Japanese Festival of Steel Phallus bestows prosperity, health and fertility

The Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus) is an annual Shinto fertility festival held in Kawasaki , Japan in spring. The exact dates vary, but the main festivities fall on a Sunday. The penis forms the central theme of the event that’s reflected everywhere; in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decoration, a parade of mikoshis, etc.

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research.

Created back in Japan’s Edo period (1603-1867) to pray for sexual safety (especially against syphilis) among Kawasaki’s prostitutes, this Shinto gathering now helps raise money for HIV/AIDS research. But the festival attracts more than just those interested in fighting STDs; it also draws Japanese couples looking for good fertility luck, a large gay/lesbian crowd, lots of proud locals, and scores of interested foreigners who come to gawk at the gigantic portable plaster phallus shrine and buy souvenir John Thomas lollypops and charms.

It is certainly not by coincidence that the Kanamara Matsuri falls during the cherry blossom season; a precious two-week window where Japan’s famous flowers bloom. Today, like every weekend day in the Spring, there are outdoor parties all over the archipelago. Throngs of frisky fun-seekers head outdoors, spreading blue tarps under cherry trees, sipping silver-canned Asahi beers and eating Japanese picnic food – sushi, sukiyaki, takoyaki (fried octopus), tempura, and tofu – under the pink blaze of blossoms overhead. On a small stage, a band plays a mixed bag of tunes, from rock and roll to pop to country. Red-faced teenagers and passed-out grandfathers lay within feet of each other, 2camels.com says.

The ceremony ends up in a building next to Kanamara Shrine. People climb up a wooden staircase into a small, dusty, room, where a small collection of items collected from past festivals is on exhibit. Behind panes of glass is a neat display of penises carved from wood, paintings of traditionally-clad Japanese engaged in copulation, and fat Buddhas with penis heads and hidden vagina imprints underneath their bases.

Hirohiko Nakamura, the chief priest at his family shrine says, "Whether your prayers be for prosperity, healthy offspring, a fertile marriage, wedded bliss, an uncomplicated delivery or personal health, this shrine remains the focus of community faith, as it has been for centuries. "Shinto is traditionally non-judgmental in the matter of individual sexual behavior, and my family's shrine has long served as a place of help and a refuge to those suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. What could be more natural, then, that the shrine would embrace those who are concerned with the spread of HIV and AIDS," says Nakamura.

How to get there

From Shinagawa take a Keihin Kyuko (red) train towards Yokohama. Get off at Keikyu Kawasaki stn, go down the stairs and take a Daishi Line train three stops to Kawasaki Daishi stn. From there, walk across the street and you'll find Kanamara Shrine (Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) just a few meters down on the right. From JR Kawasaki stn take the No. 23 bus for Daishi and get off at Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine, metropolis.co.jp reports.