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

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

http://cellar.org/2006/kana1.jpg

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.

http://cellar.org/2006/kana2.jpg

Women ride huge carved phalluses while holding lollypop cocks...

http://cellar.org/2006/kana3.jpg

...And the men photograph them. It's probably inevitable!

http://cellar.org/2006/kana4.jpg

http://cellar.org/2006/kana5.jpg

The artifacts are not only phallic.

http://cellar.org/2006/kana6.jpg

Touch the woody penis for happiness and prosperity. I think I've used that line.

http://cellar.org/2006/kana7.jpg

Even the official signage has a dick.

lollypop penises...

Sweet.

Not enough "quotes" in the article ..

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".

Feh, it's more fun when the topic's not already "sexual". And full of "syphilis".

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.

Agreed. Japan wasn't settled by Puritans.

they loooooooooove the cock!

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

Sure Rich, who's gonna dick with 'em? :lol:

I like this picture best.

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"

I think I'm having daikon envy.

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

They weren't carved until recently. ;)

They really are inscrutable, aren't they?