#Female Pleasure

A Japanese artist faces two years imprisonment for obscenity: she made a canoe in the form of her vagina. Yet elsewhere in Japan, phalluses are paraded through the streets and literally worshipped. People happily suck on penis-shaped lollipops, but apparently this isn’t obscene.

The artist is one of the five women from different corners of the globe who feature in this plea for female sexual liberation. Their stories differ widely, but they all show that mechanisms of hostility toward women span cultures, religions and continents. All five women are trying in their own way to bring about change. One of them broaches the subject of female genital mutilation both in Kenya and in England, where young men are shocked to find out what this practice actually does to the women it’s performed on. Other stories take place in India, Vatican City and an orthodox Jewish community in New York.

#Female Pleasure opens with a series of offensively sexist ads and fashion photos, which even include apparent portrayals of sexual assault. We apparently still have a long way to go.