To many of us obscenity laws are unfathomable and present barriers which activists are keen to penetrate. Take the vagina. It is an anatomical fact of life but some “artists” are keen to wave it in our faces.
One such, Japanese “artist” Megumi Igarashi aka Rokudenashiko, came to my attention this week. She produced a brightly coloured sculpture of a kayak which was based on the shape of her vagina. She also very helpfully distributed data which with the aid of a 3D printer would faithfully produce a model of her fanny. Inevitably she had her collar felt and came up before the Japanese beak, charged with breaking Japan’s obscenity laws which ban the display of genitalia.
The judge ruled that the sculpture with its bright colours and decorations – I will resist the obvious joke about crabs – sufficiently disguised the original as to be within the spirit of the law. However, the data, which had no discernible shape other than la Igarashi’s vagina was obscene and so he fined her 400,000 yen.
Glad we’ve got that one sorted out. Perhaps, after the runaway success of Boaty McBoatface, alas ignored by the Natural Environment Research Centre in favour of Sir David Attenborough, she should launch an on-line poll to name her craft.
windowthroughtime 