Phallus Festival
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Phallus Festival
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Coordinates: 35°32′04.35″N 139°43′28.67″E The Shinto Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り, " Festival of the Steel Phallus ") is an annual Japanese festival held each spring at the Kanayama Shrine (金山神社, Kanayama-jinja) in Kawasaki, Japan. The exact dates vary: the main festivities fall on the first Sunday in April.
How to get there. The festival is easily accessible by public transport, with the shrine under a five-minute walk from Kawasaki-Daishi Station. From central Tokyo, take the Keikyu Line from Shinagawa Station (which is on the Yamanote Line), and then switch to the Keikyu-Dashi Line at Keikyu-Kawasaki Station.
The Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り) also known as " Festival of the Steel Phallus " is a traditional Shinto festival . In recent days it has become a very popular festival in Japan - especially among foreign tourists: It is very crowded and locals told me that every year more and more people come.
Every year, on the first Sunday of April, thousands of people line the streets of the Japanese city of Kawasaki, south of Tokyo, to celebrate the male genitalia. Welcome to Kanamara Matsuri,...
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.
Jan 3, 2021 When literally translated, the Japanese phrase approximates to "Steel Phallus Festival " in English, and it's just as exciting as it sounds. During the first Sunday of April, the streets of...
The infamous Bourani festival in the tiny Greek town of Tirnavos traditionally involves residents descending on the town square with huge phalluses to celebrate fertility. 11. The bourani festival ...
Wikipedia Kanamara Matsuri (" Festival of the Steel Phallus ") is held each spring at the Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki, Japan. The exact dates vary: the main festivities fall on the first Sunday in April. The penis, as the central theme of the event, is reflected in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decorations, and a mikoshi parade.
Steel and fiberglass phallus mikoshi (parade floats) (in the foreground and back right, respectively) at Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki, Japan. These are two of the three matsuri carried in the festival . Phallic processions are public celebrations featuring a phallus , a representation of an erect penis. Contents 1 Ancient Greece 2 Modern Greece
A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), ... (豊年祭, Harvest Festival ) in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, though historically phallus adoration was more widespread. Balkans. Phallus representation, Cucuteni Culture, 3000 BC. Kuker is a divinity personifying fecundity, sometimes in Bulgaria and Serbia it is a plural divinity.
The Shinto Kanamara Matsuri is an annual Japanese festival held each spring at the Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki, Japan. The exact dates vary: the main festivities fall on the first Sunday in April. The phallus, as the central theme of the event, is reflected in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decorations, and a mikoshi parade. Wikipedia More at Wikipedia
Observed by: Kanayama shrine, Kawasaki, Japan
last year date: April (. April last year)
next year date: April (. April next year)
+2 years date: April (. April +2 years)
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Every year, on the first Sunday of April, thousands of people line the streets of the Japanese city of Kawasaki, south of Tokyo, to celebrate the male genitalia. Welcome to Kanamara Matsuri, literally translated as the "Festival of the Steel Phallus."
Festival goers indulge in colorful penis-shaped food and memorabilia as portable shrines of three giant phalluses are paraded through the city. There's a black steel phallus, a brown wooden phallus and a bright pink phallus known as "Elizabeth," after the name of a popular Tokyo cross-dressing club that donated the giant sculpture, which is traditionally carried by people in drag.
The Kanayama Shrine, a smaller shrine that honors the gods of mining and blacksmiths within the larger Wakayama Hachimangu, is the revelers' final destination. The atmosphere of the sex-positive, LGBT-inclusive celebration is fun and relaxed, but the festival is deeply embedded with the Shinto religion and also a socially-conscious opportunity to raise funds for research into sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs).
Its origins can be traced back to Japan's Edo Period (1603-1868), a time when Kawasaki was a bustling trade center with a busy nightlife and the Kanayama Shrine became a place of worship for sex workers needing protection from STDs.
The myth surrounding the festival's origin takes an allegorical approach, but it doesn't take too much imagination to discern the moral behind the metaphor. The tale tells the story of a toothed demon who began inhabiting a woman's vagina after she rejected him to marry another man.
The demon twice bit off the husband's penis when the newlyweds tried to consummate the marriage, so the woman went to a blacksmith to forge a steel phallus for her husband to break the demon's teeth, forcing the evil spirit to leave her alone, according to the South China Morning Post.
The tradition of holding a festival in the city celebrating fertility and health was lost in the 1800s, but the shrine's chief priest Hirohiko Nakamura decided to revive it in the early 1970s. What was at first a celebration held at nighttime among a small group of people has now expanded to an internationally-renowned event that gathers as many as 50,000 visitors, The Independent reported in 2017.
Festivals celebrating fertility and safe sex remain poignantly relevant in modern Japan, where birth rates are falling to record lows, and the fight against STIs (sexually transmitted infections) has been a public health concern for more than a decade. In 2004, a medical survey reported in UPI found that one in 10 Japanese high school students, and nearly 24 percent of 16-year-olds, had experienced an STI. Lack of sexual education and reluctance to use condoms were among the factors to blame, according to experts quoted in the BBC at the time.
Ten years later, a U.N. report found that Japan's rates of HIV were falling—but an old disease was making a comeback. Once nearly eradicated, syphilis rates are increasing across the world . In Japan they are at a four decade-high, with 5,770 people diagnosed with the disease last year alone, according to figures from the National Institute of Infectious quoted in The Japan Times .
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"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.
April 4, 2015
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Photo courtesy Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The first Sunday in April sees the Kanamara Festival in Kawasaki take place. This year by a curious coincidence it falls on the same weekend as Easter. In fact, it’s not really a coincidence at all, as Christianity took springtime with its celebrations of rebirth and renewal as an opportunity to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. The Easter bunny and the Easter egg are remnants from pagan fertility rites, and in Japan one of the most graphic fertility festivals is the Kanamara Matsuri. As the Huffington Post put it last year….
‘Each spring, people flock to Kawasaki, Japan, to celebrate Kanamara Matsuri , aka the “Festival of the Steel Phallus.” – a celebration of the penis and fertility. People parade gigantic phallic-shaped mikoshi (portable Shinto shrines) down the streets during the event, as revelers suck on penis lollipops, buy penis-themed memorabilia and pose with sculptures in the shape of — you guessed it — penises.
According to the BBC, the festival is believed to have roots in the 17th century , when prostitutes are said to have prayed for protection from sexually transmitted infections at Kawasaki’s Kanamara shrine. Today, the festival reportedly raises awareness about safe sex practices and fundraises for HIV prevention.
Shinto and sex have been intertwined since mythological times. The national creation myth involves Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto stirring the primordial muck with a “heavenly jeweled spear” from which congealed bits drip off – generally thought to be an allegorical penis dripping sperm. Later in the Kojiki , Amenouzume no Mikoto flashes her sexual organs at the festival held in front of the Rock Cave in which Amaterasu is hiding. Curious to see what is going on, the Sun Goddess peers out and, distracted by her reflection in a mirror, is lured out, thereby restoring light to the world. Sex and sexuality are thus firmly aligned with positivity, with creativity, and with the lifeforce. Small wonder then that springtime sees so many S
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