A Japanese woman who makes art based on her vagina has been charged with obscenity, in a case that has sparked discussion on censorship. Megumi Igarashi, 42, had allegedly displayed an "obscene" work at a Tokyo sex shop and sent 3D data of her genitals to other people. She was arrested in early December and has been held in detention since then. Ms Igarashi was previously arrested in July, but was later released following a legal appeal and public pressure. On Wednesday Ms Igarashi was charged with obscenity for displaying a work modelled on her vagina and for distributing data that could be used to print out a 3D copy of her genitals, reported the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Ms Igarashi, who goes by the name Rokudenashi-ko which means "no-good girl" in Japanese, pleaded not guilty. Asahi Shimbun reported that she read out in court a prepared statement which said: "My works are all meant to induce friendly laughter because they involve cutely decorating sexual organs.
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To enjoy our content, please include The Japan Times on your ad-blocker's list of approved sites. That a woman could be arrested in this day and age for such an act — and in a country where sexually explicit manga and imitation-vagina sex toys are sold at convenience stores — seemed absurd. What is Obscenity? It seemed not.
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To enjoy our content, please include The Japan Times on your ad-blocker's list of approved sites. In Dec. This reluctance to use grownup vocabulary when talking about sex is common in the media. Sexual squeamishness is not unusual, but when doctors avoid certain words you know the problem goes deeper. It added that it was permissible to discuss prevention of STDs, but not intercourse, birth control or abortion. The Adachi City Board of Education replied that there was nothing improper about the class or its content, and that the purpose was to help students avoid pregnancies, not encourage sexual activity. Adachi is one of the poorest wards in Tokyo.
To determine whether different racial groups shared common types of vaginal microbiota, we characterized the composition and structure of vaginal bacterial communities in asymptomatic and apparently healthy Japanese women in Tokyo, Japan, and compared them with those of White and Black women from North America. The composition of vaginal communities was compared based on community profiles of terminal restriction fragments of 16S rRNA genes and phylogenetic analysis of cloned 16S rRNA gene sequences of the numerically dominant bacterial populations. The types of vaginal communities found in Japanese women were similar to those of Black and White women. As with White and Black women, most vaginal communities were dominated by lactobacilli, and only four species of Lactobacillus Lactobacillus iners, Lactobacillus crispatus, Lactobacillus jensenii, and Lactobacillus gasseri were commonly found.