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, according to
postings on his Twitter account and local police.
Diners paid 20,000 yen
($250) for the plate with a portion of genitals. Pictures published on a website
appeared to show the meal came complete with mushrooms and a parsley
garnish.
The painter, who is reportedly 22, said on Twitter the organ had
been removed by a physician and certified to be free of infections.
The meal
was prepared under the supervision of a certified cook and diners were required
to sign a waiver indemnifying Sugiyama and event organisers.
In May 18
tweets, the artist said steps were taken so the act met all relevant laws,
including a ban on organ sales, processing of medical waste and even food
sanitation requirements.
"I receive questions from some women and men...
asking 'Will there be a next time? Please host it again'. But there is only one
set of male organ," he tweeted on May 16.
"Unfortunately, I have no plan for
the next time."
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". He said he was readying to publish an official account of the
day.
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.
"We are aware of the
case. There was nothing (criminal) to it. It does not violate any detailed
rules. There is nothing to take action about," an officer at Suginami police
station told AFP.
On Sunday, April 13,
Tokyo illustrator Mao Sugiyama (who goes by the nickname “HC”), publicly
seasoned and braised his own genitals on a portable gas cartridge burner, and
then served them to five eager diners who each paid about $250 for the meal (a
sixth was a no-show). The genitals had been returned to the asexual Sugiyama,
frozen and double-bagged in plastic, following elective genital removal surgery
on his 22nd birthday in early April.
After initially considering eating
them himself, Sugiyama offered the meal on Twitter in mid-April to the first
person willing to pay 100,000 yen (about $1,250). But after the notoriety that
his tweet caused, he organized a public banquet, dubbed “Ham Cybele – Century
Banquet,” at the “Asagaya Loft A” event space in the Suginami Ward of Tokyo.
“Century” in Japanese is a homophone for the Japanese word for “genitals”; “Ham
Cybele” refers to the Anatolian mother goddess, prefixed with an appropriate
word for tough meat to create a phrase whose initials match Sugiyama’s artist
name of HC.
The day before the event Sugiyama tweeted, “I’m starting to
thaw them out,” and posted this photo (warning: not for the squeamish). On the
day of the event a crowd of about 70 mostly twenty-somethings gathered, five to
a table, to listen to a piano recital and panel discussion before the
dinner.
Although only five servings of the genitals were available, the
other diners were served alternate beef- and crocodile-based dishes. The cooking
was done by Sugiyama himself, dressed as a chef, under the supervision of a
licensed food preparation specialist.
The five genital eaters comprised a 32-year-old male
manga artist (there for “research”), a 30-year-old white-collar couple (who were
“curious”), an attractive 22-year-old woman (who wondered how it would feel),
and 29-year-old event planner Shigenobu Matsuzawa, who tweeted before the event,
“It’s a once in a lifetime chance, so I decided on the spur of the moment to do
it.” Matsuzawa posted a detailed blog post on April 14 after the banquet,
including about 20 photographs (the source of our photos here). He boasted on
Twitter that he was getting twice the traffic he’d gotten when his blog was once
profiled on prime-time Japanese television. But on May 19 he suddenly deleted
the post and replaced it with a new post explaining that the removal was due to
privacy considerations. Sugiyama himself had linked to and seemed to endorse the
blog post, so there appears to be more to the story than is
apparent.
Diners were required to sign a waiver releasing Sugiyama and
the event organizers from any liability arising from the consumption of the
genitals. Sugiyama stated that before his operation he had been tested to be
free of any venereal diseases (although during the panel discussion he admitted
that he had gone on a one-month sex binge with anonymous internet partners just
to make sure he wouldn’t regret the operation). He stated that he had not yet
started receiving female hormone therapy the time of the operation. He also
added that the pre-severed penis could attain an erect length of 16.1 cm (about
6.3 inches).
Close-up photos of the braised genitals showed a sliced
penis shaft with clearly visible corpora cavernosa and urethra, a sliced
testicle with the look and texture of sea urchin sushi, and scrotal skin with
about 3 mm of pubic hair growth. Rounding out the presentation the chef
garnished the genitals with button mushrooms and Italian
parsley.
