crime

Sex shop owner freed; vagina artist still held

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My goodness! Leave her and her vagina kayak alone!

12 ( +12 / -0 )

Yeah, this is just getting silly. With all the other porn and the general attitude toward the police it would seem that this is just a vendetta by the cops because she thumbed her nose at them.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Yeah, well, it's going to be an interesting court case. I'd hate to be the judge and have to keep a straight face during the proceedings, all while people outside are chanting vagina-related slogans. The defense attorney is going to have fun, though...

You clearly have no idea of Japanese court proceedings. A judge in Japan laughing?! A defense attorney having fun?! People outside chanting?!

2 ( +4 / -2 )

I did a double-take on that headline! Not that there's anything wrong with it, but couldn't they have just said: "Sex shop owner freed; artist still held"? Again, not in the name of censorship, but just because it's a puzzling headline!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

What a bunch of CRAP...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I would love to hear an explanation of how 3D data of a vagina can be obscene. I mean it's DATA, not an image.

I believe this is the reason why they released her the first time without charges: it seems like a really tricky topic for a prosecutor to explain how her art works would be obscene.

Without a hefty portion of imagination I don't see how one could find 3d data obscene and I feel the same is true for the kayak. If you look at it without any afterthought it just is a 3 dimensional plastic form that resembles a part of the human body. So what?

Or to freely adapt from a famous proverb: obscenity is in the eye of the beholder.

What ever one thinks of Megumi Igarashi's art works, I believe one has to acknowledge that it takes quite a lot of courage to do what she does in a rather authoritarian and conservative society.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

“It is baffling why police had to arrest her again.”

"They seem to have arrested her again to safeguard their integrity."

Clearly the police are abusing their power, but will anyone rein them in? I'm afraid the answer is no.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Clear case, of male dominated society feeling threatened by one women :(

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Won't the prosecutors have to prove that the kayak is shaped like the artist's vagina and not simply a rendering of a generic vagina? Will the prosecutors provide visual proof? And if they do, in court, wouldn't they be guilty of pandering in public? Oh, the complications

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Once again, it is her vulva, not her vagina.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

She could have avoided all this if she had printed a disclaimer on the Kayak saying" Ime-ji desu" :-) They commonly use this disclaimer who tell people that a drwan picture is an image (whatever that means ...)!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

gkamburoff: Once again, it is her vulva, not her vagina.

???

Look where she's sitting.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

i wish her strength in standing up to the police. She's done absolutely nothing harmful, personally or to society as a whole.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Why do they keep referring to her as, 'the vagina artist'? That is a discrimitory and derogatory statement from the word go! She an artist who sculpts vaginas! It's also pretty confusing that they acknowledge she is an artist and the things she produces are art, but they consider it illegal. How about those huge marble statues of penises you see at onsens? They are just as offensive as her work, but they are not illegal. In fact, they are even more offensive cos they 4 or 5 meters high. How about the penis festival where people parade around carrying large penises and perform fake sex acts in public galleries? This woman is just being victimized by the j-flops. My guess is, she refused to pay any extortion money to the racketeer cops and it landed her in jail. Or, maybe she told them they had to pay for her sculptures.

I'm also pretty confused about her being locked in a cell and not being allowed any visitors except her lawyer. Can the flops actually do that? It seems like a breech of human rights to me. This must be one of their techniques for gaining forced confessions from people.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

@nedinjapan. She could then go meta and have "ime-ji desu" tattooed next to her hoo-ha. It would be hilarious to watch prosecutors further missing the joke and arguing the validity of the disclaimer.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Attention whore. Bet her sales are up.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

WTF?!? Seriously, in Japan they have HUGE PENIS statues and PENIS FESTIVALS but it's against the law to have a Vulva Kayak? This law is as STUPID and outdated as the no dancing in places that serve alcohol (i.e. bars). As advanced as Japan is, these laws and mindsets make me sad for Japan.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

I think the police should be obliged to explain why they allow the Kanamara matsuri, in which a huge penis is paraded through the streets, and yet they arrest this woman. The police should uphold the law without prejudice; by acting in a clearly biased way they lose credibility and make themselves a laughing stock.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

@Scrote, you are forgetting that the penis festival is a 'tradition'. Just like whaling, and therefore any attempt to ban it would be 'cultural racism' or some other trendy sin.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Ironically, none of this would ever had become an issue if Ms Watanabe had never opened her mouth, even if people around her were talking about her genetalia.

