While you may not be familiar with Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, it’s likely you’ve seen her work crop up in your news feed over the past two years.
Her now-infamous “p*ssy boat”, a bright yellow kayak shaped like her vagina, is hard to miss.
Igarashi, better known under her psuedonym Rokudenashiko, uses her art break down her country’s taboos around female genitalia.
While she has many fans, Japanese authorities are not amongst them and in 2014 she was her arrested for obscenity.
Initially she faced up to two years in prison and a $25,000 fine, but yesterday was found not guilty -- she still got a fine, but it was reduced to 400,000 yen, the equivalent of just over $5,040.
The Tokyo District Court deemed her various pink, plastic, smiling vagina figurines to be "pop art", according to the ABC.
Her Vagina Kayak also got the OK, because it didn't immediately suggest female anatomy, the judge ruled.
The kayak was crowd-funded through Kickstarter, which is how Igarashi initially found herself in trouble with Japan’s antiquated obscenity laws.
As a thank you to her donors, she had emailed each of them copies of the 3D scans she used to make it, which was considered tantamount to "distributing indecent material".
Officially, Japanese law defines 'obscenity' as anything "that stimulates desire and violates an ordinary person’s sense of sexual shame and morality."
While most likely relieved she won't be serving jail time, Igarashi says she will still continue to fight the verdict.
"This is part of my body, It's natural and it's not obscene," she said.
Feature image: Facebook
