A Japanese artist cooked his own genitals and served them to five paying diners in Tokyo to cover the medical costs, in a bizarre act to raise awareness about sexual minorities. Mao Sugiyama had his penis and testicles surgically removed in March and kept them frozen for two months before dishing them out—seasoned and braised—to customers at an event hall on May 13. Diners paid 20,000 yen ($250) for the plate with a portion of genitals…. Sugiyama, who considers himself “asexual,” that is without gender, initially thought about eating the genitals himself, but decided to solicit paying customers to help pay his hospital bills for the surgery. In an email to AFP, he confirmed the event had taken place and said it was organised to raise awareness about “sexual minorities, x-gender, asexual people.” Police in Tokyo said they knew of the episode, but added that it had not broken the law as cannibalism was not illegal in Japan.
A few things…
Asexuals are not “without gender”—not as I understand the term and not as the Asexual Visibility Network defines the term.
Five “diners” paid $250 each and the small amount of money raised—$1250—apparently covers the costs of elective genital-removal surgery in Japan. I paid out more the last time I needed a few stitches. So, um, yeah, I’m seeing another indictment of the USA’s broken health care system in this story.
And finally: hoping this is a hoax.
I would be very curious to see an original Japanese article — the actual word that was translated as “asexual” could be quite different.
Seems like the Japanese are calling this one a hoax:
http://www.yukawanet.com/archives/4206862.…
It does stink of the usual “Japan is weird!” racism.
$250 for a 1/5 portion? I hope potatoes and asparagus came with that.
There’s no original source that I can find, although there’s apparently some pictures here:
http://www.kon-katsu-news.com/news_aO9TqP3…
Most Japanese commenting on this are calling fake, though.
Ahhh! NSFW:
http://www.douban.com/note/214688567/
Still! Regardless of whatever’s actually going on here, it’s important to note that the japanese used here was “無性” or musei, which is much better translated in this case as “non-gender” although a literal translation could be “non-sexual”.
Dick … it’s what’s for dinner. (Somebody would’ve said it sooner or later, but I still feel awful for doing it.)
I really hope to God it is a hoax too. I like to think that allegedly “civilized” people are not this fucked up. And I am referring to the diners