We are taught to worship at the altar of “good enough.” Good enough job. Good enough marriage. Good enough orgasm. But “good enough” is a cage lined with velvet. I felt it, that seismic thrum under my sternum, as I watched the CEO’s unraveling. When she lets her intern—a man ordinary as dust—unbutton her with the reverence of a priest, it’s not his face that matters. It’s his attention. His willingness to kneel at the altar of her hunger. The film is not about infidelity; it’s an indictment of a world that tells women to swallow their desire or let it destroy them.

I know this dance the repression and rebellion. Years ago, I bartered my body for cheap validation, mistaking penetration for power. It hollowed me. Celibacy became my rebellion—four years of stillness to relearn the language of my pulse. My teacher, Kasia, a Taoist-trained dominatrix, said “The first act of domination is to stop lying to yourself.” Celibacy was not a denial of desire, but a reclamation. A refusal to let my hunger be cheapened.

In my practice as spiritual coach, I’ve witnessed this hollowness in women who wear numbness like armor. The lawyer who hasn’t felt her own pulse in years. The mother fantasizing about being pinned to her minivan by a stranger’s hands. They whisper the same lie: “I have everything. Why is everything not enough?” The answer is etched into our bones. Society sells us dioramas of desire—neat, safe, sanitized—while our bodies crave wildfire. And isn’t that the scream echoing through BookTok’s dog-eared smut? Women are starving for more than “good dick.” We crave annihilation and resurrection. To be both temple and tempest.

You want to know why you’re numb? Because you’ve been negotiating with your desire instead of commanding it.

When desire is gagged, it curdles. Turns to rage. A volcanic thing. This rage could scorch empires. Or build new ones.

Carl Jung understood this. He wrote of shadow work—the need to ritualize repressed longings, to let them breathe in moonlight rather than fester in shame. Dionysian rites, Tantric breath, the primal roll of a mother’s hips as she sways her child: These are not indulgences. They are maps to ecstasy. It is transcendent state of joy or union with the divine, not mere hedonistic pleasure. It is a momentary dissolution of the ego, where one experiences profound connection to something greater—a spiritual or archetypal force.

The Unsung Renegade | C.F. Su is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We often confuses ecstasy with temporary highs (e.g., drugs, sex, consumerism), which are fleeting and ultimately hollow. True ecstasy requires confronting and integrating the "shadow"—the repressed, unconscious parts of ourselves—to achieve lasting fulfillment.

Yet society still flinches at the unquiet woman. The one who howls. Who’d rather burn her life down than rot in the tomb of “good enough.” When societies or individuals repress the desire for ecstasy, it resurfaces in destructive ways—addiction, obsession, or nihilism. Johnson ties this to Jung’s concept of the "collective unconscious," where unacknowledged desires shape cultural pathologies.

The CEO’s rage—the rage of women forced to ration their humanity—is not a flaw. It’s a force. History’s revolutions were born not from ideology, but from the collective realization: We are not meant to live this small. When desire is gagged, it curdles. Turns volcanic. This rage could raze empires. Or build new ones.

But let us be precise. Liberation is not license. The intern in Baby Girl is no hero—he’s a catalyst. The real revolution is her refusal to apologize for her ferocity. For needing more than the script she was handed. Here lies the paradox: To surrender fully, we must first become inviolable. To say, “I will meet you in the chaos, but I will not lose myself there.”

Men, too, are ensnared—conditioned to conflate conquest with intimacy, to fear the vulnerability of truly seeing a woman. Empathy is not absolution. The path forward demands audacity: to stop confusing love with ownership, safety with control.

The film ends without resolution. The CEO doesn’t divorce or quit. She stands in the storm of her becoming—grief, euphoria, both. Baby Girl nails this truth to our cultural door: Women are done choosing between monuments and monsters. We will be both. We will carve our own altars.

The rage of sexless women is not a footnote. It’s a headline. A warning. A promise. When the numb begin to feel, the world trembles. The revolution will not be sanitized. It will be wet with sweat, blood, and the holy mess of wanting. It will smell like jasmine and burnt sugar, sound like a million women whispering, then roaring: “Watch me take it back.”

The most subversive act a woman can commit? To stop conflating desire with desperation. To want fiercely, unrepentantly. Baby Girl is not a manifesto—it’s a mirror. In its fractured reflection, we see: The way out is through. Through the rage. Through the hunger. Through.

Your hunger is not a defect. It’s a compass. The world fears women who refuse to apologize for their fire. Burn anyway.

