Penis Festival

Penis Festival
Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year’s penis festival will, tragically, not be a public event. The shrine is planning to do something online, which they will announce on their twitter feed . The festival market, however, will be happening. Head to the shrine grounds on April 3rd, 9th, or 10th between noon and 5pm for penis-themed sweets and more.

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Yes, you read the title right. The Kanamara Festival (aka the Penis Festival) at Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki features phallic images in everything from the decorations to snacks (as well as your regular festival food ). There is also a mikoshi (portable shrine) parade of numerous giant phalli around noon. Men in drag carry the pink “Elizabeth Mikoshi,” donated by a drag queen club called Elizabeth. Profits raised from the event go to HIV research.
Here’s some backstory. Kanayama Shrine was popular with sex workers from the local tea houses who prayed for protection from sexually transmitted diseases. The gods of mining and blacksmiths, Kanayamahiko and Kanayamahime , respectively, are enshrined in it. This might sound totally unrelated to phalli; however, Japanese legend says that they healed the Shinto goddess Izanami after she gave birth to a fire god. because of this myth, people prayed to these gods regarding matters of STDs, childbirth, etc.
Another story tells of a demon who fell in love with a woman and hid inside her vagina, biting off her newlywed husband’s penis, twice. She then sought help from a blacksmith, who made her a metal phallus. It broke the demon’s teeth and sent him off for good. They later enshrined it in Kanayama Shrine as a sort of commemoration.
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Index > Events > Kanamara Matsuri, Japan Penis Festival, 2021
Venue Kanayama Shrine 2 Chome-13-16 Daishi Ekimae Kawasaki , Kanagawa 210-0802 Japan + Google Map
Freelance writer, translator, web content developer, author of the novel Phnom Penh Express and Tommy, a short story. Loves trying out local brews, avoids noise. Chronically indecisive about where to lay down his hat. Shortlisted AITO Travel Writer of the Year 2018.
The Japan Penis Festival is arguably the country’s most amusing event when tens of thousands of revellers roam the streets of Kawasaki city in April to pay tribute to fertility in an age-old ritual, amidst thousands of phalluses of all sizes, shapes and colours.
Kanamara Matsuri means Festival of the Steel Phallus and is becoming more and more popular every year amongst Japanese and foreigners alike, to whom it is more commonly known as the Japan Penis Festival. The modern day purpose of the event is to raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and to promote safe sex, but its rituals and practices betray ties to Japan’s traditional religion of Shinto.
Central to the festival is a big mikoshi parade where human-sized phalluses are carried in divine palanquins ( mikoshis ) to the Kanayama temple. What makes this event so special, particularly in today’s divided world, is that it’s all inclusive and everyone participates in it, from families, toddlers and the elderly, to youth in traditional dress, foreign visitors and local Japanese drag queens.
The parade’s popular mikoshis include the Kanamara Fune and Big Kanamara both of which contain large, traditional phallus sculptures made respectively of steel and wood. The Elizabeth mikoshi , named after the local drag queen club, contains the largest phallus and, with its bold pink colour, is quite impossible to ignore.
Once a phallus is erected at the temple, people pray against sexually transmitted diseases, for help in conceiving a child, or for a satisfied partner. Expect young and old, men and women, licking candy penises, posing for pictures on large, wooden phalluses, learning the art of carving vegetables into penis shapes, dress like phalluses, and other penile fun – all in good faith and humour. For the over-zealous, there’s a traditional, low-alcohol sweet drink called amazake which, combined with eating a mandatory small dried fish, mimics the taste and texture of semen – according to those in the know.
The steel phallus reportedly originates from the Edo period (1603 – 1868) when, according to local legend, a demon became smitten with a lady but couldn’t bear watching her falling in love with anyone else. The logical thing for him to do then was to hide in the lady’s vagina and bite off any lover’s penis the moment it entered her. As this inconvenience kept on occurring with every new candidate she tried to sleep with, the lady had a steel penis made by a local smith on which the demon broke his teeth and then fled. All’s well that ends well.
Today, at the courtyard of the Kanayama temple, a holy, one-metre-tall steel phallus is displayed to honour fertility, childbearing and to ask for protection against STDs. Over time, prostitutes came to pray at the temple until it eventually became a tourist attraction in the seventies.
During the last decade the Japan Penis Festival has increased a lot in popularity and keeps on expanding. The profit of the phallus-shaped items for sale goes to research of HIV and other STDs. The festival’s paraphernalia are very popular, from plenty of candy and other food items to t-shirts and large carrots carved into phalluses that can be carried on the shoulder in a small mikoshi . If you want to get your hands on your own phallus souvenir then it’s best to go early as they are very popular and go quickly.
It takes place every year during the first Sunday of April, which falls on 3 April in 2022. This is also the period of the famous cherry blossom season Japan and a time of the year that marks many beginnings, from the new school year to starting another job and the financial year. Many festivals in Japan begin around this time.
Kawasaki is one of the cities forming the Greater Tokyo Area and is located about one hour south of central Tokyo. Most of the Japan Penis Festival events take place in and around the city’s Kanayama temple which is a five minutes walk from Kawasaki-Daishi Station. Alternatively, follow anyone who’s dressed like a phallus.
To find the best accommodation in Kawasaki and flights, please search via our comparison engine, which scans all the major booking sites to find you the best deals:
Visit the official Japan Tourism Website .
Cover image by Rαge – Wikimedia Commons. Article Updated 10 February 2022.
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Penis sausages, penis candies, penis costumes, and penis parades — all things one would probably come across when attending Japan’s Kanamara Matsuri festival. When literally translated, the Japanese phrase approximates to “Steel Phallus Festival” in English, and it’s just as exciting as it sounds.
Lessons from History is a platform for writers who share ideas and inspirational stories from world history. The objective is to promote history on Medium and demonstrate the value of historical writing.
Truth is stranger than fiction. I write about both. || benkageyamawrites@gmail.com

