Japanese artist can keep 'vagina' kayak, but can't share it

On Tuesday, a Japanese court ruled a floating replica of artist Megumi Igarashi’s vagina was in fact “pop art.” However, it also ruled that 3D data enabling supporters to create their own oversized vagina was not

Tokyo: On Tuesday, a Japanese court ruled a floating replica of artist Megumi Igarashi’s vagina was in fact “pop art.” However, it also ruled that 3D data enabling supporters to create their own oversized vagina was not.

Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi. PIC/AFP

“Genitals are not obscene at least for lots of woman including myself so I think it doesn’t make sense,” she told CNN. Igarashi created controversy in 2014 by her plans to create a kayak in the shape of her vagina.

She launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise money to build it, then emailed her supporters with the 3D data so they could make their own.

Fined by court
The court cleared Igarashi of charges of obscenity over her bright yellow kayak, but fined her 400,000 yen (Rs 2,44,206), for electronically providing data to allow people to print their own.

After the ruling, Igarashi defended her work and said that, technically, 3D data was not real so it shouldn’t be categorized as obscene. “I think it is not ‘sexual stimulus’ like pornography that we see in many aspects in Japan,” she said. Dissappointed
“I work to reverse the male notion that female sex can only be understood through the prism of obscenity. I’m disappointed this concept hasn’t been understood by the judge,” Igarashi said.                                           

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