—reads like a holdover from Qing-era xenophobic treaties, steeped in a colonial paranoia that equates any interaction with outsiders, particularly sexual or emotional ones, with breaches of sovereignty. But a university is not the late imperial Board of Rites, and students are not colonial assets to be guarded for export value. Love, heartbreak, desire, and regret belong to the most ordinary registers of private life. In the absence of coercion, violence, or minors, they concern no one beyond the individuals involved. To forcibly politicize the private realm is to declare that every mattress in the country bears a surveillance camera, that every moan must align with the national anthem. This is not a defense of dignity—it is its liquidation at a discount.

Some have claimed, “She tarnished the image of Chinese women abroad,” as if global diplomats were queuing up to watch a grainy, leaked sex tape and revising their foreign policies accordingly. If national image is the issue, then the primary threat lies in Zeus’s language of insult. If the university truly cared about dignity, it would assist Li in filing a transnational civil suit and work with law enforcement to hold Zeus accountable for distributing obscene content and defaming women. Instead, it opts to discipline the weakest link, turning “national dignity” into a disposable tool for punishing women.

Procedurally, the university’s public notice included Li’s full name, effectively affixing a lifelong scarlet letter to a young woman about to enter the job market and adult society. This disclosure violates the Personal Information Protection Law’s provisions on sensitive data, as well as Ministry of Education guidelines emphasizing privacy and education over punishment in disciplinary matters. Calls to “set an example” are nothing more than chorus lines in the theater of public violence: society flogs the female body under the guise of patriotism, only to erode its own respect for individual boundaries in the process.

Some argue that “anything potentially harmful to society is no longer private.” But what harm, exactly, does a consensual one-night stand inflict? No third party was injured. The true amplification of harm came from Zeus’s release of the footage and the media’s subsequent exploitation. If there was damage, it was a second wave of violence—this time inflicted by networks and narratives—against Li herself and, by extension, against women more broadly. To treat the victim as scapegoat is not only logically perverse; it chills the air for anyone in society contemplating love, sexuality, or trust.

Notably, in this context, “national dignity” becomes something disturbingly anatomical—like a penis pulled out in displays of loyalty and shoved back in when discomfort sets in. When Chinese women win gold medals or scientific accolades, dignity rushes in to hoist the flag. But when these same women suffer gender-based violence or violations of privacy, dignity slinks into the shadows, leaving them to run naked through the streets of public derision. This selective deployment reveals “national dignity” as little more than a single-use condom of political convenience: flashy when needed, disposable thereafter, fragile at the core.

The controversy we now face is not just a quarrel over sex or morality—it is a collective exam on the division between public and private life. A university should foster civic awareness, teaching students to respect personal choices and safeguard individual rights. It should not drape outdated chastity codes in the robes of collective honor. True national dignity lies in the defense of individual integrity. Genuine university reputation rests on its ability to protect students from harm. In an era of globally circulating information, every tribunal of privacy held under the guise of patriotism will inevitably backfire in the court of international opinion.

There is still a window for appeal. Li Xinshi can—and should—pursue legal recourse, demanding that the university revoke its disciplinary action, issue a public apology, and safeguard her personal data. Public discourse, too, should reorient its gaze toward Zeus’s clear violations and the platforms that abetted them, rather than continuing to exploit the female body in the name of national emotion. If national dignity must be maintained by punishing victims, then it becomes a penis worn down by overuse—apparently potent, but ultimately impotent.

When the private sphere is repeatedly politicized, public reason is inevitably castrated. National dignity is not a penis to be brandished at will. It resides in the quiet structures of law, equity, and human rights. Only when a nation dares to protect its most vulnerable, to pursue the real perpetrators rather than shame the wounded, can it lay claim to genuine dignity. And for a university, the protection of students’ legal rights is far more honorable than slapping a flag on their private lives.