Sex sells, and celebrity sells. So combine the two and Hong Kong's recent drama over nude pictures of intimate moments allegedly involving Canto-pop star Edison Chen Koon-hei and a host of other celebrities has all the elements of a gripping public scandal.
It has been difficult to avoid the drama that has unfolded on news-stands in the past three weeks over images reportedly of Chen and Canto-pop singer Gillian Chung Yan-tung, Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, former actress Bobo Chan Man-woon, model-actress Rachel Ngan Wing-sze and others.
'I think Hong Kong is now hostile towards them collectively,' Chan Shun-hing, assistant professor of the department of cultural studies at Lingnan University said.
'People looked at these nude pictures and criticised the people in the pictures in different ways. The fact is that these pictures are stolen, but no one talks about this.
'The reality is some people are accessing these nude pictures happily. They comment on these people and become excited about the issue. It shows that society is sick.'
The level of interest in the issue has overshadowed what some experts see as fundamental issues in the matter - that of privacy and the hypocrisy of a society being at the same time fascinated and outraged by the images. To most people, sexual affairs between two adults is a personal matter. Yet that belief seems to have been overlooked amid the media hype.
'The pictures themselves do not leave too much room for discussion, but the amount of interest generated has fuelled a fiery debate,' said Lui Tai-lok, a sociology professor at Chinese University.