In Japan You Can 3D Print a 'Pussy Boat' But Not Share the Blueprint With Others

Megumi Igarashi

Artist Megumi Igarashi just wanted to make a boat shaped like her vulva. Now she faces several years in prison after being arrested by the Japanese government on obscenity charges.

Igarashi, who goes by the psuedonym Rokudenashiko in her work, is no stranger to "manko" (that would be Japanese for pussy) art, having previously created everything from a manko lamp to a remote-controlled manko car using a mold of her own genitalia. She calls it "deco-man", the art of the vagina, and her previous work has been collected into a book.

The 42-year-old artist's latest art project was a crowdfunded kayak in the shape of her vulva, aptly named the "Pussy Boat". She ultimately raised $10,000 to make the kayak via 3D printing. As a thank-you to supporters, Igarashi sent them the 3D printer data for her genitalia, as you do when people help make your vulva vessel dreams come true. 

And that's where Igarashi ran afoul of Japanese obscenity laws. Apparently, mailing people blueprints of your privates counts as distributing indecent material. Last Saturday, police showed up at Igarashi's house and arrested the artist, who is currently in prison and faces up to two years there, along with a $25,000 fine. 

"Although 3D printers have been used illegally in the past … this may be the first time the technology has been used to distribute indecent material," notes The Wall Street Journal. Ealier this year the U.S. State Department shut down Cody Wilson's 3D-printed gun operation, Defense Distributed, saying that it violated federal law regarding munitions exports. 

Update: Whoops. It seems Nick Gillespie was on the pussy-boat beat days ago. (Rest assured that when it comes to important issues like 3D-printed vaginas, Reason.com is on it.) 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

So they were afraid her vajayjay could have opened a portal to the third dimension?

[Sudden]

The Vagina Portal

[jesse.in.mb]

Damn it, I was saving that for PM Links. Playa got me the other day too.

Did you see the bit that they've got a science team there now with a scruffy spokes-scientist named Andrei?

Oh and initial reports were suggesting the cause of the crater was global warming.

[Sudden]

The global warming thing seems a bit of a stretch, unless they're referring to a long range warming that's been occurring since the ice age to present day.

As for the timing, that just shows you not to wait for the PM links to post interesting stuff, especially when there is another thread dealing with oversized holes.

Lastly, I am disappoint that this crater is way too far north of the transsiberian railroad for me to visit. Same thing with the tungunska event site. I'm still half thinking about getting off the train and heading the 750 miles north to the tungunska event zone, but I am a bit concerned about driving off into the Siberian hinterlands towards the start of winter.

[jesse.in.mb]

The global warming hypothesis was a knee-jerk supposition based on a flyby of it. It took them a couple days to trek in a science team who ware doing preliminary studies and think the hole is at least a few months old and was just recently discovered.

When are you actually targeting this trip for?

[Sudden]

Late Sept, early Oct next year. Providing I can get my finances in order and Russian language level proficient enough

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Japan has obscenity laws? Since when?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Dude, why don't you crack open some Japanese porn once in a while. It's masked all over the place. SO I'M TOLD.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I thought Japanese porn was vegetarian propaganda about the calamari taking revenge of humankind by raping them. So I hear.

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

Calamari Revenge Porn?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

And yet you can buy soiled schoolgirl panties out of a vending machine. Go figure.

[Sudden]

My junior high school gym teacher had to find something to supplement his $120,000 a year pension.

[AlbedoAtoned]

That's technically against the law. I mean, legally, you can set up a panty vending machine, but they have to be unused.

Of course that doesn't mean used panty machines don't exist there, they just do so illegally. You probably wouldn't find them out in the open, unless their owners were bold enough to risk facing legal charges for it.

[AlbedoAtoned]

That's technically against the law. I mean, legally, you can set up a panty vending machine, but they have to be unused.

Of course that doesn't mean used panty machines don't exist there, they just do so illegally. You probably wouldn't find them out in the open, unless their owners were bold enough to risk facing legal charges for it.

[WTF]

Since that illustrated girl looks underage, all who have seen it are now sex offenders.

[John]

When the day comes they have no kidding sex robots, how long do you think it will take before the government makes having sex with a robot made to look like a child or under 18 the same crime as having sex with a real child?

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

! I was just reading about this - http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka.....nevitable/

[mr simple]

They argued robot sex workers would eliminate human exploitation

More like take our jobs! What's a working girl to do?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Avoid the law by getting really drunk and having sex with a cash register.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I hear Scrooge McDuck does this all the time.

[Sudden]

And the Kochs

[Warty]

DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

I don't know why I ever expect to find anything but Family Guy/Futurama/South Park videos when I click on these links ...

[Warty]

Family Guy???

Also, sometimes I post music that normal people hate or porn.

[Episiarch]

We do NOT post Family Guy links. Jesus, Elizabeth, give us a little credit. Just pretend we've earned it.

[SusanM]

I'll try to sneak in some Red Dwarf robosex if it'll help....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1o78X0BQ5k

[ant1sthenes]

How can you tell whether a sexbot is supposed to be 17 or 19?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

She should have called her art a memorial to the lost womynhood of Japan as a result of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Then instead of being charged for obscenity, she could have been showered in NEA grants (or the Japanese equivalent).

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

+1 taxpayer funded menstrual blood painting.

