Each spring, cultures all over the world celebrate the renewed fertility of land with festivals, religious holidays (hello, Easter!), and feasts. One that stands out in the crowd is the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki. During the first week of each April, phalluses of all sizes and made from all sorts of materials are paraded to a local Shinto shrine dedicated to the penis.
Legend has it that a local girl has a monster residing in her vagina (so annoying!) and it castrated two penises before a blacksmith made an iron phallus that broke the teeth off the monster. Everyone lived happily ever after, except those two poor castrated men, and the iron phallus was enshrined. The shrine was popular with prostitutes, who would pray to the phallus for good business and protection from syphilis.
The festival has evolved into a tourist attraction and one can see phallus made of fruits and vegetables, metal, wood, and rubber. Every year, a group of transvestites carry a giant pink phallus to the shrine. You can eat phallus-shaped pastries and enjoy penis-celebrating comics. Rest assured, you'd be giggling over penis candy for a good cause: this is also a big fundraiser for H.I.V. research.
1 comment:
Another fun, informative blog post on The History of Sex. Love them all!
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