China's most 'high profile' prostitute turns out to be a man

A self-proclaimed "high profile" prostitute, whose lewd accounts on a microblogging site in China in the form of a "prostitute diary" were very popular on the net, has turned out to be a man.

The revelation prompted Sina.com, the company that hosts the popular Weibo microblogging service, to permanently delete the account of the man posing for online fame.

u00a0=The company also suspended the accounts of six other users for two weeks for spreading rumours regarding the supposed prostitute.

Using the pseudonym "Ruoxiaoan1," the 31-year-old man surnamed Lin posted 401 entries on his Weibo account starting from January, fabricating stories about working as a woman prostitute in Hangzhou, the capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

On his microblog, Lin depicted himself as a 22-year-old woman who "accidentally" lost her virginity and became a sex worker. Police said Lin took cues from foreign literature while writing his "prostitute diary" in order to attract attention from netizens.

Lin is actually employed as an editor in the real world. Prostitution is illegal in China and Lin was fined 500 yuan (USD 78.5) in accordance with China's Internet regulations for disturbing public order.

Lin apologised for his actions, police said. His microblog account was followed by more than 250,000 users, including several prominent Chinese Internet celebrities.

Some of his entries were reposted as many as 10,000 times.