Share The Unsung Renegade | C.F. Su

We are taught to worship at the altar of “good enough.” Good enough job. Good enough marriage. Good enough orgasm. But “good enough” is a cage lined with velvet. I felt it, that seismic thrum under my sternum, as I watched the CEO’s unraveling. When she lets her intern—a man ordinary as dust—unbutton her with the reverence of a priest, it’s not his face that matters. It’s his attention. His willingness to kneel at the altar of her hunger. The film is not about infidelity; it’s an indictment of a world that tells women to swallow their desire or let it destroy them.

I know this dance the repression and rebellion. Years ago, I bartered my body for cheap validation, mistaking penetration for power. It hollowed me. Celibacy became my rebellion—four years of stillness to relearn the language of my pulse. My teacher, Kasia, a Taoist-trained dominatrix, said “The first act of domination is to stop lying to yourself.” Celibacy was not a denial of desire, but a reclamation. A refusal to let my hunger be cheapened.

In my practice as spiritual coach, I’ve witnessed this hollowness in women who wear numbness like armor. The lawyer who hasn’t felt her own pulse in years. The mother fantasizing about being pinned to her minivan by a stranger’s hands. They whisper the same lie: “I have everything. Why is everything not enough?” The answer is etched into our bones. Society sells us dioramas of desire—neat, safe, sanitized—while our bodies crave wildfire. And isn’t that the scream echoing through BookTok’s dog-eared smut? Women are starving for more than “good dick.” We crave annihilation and resurrection. To be both temple and tempest.

You want to know why you’re numb? Because you’ve been negotiating with your desire instead of commanding it.

When desire is gagged, it curdles. Turns to rage. A volcanic thing. This rage could scorch empires. Or build new ones.

Carl Jung understood this. He wrote of shadow work—the need to ritualize repressed longings, to let them breathe in moonlight rather than fester in shame. Dionysian rites, Tantric breath, the primal roll of a mother’s hips as she sways her child: These are not indulgences. They are maps to ecstasy. It is transcendent state of joy or union with the divine, not mere hedonistic pleasure. It is a momentary dissolution of the ego, where one experiences profound connection to something greater—a spiritual or archetypal force.

The Unsung Renegade | C.F. Su is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We often confuses ecstasy with temporary highs (e.g., drugs, sex, consumerism), which are fleeting and ultimately hollow. True ecstasy requires confronting and integrating the "shadow"—the repressed, unconscious parts of ourselves—to achieve lasting fulfillment.

Yet society still flinches at the unquiet woman. The one who howls. Who’d rather burn her life down than rot in the tomb of “good enough.” When societies or individuals repress the desire for ecstasy, it resurfaces in destructive ways—addiction, obsession, or nihilism. Johnson ties this to Jung’s concept of the "collective unconscious," where unacknowledged desires shape cultural pathologies.

The CEO’s rage—the rage of women forced to ration their humanity—is not a flaw. It’s a force. History’s revolutions were born not from ideology, but from the collective realization: We are not meant to live this small. When desire is gagged, it curdles. Turns volcanic. This rage could raze empires. Or build new ones.

But let us be precise. Liberation is not license. The intern in Baby Girl is no hero—he’s a catalyst. The real revolution is her refusal to apologize for her ferocity. For needing more than the script she was handed. Here lies the paradox: To surrender fully, we must first become inviolable. To say, “I will meet you in the chaos, but I will not lose myself there.”

Men, too, are ensnared—conditioned to conflate conquest with intimacy, to fear the vulnerability of truly seeing a woman. Empathy is not absolution. The path forward demands audacity: to stop confusing love with ownership, safety with control.

The film ends without resolution. The CEO doesn’t divorce or quit. She stands in the storm of her becoming—grief, euphoria, both. Baby Girl nails this truth to our cultural door: Women are done choosing between monuments and monsters. We will be both. We will carve our own altars.

The rage of sexless women is not a footnote. It’s a headline. A warning. A promise. When the numb begin to feel, the world trembles. The revolution will not be sanitized. It will be wet with sweat, blood, and the holy mess of wanting. It will smell like jasmine and burnt sugar, sound like a million women whispering, then roaring: “Watch me take it back.”

The most subversive act a woman can commit? To stop conflating desire with desperation. To want fiercely, unrepentantly. Baby Girl is not a manifesto—it’s a mirror. In its fractured reflection, we see: The way out is through. Through the rage. Through the hunger. Through.

Your hunger is not a defect. It’s a compass. The world fears women who refuse to apologize for their fire. Burn anyway.

Share The Unsung Renegade | C.F. Su