All You Need To Know About The Japanese P3nis Festival
During each spring of every year, people flock to Kawasaki, Japan, to celebrate Kanamara Matsuri, aka the Japanese annual p3nis festival “Festival of the Steel Phallus.”
For the past five decades, Kanayama Shrine in Tokyo’s neighbouring prefecture of Kawasaki has been coming to life every spring with a fertility festival that pays tribute to the pen3s.
The festival is a celebration of the p3nis and fertility. People parade gigantic phallic-shaped mikoshi (portable Shinto shrines) down the streets during the event, as revelers suck on p3nis lollipops, buy penis-themed memorabilia and pose with sculptures in the shape of — you guessed it — p3nises.
The Shinto Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り, “Festival of the Steel Phallus”) commonly interpreted as the Japanese Annual P3nis Festival is 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 every April. The phallus, as the central theme of the event, is reflected in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decorations, and a mikoshi parade.
The Kanamara Matsuri is centered on a local p3nis-venerating shrine. The legend being that a jealous sharp-toothed demon hid inside the vagina of a young woman the demon fell in love with and bit off penises of two young men on their wedding nights respectively with this young lady (even though history failed to explain why the woman did not warn the second husband). After that the woman sought help from a blacksmith, who fashioned an iron phallus to break the demon’s teeth, which led to the enshrinement of the item. This legend in Ainu language was published as “The Island of Women” by Basil Hall Chamberlain
The Kanayama Shrine was popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection from sexually transmitted infections.
It is also said the shrine offers divine protections for business prosperity, and for the clan’s prosperity; and for easy delivery, marriage, and married-couple harmony.
The Japanese Annual P3nis Festival started in 1969. Today, the festival has become something of a tourist attraction and is used to raise money for HIV research.
Facts about the Japanese P3nis Festival
Held annually in Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo, visitors are awed by the sight of massive penis mikoshi, or portable shrines, usually paraded through the town while the festival lasts.
Each mikoshi is carried by dozens of locals outfitted in happi coats and sweatbands, while some of the men are in fundoshi, loin cloth-style underwear.
It is organised by the priests of Kanayama Jinja, a place where couples pray for fertility and marital harmony.
The Kanamara Matsuri is said to be a serious religious affair, linked to Japan’s nature-worshiping Shinto religion.
History has it that between the 17th and 19th centuries, sex workers would come and pray to be rid of the sexually transmitted infections they picked up during the job.
