The tale of a middle-aged man, or “uncle,” who allegedly disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with hundreds of men, shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity.
The hash tag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular micro-blog Weibo on Tuesday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock.
The online posts said the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online.
The video-sharing was confirmed by district police in Nanjing in a statement on Tuesday. They said the cross-dressing man, whose last name is Jiao, had been detained on Sunday on suspicion of spreading obscene material.
But police said Jiao was aged 38, not 60, as social media posts had stated. They also denied that he had intimate meetings with more than 1,000 men, but did not give a figure.
Jiao could not be immediately reached for comment.
In China, homosexuality was decriminalized in 1997, but the dissemination of images of sexual acts is punishable by law.
Taking pictures of sexual activities in a private setting and sharing them also violates privacy rights and could be deemed a criminal offense.
Many social media users expressed public health concerns, with one Weibo user warning the incident could be “a big headache” for epidemic prevention authorities.
Social media users also circulated a montage of headshots of nearly 100 men supposed to have met the “red uncle,” prompting mock advice from some, urging women to check if their fiancés or husbands featured.
“The invasion of personal privacy is a no-no,” said one user, warning that it was irresponsible to publish such a compilation.
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