With China’s censorship of women in lingerie, men replace models

Wearing a sassy piece of silk lingerie, a male model dances to the beat and forms a heart with his fingers during a live streaming session on Douyin, one of China’s most popular video sharing platforms.

Her role as a role model is the latest illustration of the kind of entrepreneurial innovation sometimes needed to get around China’s stringent internet censorship, a network that can attract seemingly innocuous activity — in this case, retailers selling women’s underwear online.

China has one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world, with a history of blocking not only politically sensitive information, but also images of women’s bodies deemed inappropriate.

Several companies specializing in the sale of lingerie through live streaming had their sessions interrupted after they featured a female model and their problem with internet censorship came to light in January. Hence the use of men in their place.

In one of the sales channels, a man is seen dressed in black lingerie, next to a mannequin showing a similar outfit, in what appears to be a screenshot of a live broadcast on Alibaba’s Taobao Live, a streaming platform for the e-commerce giant.

In another image, a different male model donned a pink dress and silk shawl, accessorized with cat-ear headbands.

In a live-streamed clip carried by several state media outlets, the owner of an online venture said he was simply trying to play it safe.

“This is not an attempt at sarcasm. Everyone is taking compliance with the rules very seriously,” said the man, who gave his name as Xu.

The emergence of male lingerie models has caused mixed opinions online in China, ranging from joy and annoyance to grudging acceptance.

“So what should I do if I want to promote and show lingerie in the live stream session? It’s very simple, find a man to use it,” read a comment on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo.

mass industry

Live product sales are a multi-billion dollar industry in mainland China and have received a huge boost during the country’s three years of strict Covid lockdowns that have crippled many brick-and-mortar businesses.

As of June last year, the number of live streaming e-commerce users in mainland China was over 460 million, according to the Board of the China Academy for Promoting International Trade, an affiliated body of the Beijing Ministry of Commerce.

A 2021 report by iResearch, a Beijing-based company that specializes in measuring online audience growth, predicted that the live streaming industry would be worth up to $720 billion this year.

Male models are not the only alternative solution.

On Douyin, the Chinese domestic version of TikTok, other female models circumvented the censorship by showing off the latest lingerie style on top of a T-shirt they were already wearing.

Others displayed the items on mannequins.

In 2015, China led a crackdown on television shows that exposed actresses’ cleavage, forcing some of the most popular fantasy dramas to zoom in on their faces to avoid trouble with broadcasting authorities.

Having male influencers promoting products aimed at women is nothing new in China either.

One of the most successful live shopping influencers in the industry is Austin Li Jiaqi, who became known as the “King of Lipstick” after selling 15,000 lipsticks in just five minutes in 2018.

As one of China’s biggest internet celebrities, Li also sells cosmetics, skincare products and fashionable clothing, often applying the products he sells to his own face.

Even outside of China, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have faced criticism for restricting the sharing of images that involve partial nudity, particularly of women.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, restricts sharing of breasts, although it says it intends to “allow images to be shared for medical or health purposes”.

But even Meta’s own Supervisory Board has asked the company to make its policy less confusing and more gender inclusive.

YouTube says it prohibits “the depiction of genitals, breasts or buttocks whether or not clothed, intended for sexual gratification”, but may restrict other images or videos that involve nudity.

Source: CNN Brasil

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