"A hundred thousand revelers come here to celebrate one thing: the male organ."
Every year on the first Sunday of April in Kawasaki, Japan, one might cross paths with a peculiar sight — a succession of enormous erect penises parading down the street under the strength of men in traditional female garb.
This year, photographer B.A. Van Sise was in attendance of the annual Festival of the Steel Phallus , a regional tradition dating back to the 17th century that today serves as a platform for the benefit of HIV research. Here, Van Sise shares his experience and some of the history behind what is perhaps the most phallic festival in the world.
Early April in Kawasaki, Japan, is set aside for the Kanamara Matsuri, or the festival of the steel phallus, in which a hundred thousand revelers come here to celebrate one thing: the male organ. Home to the Kanayama Jinja Shrine, Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, has been closely tied to the male anatomy for centuries, due to a persistent local legend, so its famed Shinto shrine to the relic of a steel phallus was, well, erected.
Legend holds that a jealous, red-faced, sharped-tooth demon hid in the vagina of a goddess and then bit off, to their great surprise, the penises of her first two husbands. History forgets to mention why she failed to warn the second guy.
Finally a third, more determined suitor, a blacksmith, created an iron phallus that broke the demon's teeth; the man won over the beautiful woman while the demon presumably returned back to the ether to receive quite the lecture from his orthodontist.
The shrine is humble but has stood the test of time. Made of old stone and boasting a small but pretty network of traditional orange torii gates, it was built in roughly 698 CE — but is now more famously home to the festival — in prim and proper Japan, an unusual but charming celebration of the sacred and the profane.
While beautifully frocked Shinto priests in the shrine celebrate the thousands-year-old god, long worshiped by prostitutes fearing disease and pilgrims worried for their fertility, a different sort of celebration is going on outside, as tens, if not hundreds of thousands of partiers take to the streets.
Revelers carry penis lollipops (funny to look at, but not particularly tasty), phallic vegetables, and enough whimsical toys to stock a year's worth of Las Vegas bachelorette parties. They enjoy them all while snapping not-quite-ready-for-Instagram selfies and watching a parade of all of Kawasaki's manliest men, struggling to carry a bunch of giant junk through the street.
Local families and businesses work for months to make the enormous genitals carried on the shoulders of teams of men through Kawasaki's tight streets. Three, in total, are carried around town; two are of metal and one, true to Japan's contemporary anime-loving culture, is of the cheery, bubblegum-hued cartoon variety, and lofted by 18 fellows wearing glitter and fantastic makeup.
For the prudish, it might be hard to see, but it does have its benefits: These days, sales from the festival — penis clothing, candy, food, toys — rake in gobs of money every year, put duly to work toward HIV research.
This year marks a half century for the festival in its modern form. Visitors wanting to see it themselves, and unafraid to face the throbbing masses, can make it to Kawasaki from Tokyo in an easy day trip on the first Sunday of April, any year, and see for themselves the giant phalluses of Kawasaki — and the many men who get them up.
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B.A. Van Sise is a New York-based portrait and features photographer.

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