△Kris Wu has denied the allegations on social media. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
These days, the news of Kris Wu’s sexual misconduct is sweeping across Chinese social media and abroad. Kris Wu, a Chinese-Canadian rapper, singer, and actor, is alleged of raping eight girls, including two underaged. Du Meizhu, one of the victims who is 19 years old now, said that Kris raped her when she was drunk and unconscious during their relationship, when Du was 17. Kris promised her that he would take her to meet his mom, but what happened was only Kris’s ghosting. Later, Du found out that Kris has done the same thing to at least another seven girls, and he never wore a condom. According to Du, Kris and his staff’s typical way of luring was to pick beautiful girls from his fans and say that there is a mini fan meeting at the hotel. But when the girl arrived, there was just Kris in the room. Some of the victims want to pursue a career in acting, so Kris promised to provide resources for them, and this also never happened.
Who is Kris Wu? Born in 1990, Kris was raised in Guangzhou, China by his mother. They moved to Vancouver, Canada when Kris was ten. At the age of 18, Kris auditioned for SM Entertainment and later debuted as a member of the once popular K-pop boy group EXO in South Korea. After being in the group for two years, Kris filed a lawsuit against the entertainment company for a list of unfair treatments and terminated their contract. Kris then shifted his focus to stay active in mainland China, where he acted in films, produced songs, and attended reality shows. Now he is among the top stars in mainland China, with 50 million followers on Weibo.
This is not the first time that Kris has sex scandals. In 2016, “Little G Na” who reported herself to be Kris’s girlfriend at that time exposed that Kris was hooking up with several girls. In China, it is often considered as a moral issue for celebrities to hook up, even under consent. Therefore, netizens gave Kris a nickname “Canadian hookup king” to mock his behavior. But this time, according to Du’s words, Kris has sexually harassed young girls when they were not sober, and some of the victims were minors at that time. If this is the case, then what Kris is facing are legal punishments.
There is an interesting paragraph in Du’s public post on social media that talks about Kris’s sexual performance and penis size. Du says that Kris needed to take pills every time in order to erect. And before he penetrated, he said the same thing to each girl, “Mine is big, just bear it.” After he finished in “two or three minutes”, he would ask if his was big or not. “All my ex-girlfriends said that I’m big.” In the post, Du compared Kris’s penis size to “using a toothpick to pick your nose”. This has excited the netizens to create all kinds of memes to shame Kris’s penis size. Truly, the shame of penis can be viewed as the most detrimental shame to hegemonic masculinity. According to an article in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy, sexual performance with a large-sized penis symbolizes masculine power to control women.
What also attracts my attention are some key words from the chat history exposed online. Kris texted a girl asking if she is “obedient” and if she “has had any sex experience before”. But when the girls asked Kris back, he replied that a boy’s first time is not as important as a girl’s. “There is nothing like ‘the first time’ for boys.” In multiple public cases, Kris has said that his preference for a girlfriend is someone who is “clean” and “like an angel”. From these pieces of evidence, it is clear to see the deep-rooted virgin obsession of Kris Wu. In my opinion, virgin obsession is a representation of materializing women. If virginity means pure and clean, then non-virgin is equivalent to dirty and polluted. While sex experience is often something that men boasts about, why is it shameful for women to have sex experience? Let alone talking about the ambiguous and meaningless definition of virgin.
Besides the special taste for having sex with “virgin”, the enjoyment of power can also account for why men like Kris specifically pick those young girls in their teens. If these men only want the best sex experience, it makes no sense to find girls who are inexperienced. Clearly, what they enjoy is the inequality of power, wealth, and social status. In their mind, young girls are “obedient” and easy to manipulate, while mature women are hard to deal with. It is easier to get admired by young girls, especially for Kris, who has an attractive appearance and high fame.
I would argue that the problematic fandom culture largely contributes to the freedom for Kris to do whatever he wants. One deputy in China has commented on the Chinese fandom culture as “overzealous star-chasing behaviors”. Some fans are willing to spend an excessive amount of time and money on their idols without really getting anything back. What’s more, some pop stars don’t have real skills, but after being packaged by their entertainment companies, they suddenly attract a lot of young fans. This is exactly the case of Kris – some people call him the “Canadian electric eel” to make fun of the fact that he uses auto-tune in his songs to hide his actual singing skill.
China is not the only country who has a toxic fandom culture in East Asia. As far as I know, South Korea has a significantly larger industry of producing idols and idol groups. The difference is that the mechanism is cruel in South Korea, where trainees are under harsh scrutiny by fans and the society. Once they do something wrong, people’s attention immediately goes to others who are more qualified and hardworking. To some extent, K-pop idols are earning what they deserve, while idols in mainland China are generally not.
On the case of Du Meizhu against Kris Wu, it is still unsure whether Kris would receive the punishment that he deserves. After all, what behind Kris is a huge group of financial interests. But luckily, there is hardly any media censorship this time. I hope that this can boost another wave of the #MeToo movement in China, at least to comfort those who also suffer but cannot make their voice heard.
Resources:
Khan, Sharful Islam, Nancy Hudson-Rodd, Sherry Saggers, Mahbubul Islam Bhuiyan, Abbas Bhuiya, Syed Afzalul Karim, and Oratai Rauyajin. “Phallus, Performance and Power: Crisis of Masculinity.” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 23, no. 1 (2008): 37–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681990701790635.
Li, Summer. “Trending in China: Is Chinese Fan Culture Out of Control? One Deputy Thinks So.” Caixin Global, May 11, 2021. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-11/trending-in-china-is-chinese-fan-culture-out-of-control-one-deputy-thinks-so-101673917.html.