Size matters as Japanese throng to phallus fete
Print Edition
JAPANESE revellers carried giant phalluses through the streets of Kawasaki yesterday to worship the humble penis and fertility in one of the world’s most unusual festivals.
Size matters at the Shinto Kanamara Matsuri, where groups of locals parade three heavy phalluses around Kawasaki, a suburb of Tokyo — the biggest as tall as a full-grown man.
Giggling festival-goers, including young children and grandmothers dressed in kimonos, sucked on penis lollipops and posed with phallus-shaped sculptures as political correctness was ignored for the day.
Thousands gather every spring for the festival, where they can buy keepsakes such as key chains, trinkets, pens, chocolates and even toy glasses with a plastic penis nose.
For the local priest of the Kanayama Shrine, however, it is no laughing matter.
“If young children are not used to seeing (male genitalia), they could get into a bit of a panic when the time comes,” Hiroyuki Nakamura said, explaining the festival’s educational role.
“People come to pray for good fortune and to ask the gods to protect them. The festival is steeped in the past but has still has a valuable part to play in modern society.”
Known as the Festival of the Steel Phallus — or colloquially as the “Willy Festival” — legend has it that in the Edo Period (1603-1868) a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina castrated several unfortunate young men on their wedding nights.
A local blacksmith came to the rescue by forging an iron dildo to break the demon’s teeth and today a one-meter black steel phallus sits in the shrine’s courtyard to honor the Shinto deities of fertility, childbirth and protection from sexually transmitted infections.
There is a serious side to the frivolity, despite the bizarre sight of normally reserved Japanese housewives posing for snapshots with oversized dildos.
Proceeds from sales of the saucy memorabilia go to HIV research while the shrine itself is visited year-round by married couples hoping to start a family.
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