The Cellar Image of the Day

4/6/2006: Japan's Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus) (May be NSFW)

Promenea sends along this gallery of images from this Japanese street festival, Kanamara Matsuri, which translates to "Festival of the Steel Phallus". It's a fertility festival, which this article explains:

Quote:

Sexually transmitted diseases spurred the popularization of phallic symbols in some of Japan's festivals dedicated to the male member, such as this one dating back to the Edo period (1603-1867). At that time, Kawasaki's "ladies of the night" prayed not only that business would be brisk, but for protection from syphilis. Come cherry blossom time, they gathered baskets of bamboo shoots and other sprouting delicacies, carried the shrine's phallic image in procession through the streets, and then sat down to a merry banquet on mats spread out on the courtyard of Kanamara Shrine.

With the spread of syphilis now curbed, participants in the modern festival solicit donations for HIV/AIDS research. Today, the highlights of this saucy festival include transvestites parading through the town's streets carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine) with a humungous pink phallus on top. And, if that's not guaranteed to make you blush as deeply as the surrounding cherry blossoms, then the spectacle of grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus, is more than likely to.

Quote:

Come "cherry blossom" time, they gathered "baskets" of "bamboo shoots" and other "sprouting delicacies", "carried" the shrine's phallic image in "procession" through the streets, and then "sat" down to a merry "banquet" on
"mats" spread out on the courtyard of Kanamara "Shrine".

I can't help but think that this sort of thing is ever so much more sociologically healthy than sweeping naughty pee-pee's under the rug and pretending that you're going to burn in hell if you use it.

Sooo, if say, the Japanese community in North Carolina wanted to hold this festival, would they be protected under the first amendment?

Oh Buster Needs to go a Anvil shoot'in a'gain !!!

I Wounder how far that thing would burry in Mother Earth !!?????!!

Japanese peni are nice and all, but you're just going to be hungry again in 20 minutes.

"I'm not racist...... my dog is Japanese"

So the question of the day is why are all those representations circumcised when that wasn't the cultural practice in Japan until recently?

The entire world has these wonderful festivals--Spain with the tomato festival which ends up a saucy orgy, some other Asian country has a water-pistol festival and now this! What do we have? Contests for who has the best cow. Clearly, I suffer from festival envy.

Whenever an old thread is resurrected by a brand new member, it's almost always spam.

This thread makes me feel guilty.

Why?

I went to a Giant Penis festival in Japan (although, believe it or not, not this Giant Penis festival, but another Giant Penis Festival).

I feel guilty because I have not made an IotD out of the photos of it. The reason is that I would then feel compelled to share the videos of the procession, which would mean setting up a you-tube channel, which is more bother than I can get myself to do. One day, ooonnnee daaaay....

I like the fact that it's not just "touch the woody penis" but "please touch the woody penis" also, I think I have heard that before too.