China’s ban on female lingerie models leads to lingerie-wearing male models in shopping livestreams
By Ryan General
March 2, 2023
Lingerie-wearing male models have recently become a growing trend in Chinese e-commerce broadcasts after the government imposed a ban on women modeling lingerie on livestreams.
The ban, which is being implemented under China’s law against spreading obscene online material, has resulted in the closure of businesses that employed female lingerie models.
After one online shopping streamer replaced its models with male models in December, many businesses have since followed suit, effectively circumventing the ban.
An e-commerce business owner identified as Mr. Xu told Jiupai News that he chose to use male models in their livestream shopping shows simply because their designs can no longer be modeled by their female models.
“Personally, we don’t really have a choice,” he was quoted by Business Insider as saying.
Tapping into the loophole may have even created a novel marketing strategy for the businesses that make them stand out from other sellers of female products.
But while many Chinese social media users find the male lingerie model trend amusing, there are others who have pointed out that this means fewer job opportunities for women.
“If it’s a female model, the livestream would be banned every other minute, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before, this is still depriving a group of women of their job opportunities,” a popular Weibo comment read.
In response to the feedback, Xu said: “Many directors of these livestreams are women, are they also stealing men’s jobs?”
Male models had been used to successfully sell traditionally female products online in China even before the ban.
Wu Nan, a 41-year-old businessman whose Douyin username translates to “Uncle Wu Who Wears High Heels,” previously went viral for his videos in which he runs and jumps in high heels to demonstrate their quality.
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