Yeah, I think the whole police business is making a mountain out of a mole hill, or a nuclear weapon where a mouse trap will do, if anything needs to be done at all.

Consider an implied message like: 'Hey everybody! Check out my my vagina! I can't show it to you really, but you can make it out in the shape of my kayak. See! And if you want you can download the specs and you can print out my vagina too - in 3-D of course.'

It is not an normal message in my experience of messages. How about yours?

Anyone interested in my Major John Thomas? If so, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! - that would be my explicit message. My implicit message should be quite apparent in my otherwise silence.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

One thing I've learned in my 49 years of life on this planet: If you find a vagina artist, hold her as long as possible.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

According to an article in the Jspan Times, there may be other, political, reasons behind these arrests.

I just read that article, very interesting. Brings up all kinds of questions about the secrecy law.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Has anyone ever seen or been to the giant pink phallic festival held here in Japan?

I'm calling pot and kettle on this one.

Why is it okay to march around with a massive pink wang but this is grounds for arrest? Please explain internets.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Educator60: ... According to an article in the Jspan Times, there may be other, political, reasons behind these arrests.

Hm? Who'd be versus freely available publication of 3d genitalia models? Something like the tobacco and alcohol lobbyists behind anti-marijuana laws?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Since the arrest last time, she has been vocal in her cartoons and speeches criticising police. They seem to have arrested her again to safeguard their integrity

Because, of course, the "integrity" of the police withers under even the slightest criticism. Disgraceful conduct by the people who are supposed to be protecting citizens, not ruling over them.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Waitasecond. Isn´t the sex shop owner the real vagina artist here??

0 ( +0 / -0 )

That would be the Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り, "Festival of the Steel Phallus") , Crustpunker. The reason it's permitted is because it deals with male genitalia, which most males are cool with joking about - whereas they are decidedly uncool about joking about female genitalia unless in close society, perhaps due to mother issues - and since males control society, that's the way it goes.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Right, so it's ok for Japanese to have a booming market for every kind of horrible niche porn imaginable, such as girls getting f***ed while they're covered in cockroaches, various kinds of incest (mother-son porn seems to be the most popular here), highly rapey-themes across the board, and not to mention SWATHES of borderline child-porn manga, .....but it's not ok for a somewhat artistic vagina kayak?

...........Japan.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

@Laguna- You rock. I'm cool with joking or being serious about either or, they are just parts to a whole ffs. But, it does stand to reason what ye say. Mommy issues and also the fear that they might be losing their grip on their male domination status.

they feel......threatened perhaps? Looks that way!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I suppose the police thought that they had got her by the short and curlies

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"They seem to have arrested her again to safeguard their integrity"

What integrity? Doing this only shows they have none, and only discredits them further. They know it, so now they are in a bind. They've doubled down on a stupid arrest, and now they have to let her go and face even more criticism for arresting her in the first place on trumped up charges, or put her behind bars and face the wrath of society and women in particular every where. They cannot win this one, even though they think they simply have the right to.

Meanwhile, her issue is being given more and more attention, as is her art in general. Had the police not been hypocritical and arrested her, no one would have known about the kayak whatsoever -- now the images are being distributed all over the place as is the fact that the police are overbearing buffoons.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Its strange that the female organ is so disturbing in a country where young girls go in marchers carrying huge willies in the street since many years..!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What a Japanese inventive mind!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I suppose the police thought that they had got her by the short and curlies

More like long and straighties seeing as this is Japan.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

DisillusionedDec. 09, 2014 - 11:36AM JST

How about those huge marble statues of penises you see at onsens?

Disillusioned: Not that I disagree with what you're saying, but where in God's name have you seen this?!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

should be spending the police time on catching the child pron, rapists, train groupers, etc.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Do the people behind human rights trampling arrests like this have names? Why are we not told exactly who made these horrible, overbearing decisions? If they don't have the courage of their convictions enough to put their names on these arrests, they should stand down and shut up.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japan. No surprises there.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Adding a little paint to make a kayak look more like something that it already looks like anyway . . . Why not?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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