A Festival of the Phallus in Japan
April 9, 2008 by Gabrielle
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Kawasaki, Japan was the place to be on Sunday – over 30,000 people (and perhaps just as many phallic objects) were on hand to celebrate the annual fertility festival. According to a Reuters report the Kanamara festival dates back over three hundred years when ladies of the night asked for protection from an epidemic of syphilis.
Mary King wrote a piece for Metropolis (an English magazine in Japan) elaborating on the spectacle:
Other attractions include locals carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings, as well as a seated banquet in the compound of Kanamara Jinja (aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) where the phallic radishes are auctioned. All are welcome to take part in the festival’s parade and banquet, which includes dancing and karaoke singing. Many revelers, Japanese and foreigners alike, turn out in kimono, Edo period attire or drag for this two-day event of phallic fun which is also attended by many of the area’s community leaders and civic dignitaries.
This is the kind of event that YouTube was made for, and of course, there are numerous tourist videos of previous years’ festivities. Here is one of the shorter ones (videos, that is).
Warning: there is a very large, fake, phallus below. If you think you may be bothered by that, you might want to stop reading here.
