Japanese Fertility Festival

[JesusA (imported)]

Kanamara a frisky festival for every Tom, Dick and Harry

...without the Tom and Harry

By Ryann Connell

The Mainichi Daily News (Tokyo)

Monday, April 7, 2008

KAWASAKI -- Thousands gathered here Sunday [April 6, 2008] for the Kanamara Matsuri, an event with roots dating back centuries and now one of Japan's best-known fertility festivals.

Kanamara Matsuri, literally the Festival of the Iron Penis, had its beginnings in the Edo Period (1603-1868) with the prayers of women called meshimori onna, according to Wakamiya Hachimangu, the Shinto shrine in Kawasaki where the event was held.

Meshimori onna were women employed by the Shogun rulers of Japan during the feudal era to serve travelers along major roads such as the Tokaido that ran from Edo (modern Tokyo) to the ancient capital of Kyoto, with Kawasaki serving as a lodging spot.

Although the meshimori onna were supposed to serve only food, they also served themselves for a price, and it was their custom of praying to the gods that led to the festival as it is today.

Kanamara Matsuri is said to have positive effectives on business and fertility, increases the chance of an easy birth, heightens the possibility of finding a partner, boosts marital harmony and wards off sexually transmitted diseases.

Some of the carriers of the Elizabeth portable shrine at the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki on Sunday. (Mainichi)

Some of the carriers of the Elizabeth portable shrine at the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki on Sunday. (Mainichi)

The festival, which its organizers describe as being "relaxed and a tad different," is well-known internationally and attracts hundreds of foreigners every year.

A highlight of the festival involves transvestites and transsexuals carrying a penis-shaped portable shrine (called "Elizabeth," after the name of the Tokyo gay bar that originally donated it to the shrine) and screaming out a chant of "Kanamara, dekai mara (Iron penis, huge penis)."

The festival and shrine are also dedicated toward raising awareness about AIDS prevention.

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While they will only be available for about a week, there are 77 photos of the festival on the newspaper web site, including ones of the immense pink penis, penis-shaped whistles, penis-shaped candy, etc.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/photospecials/graph/080407mara/

There’s also a brief video of the festival and the shrine procession at

http://video.mainichi.co.jp/viewvideo.j ... 145894.flv

[Slammr (imported)]

Strange place Japan. They will enforce the blurring of the image of a penis or of a vagina in porn, but they allow huge penises to be carried down the street in a parade.

[JesusA (imported)]

Strange place Japan. They will enforce the blurring of the image of a penis or of a vagina in porn, but they allow huge penises to be carried down the street in a parade.

The Japanese have a very different set of ideas about nudity and pornography. Children are different from adults. Cartoons are different from real life. Both in ways that are quite strange from an American perspective.

One of the times that I was living in rural Japan, the local bank distributed its annual calendar (that was then posted in nearly every home that I visited). It was a series of photographs of nude little boys and girls (probably 8 to 10 years old) in “cute” poses. Perfectly innocent….

A very popular and long-running Japanese cartoon show, Crayon Shin-chan, has a five year-old boy as the central character. A recurring event in the show is Shin-chan imitating an elephant. The cartoon character pulls out the pockets of his pants to be the ears of the elephant and then pulls out his penis to be the trunk and walks around showing off to others….

Last month the government banned the public display of a poster advertising a long-running (well over a hundred year history) regional festival because the poster showed a bare-chested man (from above the navel up) with too much chest hair….