China’s latest social media celebrity is a man with the surname Jiao, known online as the “Red Uncle,” who lured a large number of straight men into sexual intercourse by disguising himself as a woman, then secretly filming the encounters.
Jiao was detained by police in the city of Nanjing on Sunday on charges of “spreading obscene material.” Distributing photos or video of sexual acts online is illegal in China and surreptitiously recording sexual activities without the consent of the other party may be a criminal violation of the few privacy rights the Communist Party recognizes.
The case quickly became a viral sensation on Weibo, China’s heavily-censored microblogging platform, where the hashtag #RedUncle racked up over 200 million views. The fetching cross-dresser has also been dubbed the “Red Old Man.”
The Chinese Communist Party typically moves rapidly to censor politically sensitive materials or anything otherwise detrimental to the regime’s agenda. The minimal censorship of the “Red Uncle” case on Weibo — and coverage of the alleged crimes in regime outlets such as the Global Times — indicate that the Chinese government does not appear to want to hide the case from the public for now.
Nanjing officials are disputing several details of the case, including Jiao’s age and number of victims. Social media posts claimed he was 60 years old and managed to have sex with an astounding 1,691 men, but the police say he is 38 and his pool of victims is much smaller. The Global Times emphasized that “what has been circulating online that said a 60-year-old man in Nanjing cross-dressed and had intimate relations with over a thousand people is false information.”
Jiao’s scorecard was impressive enough to get the authorities talking about the risk to public health he might have created. “If you are a close contact and worried about your health, you can come to us for testing any time,” a Nanjing health official advised.
Weibo users were stunned by footage that showed Jiao unconvincingly shrouded in wigs, makeup, and stylish Western clothing. He allegedly persuaded his victims to follow him home to a sparsely-decorated room, and often got them to bring food and even cooking equipment with them.
Based on the social media discussions, the Red Uncle was apparently selling his secretly recorded videos for monetary gain. A post circulating on Weibo included headshots of almost a hundred of his alleged victims.
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