Sugiyama told the tense but giggly crowd during the pre-dinner
interview that he would be contributing his genital recipes to the Japanese
recipe website Cookpad.com. (Note: A photo from Sugiyama’s Twitter stream of two
large, meaty balls together on a plate has been misidentified by some websites
as his testicles. They are actually beef steak cubes that Sugiyama used to
develop his recipe before the real event.)
Sugiyama had also intended to include his nipples on
the menu, but his attempt to burn them off with sodium hydroxide did not result
in anything usable.
What was the verdict by the eaters? According to the
deleted blog post by Matsuzawa, the hard, rubbery penis root almost bent his
fork, and he spit it out after a few chews. The only taste was of the red wine
that it had been pre-stewed in. The scrotum was surprisingly even harder and
more rubbery than the penis, but tasteless. (Matsuzawa didn’t mention the pubic
hair.) The testicles were hard on the outside, soft and glutinous in the middle,
with a fishy or gamey taste. One of Matsuzawa’s friends in attendance asked for
a piece of the penis and ate it, but after the event became distraught and
expressed regret that he had lost his common sense in the heat of the
moment.
A spokesman for the Suginami police told CalorieLab that they had
received many inquires and complaints from concerned citizens, but that they
were unable to pursue the matter because there is no law prohibiting cannibalism
in Japan. Nevertheless, the spokesman said, “We’re going to talk to the people
at Asagaya Loft A and ask them what is going on and why they hosted such an
event.”
Sugiyama is cheerfully answering questions from curious Twitter
members about Ham Cybele, his operation, and especially his new corset, which
he’s wearing to help maintain an androgynous shape as his female hormone therapy
progresses (the hormones are for “health purposes”). He tweets that his surgery
cost him 1 million yen (about $12,500). He reports that video of the Ham Cybele
event was taken and that it and a written “Ham Cybele Official Report” will be
available at a later date.
The original tweet that started this is
reproduced below:
[Please Retweet] I am offering my male genitals (full
penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen [$1,250]. I’m Japanese. The
organs were surgically removed at age 22. I was tested to be free of venereal
diseases. The organs were of normal function. I was not receiving female hormone
treatment. The length at full erection was 16.1 cm [6.3 inches]. First
interested buyer will get them, or I will also consider selling to a group. Will
prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location. If you have
questions, please contact me by DM or e-mail.
[We used the male singular
pronoun "he" throughout this post. Sugiyama self-identifies as asexual, neither
male nor female, and aspires to be so devoid of sexual features that he will be
able to publicly wear transparent clothing. Sugiyama appears to fall into the
gender nullification class of male-to-eunichs sometimes called "smoothies,"
those eunuchs who have elected to remove their penises and nipples in addition
to their testicles, without replacing the removed organs with surgically created
female organs. There are proposals to create a new pronoun for asexuals, which
we reckon will happen around the time that asexual restrooms appear in
Walmart.]
Update: Tokyo residents can meet Chef Sugiyama in person on
Friday May 27 at the Abilletage corset shop and tea salon from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00
p.m. The shop is on the third floor of the AM/PM convenience store building on
Meiji Douri street between the Shinjuku Station Southern Plaza exit and Yoyogi
Station of the Yamanote Line. Sugiyama will be cooking and serving waffles
certified to be free of genital material. In addition, he will be selling books
of his illustrations and demonstrating nail art techniques.
Sugiyama
told the tense but giggly crowd during the pre-dinner interview that he would be
contributing his genital recipes to the Japanese recipe website Cookpad.com.
(Note: A photo from Sugiyama’s Twitter stream of two large, meaty balls together
on a plate (Pictured below) has been misidentified by some websites as his
testicles. They are actually beef steak cubes that Sugiyama used to develop his
recipe before the real event.)
Sugiyama had also intended to include his nipples on
the menu, but his attempt to burn them off with sodium hydroxide did not result
in anything usable.
What was the verdict by the eaters? According to the
deleted blog post by Matsuzawa, the hard, rubbery penis root almost bent his
fork, and he spit it out..........
I've never escaped from that moment: Girl in napalm...
