Chinese girl offers virginity in exchange for Apple iPhone 4 - Consumerism at its worst?

The craze to own an Apple product in China gathered steam this week as one Chinese girl allegedly has offered to sell her virginity in exchange for an iPhone 4, barely days after news surfaced that a Chinese boy sold his kidney in exchange for an iPad 2.

The girl, who is a 'jiulinghou' (i.e. she was born during the 1990s) has offered to sell her virginity i.e. have sex in exchange for an iPhone 4.

The offer was put up on microblogging site Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

The girl said her dream is to own a white iPhone 4 but her father wouldn't buy one for her. Hence, she is willing to sell her virginity to anyone who would give her a brand new iPhone 4. An unlocked iPhone 4 retails in China for 4,999 yuan ($800) and a white iPhone has a huge demand in the mainland. There are already supposedly more than 4 million iPhone 4 users in China, according to Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White.

The girl wrote in Chinese: My dream is to buy an iPhone 4. But my Dad refused to buy it for me. Is there anyone, who can buy it and give it to me as a present? I can offer my precious INNOCENT LUST for him.

The girl also left her cell phone number and her QQ id. The posting was accompanied with pictures.

The posting has triggered an outrage in the mainland and Weibo received huge criticism.

While some people have dismissed the posting as a fake, others joked by saying she should wait for the launch of iPhone 5. Some wondered whether someone had hacked into the girl's Weibo account and had played a prank on her to embarrass her.

Nonetheless, the posting shows the extent of Chinese craze for Apple products.

Last April, a 17-year-old boy called Xiao Zheng, living in Anhui province of Guangdong, sold his kidney for 22,000 yuan ($3,400) to buy himself an iPad 2 and some other Apple gadgets. Apple iPad accounts for nearly 80 percent of total tablet sales in China.

However, Zheng's new-found joy was short-lived as his mother discovered his scar and reported the incident to the police.

Investigations revealed that Zheng had responded to an advertisement that offered cash for kidneys and the organization that carried out the surgery on him in Chenzhou city of Hunan province and gave him the money had disappeared without a trace.

I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it, Zheng told Shanghai Daily. A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan.

Zheng is now living with one less kidney and with some complications that happened during the surgery, as those who had performed the surgery was not qualified to perform organ transplants.

The police suspect that Zheng is a victim of China's thriving black-market organ-trading business.

Sociologists have blamed the craze for the rising importance of materialism amongst young generation and the power of consumerism. They say the young generation have no control over their wants and desire and are willing to go to any extent to get their hands on the latest must-have technology items.

Some feel it could be a marketing ploy by Apple to show the world how much people desire its products. Apple recently opened one of its largest stores in the world in Shanghai and plans to open 25 more in the mainland.

The launch of the white iPhone at Beijing's flagship store even turned violent last month when an alleged scalper tried to jump the line to get his hands on the coveted device.

Apple stores in the mainland average both the highest traffic and the highest revenue out of all of Apple's retail locations and last month, while reporting it Q1 earnings, Apple said its quarterly revenue from China had quadrupled, soaring to $2.6 billion, or about 10 percent of the company's total revenue.