The Penis Festival is a rather strange event, but in Japan and specifically in the City of Kawasaki, the first Sunday of April, it is celebrated the Kanamara Matsuri ie “Festival of the Steel Phallus”.
Like all the feasts that are respected, here too we find joyful people pouring into the street following the procession dominated by this huge phallus.
This Shinto Phallus Festival is traced back to a legend, according to which a demon fell in love with a girl, who however did not reciprocate this love and therefore repeatedly refused his proposals. The demon to punish her, took possession of her body entering the vagina and castrating all the men who tried to make love with her until a blacksmith devised a big steel penis with which to penetrate the girl’s vagina and drive away from the demon.
In memory of this “venture” a Shinto temple was built, the Kawasaki Wakamiya Hachimangu.
Nowadays this event is able to attract tourists from all over the world for its particularity and has become a good opportunity for prayer for fertility, good birth and against sexually transmitted diseases, in fact, the proceeds of the party are devolved for the fight AIDS.
Where: Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki, Japan
When: first Sunday of April
