BEIJING: The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or "uncle", who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 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 (July 8), drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock.
The online posts told of how 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, surnamed 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.
Same-sex relations are not illegal in China, but 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 offence.
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 fiances or husbands featured.
Many social media users expressed concerns over the risk of sexually transmitted disease, with one warning the incident present "a big headache" for epidemic prevention authorities.
A city health official told the state-backed Jimu News that appropriate measures would be taken.
"If you are a close contact and worried about your health, you can come to us for testing any time." - Reuters
