China is home to a burgeoning livestream shopping industry, with more than SGD$956 billion and contributing about 10% of China’s e-commerce revenue.
But China had also reportedly banned women from modelling lingerie as part of their escalating censorship laws aimed at preventing the spread of “obscene” material online.
As a result, livestreamers in China have turned to some rather unorthodox methods to model and sell their lingerie products.
They turned to male models instead, to model female lingerie.
One livestreamer replaced their female model with a man in December last year, in keeping up with the law, with many other livestreamers soon following suit.
Speaking to Jiupai News, one live stream business owner, Xu, said that they don’t really have a choice because their products can’t be modelled by their female colleagues, so they used their male colleagues instead.
Business Insider reported that livestreams in China that feature female models donning lingerie have had a history of being promptly shut down and banned.
Reuters reported that it was part of China’s campaign of “cleansing” the media of influencers and entertainers that were perceived as “polluting” the minds of their society.
Idols that were deemed “effeminate” and had “incorrect political positions” were also frozen out of the public eye.
在中国，女人在直播间里是不能穿内衣出镜的。否则直播间将因为涉嫌传播淫秽而立刻被永久封禁。那如果我非要在直播间带货卖女式内衣该怎么办呢？很简单，找男人来穿。 pic.twitter.com/4CHlq7fMdx
— 小径残雪 (@xiaojingcanxue) January 11, 2023