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 …read more