Kawasaki, Japan's "The Penis Festival"!

Every 1st Sunday of April Kanamara Shrine, in Kawasaki, Japan known for its fertility festival called Kanamara Matsuri, commonly referred to by foreigners as “The Penis Festival.”


According to Wikipedia:

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. It is said that there are divine protections also in business prosperity and the clan’s prosperity, easy delivery, marriage, and married couple harmony, etc. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research. There’s also a legend of a demon that hid inside a young girl and castrated two young men on their wedding nights before a blacksmith fashioned an iron phallus that was used to break the demon’s teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the item.

Posted in: Japan, Kanamara Matsuri, Kawasaki, The Penis Festival