[np]

Let me repost from a previous article on this:

It's not a societal taboo per se, as manko references are still pervasive in popular culture, and it has actually never been one. It's really a government imposed taboo. If you look at Shunga, Japan's woodblock erotic art, which was very widespread, you'll see LOTS of pussy and dicks:
http://www.akantiek.nl/shun7.htm

Then suddenly it just stopped after the late 1800's just before the turn of the 20th century, along with everything else. The government clamped down on brothels--coinciding with America's clampdown, and geisha houses, kabuki houses, bathhouses which were all mixed gender until then (though some of traditional mixed bathouses/hotsprings have made a bit of a comeback now). In its transition to "opening up" during the Meiji period, when it decided to adopt some Western common law (good) it also decided to adopt Victorian era mores (bad), thinking it would facilitate trade. This was where the current ban on "obscenity" comes from and still stands.

Clarification is needed because it is completely different than Anglo law definition. Essentially, the government needed to do something and thought that censoring images of penises and vagina would save face. That is the "obscenity crime" here, distributing digital files/images of uncensored genitalia.

[np]

(cont'd)

She's not the first one arrested. Many others have been before, although all the cases I know about were for uncensored porn. Scat, bukkake, S&M, etc is not obscene. It's only if you publicly distribute them, whether it's real footage or animated or 3D game footage, without the mosaics or blurring of penis and vagina, then it's "obscene".

However it only applies to images and not physical products like statues, hence she could thousand year old traditions like this can still go on:
http://en.rocketnews24.com/201.....his-april/
as well as the load of sex toys. That's why she was able to print them out and sell them legally.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

I'm sure most of us have known a woman with a large vagina. Which makes this story all the more terrifying.

[Idle Hands]

Nothing is more terrifying then Vagina Dentata.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

Ooh, you,just reminded me that I need to drop Epi's mom a line.

[Idle Hands]

why would you tempt fate?

[Episiarch]

You haven't seen the documentary?

[Idle Hands]

That movie is the most effective abstinence film I've ever seen.

[jesse.in.mb]

My roommate sent me the trailer for that. I saw the title and said "If this movie is about vagina dentatat we are no longer friends."

My rent situation is really nice so I had to eat my words, but whatevs.

[Idle Hands]

but yes a vagina that can consume anything you put into it can be terrifying.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I've haven't been sailing on one. Yet.

[Idle Hands]

Have you tried motor-boating on one?

[GILMORE]

- So I'm going down on my girlfriend and I say, "Geez you got a big pussy! Geez you got a big pussy!"

[Idle Hands]

"If it bleeds we can kill it."

[Suthenboy]

"My vagina was........ expanded to 2-meters size...."

I am impressed.

[sarcasmic]

She's 42 years old?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Down, boy!

[Heroic Mulatto]

The Asian Woman Aging Process

[sarcasmic]

blocked

[Heroic Mulatto]

Maybe this will work for you?

[sarcasmic]

Found it on google images. Funny. Age is the great equalizer.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Also relevant for Latina and Persian women.

[Sudden]

That's hit or miss.

[Redmanfms]

Latina

Most of the Latina women I've known go to shit almost immediately after having their first kid.

And it isn't just the ones in the US.

On the "Asian Women Aging Process," Koreans are sometimes cute and then look like the 60-70 picture after having a kid or hitting 30, whichever happens first.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

Most dangerous boats to Japan according to Rolling Stone:
1. USS Greeneville
2. PT-109
3. MY Steve Irwin
4. Rokudenashiko Pussy Boat
5. Gun Boat

[Scarecrow Repair]

No no. Much too specific.

1. Surface boats.

2. Submarines.

3. Sunken boats.

4. Boats being built.

5. Boats in drydock.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

If the boat is underage and I touch it, do I get put on the sex offender registry?

[Suthenboy]

I just walked in the door. I haven't been looking at any news since 7 am.....
the Russian separatists shot down a passenger airliner?

Holy shit. 300ish dead.
Anyone else seeing this?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Malaysia Airlines is officially on my no-fly list now.

[Sudden]

Alternatively, it is now my only airline of choice (assuming their rates will plummet in order to offset the bad pub)

[jesse.in.mb]

Already checked, their deals page is empty. They should be having an airfare firesale right now.

[Sudden]

Give it time.

[jesse.in.mb]

I waited too long on Iceland and Egypt. I don't want to make the same mistake here. I'd go back to KL.

Cave temple outside KL. With casually saucy monkeys.

The second pic is awesome, but would've been better with a higher shutter speed or a steadier hand.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Not just a passenger airliner, but a Malaysian Airlines airliner.

Loki is the one true god.

[GILMORE]

The bright side is, they say they DO know where this one is.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

Shackford,posted,a,story,on,it,2 hours ago,and there are close to,200 comments already. I haven't waded out of this gigantic pussy and onto that thread yet.

[Sudden]

In Soviet Russia, gigantic pussy boat preferred transport method to airplane

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

300ish dead including 23 Americans.

[waffles]

Shangri-Fucking-La. I swear this is how world war 3 starts. Those chuckleheads in the himalayas with their prayer wheels and gongs are just laughing at us now.

[Poppa Kilo]

Japanese police are still looking for the little man in the boat.

(Come on - 60 comments and no one did this?)

[Bardas Phocas]

Vagina art?
She needs to branch out to Penis art.

[jesse.in.mb]

Japs already got ya covered on that. Not buying this when I was at Enoshima is one of my largest shopping regrets.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

She did some,life-sized penis art in Tokyo It's apparently been on loan at the American Museum Of Miniatures.

-Fuck yeah!

[Not a Libertarian]

But but but Y'all.... How do Millenials vote on Pussy Boats?

[Warty]

True. That site was pretty pornographic, though.