China Sex Scandals 2.0

The internet keeps on growing, the technology allowing us to record ourselves in all matter of compromising positions keeps progressing and people certainly aren't going to stop having sex. Even China's internet censors can't seem to stop flesh from flooding the internets. It seems the only thing that can stop internet sex videos is surges of overeager netizens flooding the servers that host them. Given the facts, this roundup – a history of internet sex scandals from 2003 to the present – probably won't be our last.

Mu Zimei
The first internet sex celebrity in China, Mu Zimei became famous way back in 2003 for her detailed blog posts detailing her trysts with various men. The tales, including a notorious one about an unfulfilling quickie outside a Guangzhou restaurant with a Chinese rock star, proved so popular that Mu's blog was soon offline. Not because of government pressure but because the demand from readers was so great that her blog's servers crashed. Before the servers melted Mu had the highest ranked website in China. Sina picked up Mu's blog and found it drew 10 million visitors per day, keep in mind this is China 2003, and there were only an estimated 68 million netizens in China at that time. Sohu reported Mu Zimei was the most searched name in China. Mu is still at it, despite subsequent troubles in China she's kept writing and has now moved on to podcasting – her most infamous podcast is an hour long audio recording of Mu having sex with a lover. It draws a mere 10,000 visits a day, perhaps because these days a wide variety of similar, and far more explicit, material is now available to Chinese netizens.

Zhang Yu
Starting in 2002, actress Zhang Yu began making noise about the "unspoken" or "hidden" rule that female actresses had to sleep with directors to get parts in movies but her accusations didn't gain much leverage in the press. Zhang claims all he roles were gotten by sleeping with men in charge of the movies or shows and now she's got the videos to prove it. Twenty graphic casting couch videos have been posted online and received millions of hits. Not surprisingly, Zhang Yu has a blog. On it she explains the rationale behind her actions, "Why should a woman suffer in silence and bear with all the unfair treatment? If you have to mix with beasts and snakes and you are not venomous, how shall you survive?"

Blood Sex Tape
Blood Sex Tape (流血的黄色录像) is a faux-documentary made in 2007. It's about a couple makes a sex tape, the tape finds its way online and a camera crew comes to interview the young lovers. The woman rushes out of the interview and leaps to her death. The filmmakers catch a shot of the woman's body on the ground outside their apartment and stay with her boyfriend as he searches out the people responsible for uploading the video. That the film was staged seems to have undeterred the millions of Chinese netizens who have viewed it and commented on it at youku, Sina and other video sharing sites.

Baobao and A Zi
These two teenaged twins became internet favorites after they exposed an underage prostitution ring. The two girls fell prey to a scam perpetuated by the Yuanyuan Movie and TV studio which recruited girls, got them to have sex with wealthy clients by suggesting these were the "unspoken rules" all actresses had to follow in order to develop careers, then secretly filmed the liaisons and used the tapes to keep the girls from escaping. The girls were also encouraged to record their sex acts so the ringleaders could blackmail the clients for having sex with underage girls. The ring involved dozens of girls. The Beijing Youth Daily reported on the story as did Shanghai Daily and after the girls wrote a letter to the Haidian Disctrict PSB the prostitution ring was investigated and the ringleaders was charged. A news report with an accompanying video that includes trial footage can be watched here (Chinese).