Zhou Hongyi once said that 360 Security Guard is not “impossible to uninstall.” It simply has to be removed in a particular way, after a series of complicated steps. The explanation was that this design could stop hackers from breaking into a computer and casually uninstalling 360, leaving the machine exposed to danger.

At first glance, the whole thing is almost too easy to mock. But the more annoying part is that this absurd logic can still dress itself up as internally consistent. I kept trying to find the cleanest way to describe that contradiction, and in the end the closest comparison was still vulgar and bodily: a chastity lock.

A chastity lock can be used to perform a kind of non-physical self-castration. But the key must be kept somewhere not too easy to reach. That way, purity is protected, and the key is also protected from careless handling—otherwise, you may spend the rest of your life wearing the lock.

The essence of this logic is the same drama that plays out in many families: “I’m doing this for your own good.”

Imagine a child being fitted with a chastity lock so he cannot secretly masturbate. The key is kept by the parents. The lock, of course, still allows ordinary urination, so his needs have been regulated down to an extreme minimum. He can certainly ask his parents for the key and request that the lock be opened for a while. But the family has already agreed—at least in the parents’ minds—on what counts as the “minimum necessary” standard. Since the lock already allows every “normal need” to be met, the very desire to open it begins to look suspicious.

In other words, once the child asks for the key, even if it is only because a morning erection has become painfully uncomfortable, the parents will assume there must be some improper intention behind it. Maybe he wants to masturbate. Maybe he has had some dirty thought. So the parents make the decision for him: “We’re doing this for your own good. If you masturbate at such a young age, you won’t be able to have children as smart as you when you grow up.”

But the act of unlocking itself becomes a temptation that keeps entering the child’s mind. It is not only about masturbation. It may simply be the urge to undo the authority and restraint that the parents have placed on his body. The older he gets, the more he wants the lock opened.

Then conflict begins. The child believes he has reached an age where he no longer needs a chastity lock. He believes he can manage his own thoughts and his own life. The parents disagree. To open the lock would mean returning to the child a power that had once been under parental control. It would mean the day had arrived when the child’s wings had grown strong.

As the conflict intensifies, the family develops something resembling adult negotiation: “Fine. We can give you the key, but there are conditions. You need to get into the ideal university first.”

Once conditions appear, bargaining chips appear with them.

At the beginning, the child wearing the chastity lock is completely passive. His genitals and desires are both locked away. Within that minimum set of rules, there is nothing left for him to compromise over, and nothing more that can be taken from him. But once the key becomes a negotiable chip, he also learns what the equivalent price of that chip is: admission to a good university.

The negotiation will not end after one conversation. Once the child understands that there is a chip on the table, he learns how to demand more rights. The parents, of course, cannot allow that to continue. Turning the key into a bargaining tool was already a dangerous move; there is no way they can keep retreating. But the locked child also discovers a new method: “If getting into a good university is so important, then if you don’t give me the key, I won’t study properly.”

This is a risky move, but it works.

When parents realize their most vulnerable point has been grabbed, their first instinct is to tear up the original agreement. If the child dares to threaten them this way, then there is no need to discuss returning the key at all. But the child is no longer afraid of that threat. At this stage in the parent-child relationship, the real stake is no longer the key itself. Whether the child can get into a good university has become the biggest chip in the gamble.

Seeing that the child is no longer intimidated by the loss of the key, the parents are forced into softer tactics. They begin making conditional concessions: “We can give you the key, but first you have to promise to rank first in the next monthly exam. Then you can have the key for one weekend.”

For a while, this kind of negotiation is effective. The child realizes that refusing to yield has won him a right he should have had in the first place.

But in some families, the story becomes mutually destructive. Parents threaten obedience by saying they will throw the key away. The child bets that they would never dare. During the standoff, the parents, furious and unable to back down, really do throw it away. The result is that the child must live with the chastity lock for the rest of his life, while the parents will never admit that throwing away the key was their responsibility. If the child had not been disobedient at the time, they say, they would never have acted so impulsively.

Even when an agreement is reached, it can be torn apart again. It may happen because the parents want to tighten the rules once more. It may happen because the child fails to meet their expectations and then pushes for more. The parents think the key must never truly be handed over, so they try to rewrite the rules. The child repeats the threat that once worked. Or the child cannot meet the parents’ demands and blames that failure on the parents’ refusal to surrender the key.

As the two sides keep maneuvering, what began as once a week gradually becomes twice a week.

Some children learn, during this process, to make another key for the chastity lock on their own. Some get the key and never intend to return it, then use that refusal to threaten their parents in return. Some are fitted with a more sophisticated lock, pushing both sides back to the original “minimum necessary” arrangement. Some parents, upon discovering that the child has violated the rules of the chastity lock, feel as if the sky has collapsed, so they put a chastity lock on themselves as well.

And then there are children who slowly understand that no matter how hard they try, they will never really get the key. So they begin to enjoy a life in which their desires are sealed away. They treat themselves like dogs or pigs. They find pleasure in the confinement of their physical instincts and arrive at a kind of spiritual climax that feels, to them, more real than anything the body could offer.

By then, the parents finally realize it is time to unlock the child’s chastity lock.

But the child refuses. He swallows the key they hand him and tells them he likes what he has become. He no longer needs an erection below the waist. His mind can climax whenever it wants.