Any festival featuring a giant phallus was going to make it into this book. Japan’s tradition called Kanamara Matsuri is not a sporting event, nor does it occur strictly for the amusement of the masses. It’s more of a secular form of worship, really. But you can’t deny its entertainment value. On the first Sunday of every April, the industrial city of Kawasaki (located just south of the capital city of Tokyo) hosts a celebration of male genitalia. Locals and distant travelers alike fill the area, forming a procession around a colossal pink and metallic facsimile of the most sensitive area of the male anatomy and providing an escort as it’s delivered to a special shrine. A “penis-venerating” shrine. Welcome one and all to the glorious majesty that is the Festival of the Steel Phallus.
The celebration is spiritual in addition to being urological. The Kanayama Shrine, long popular (at least since the Edo period of 1603–1868) among prostitutes who sought divine protection from sexually transmitted diseases, became the site of the festival in 1969 (the Summer of Love in the United States, coincidentally). While the shrine is also said to be of assistance for those praying for marital harmony and smooth pregnancies, these days it’s all about the penis. Due in no small part to the large number of tourists who arrive to gawk at the unabashed glorification of the chinko. Which is the Japanese word for…you know.
Like many old traditions and customs, this one arose from a legend. Buckle up, because this one’s a little intense. So, as the myth goes, a demon fell in love with a woman and naturally he decided to possess her vagina. Being a very jealous demon, he proceeded to bite off the penises of the first, then the second man she was to marry. Not wishing to subject any further paramours to this gruesome fate, she enlisted the aid of a blacksmith, who hammered out an iron penis. This gambit succeeded in tricking the demon, who broke his teeth on the blacksmith’s creation. Thus the demon fled from the woman’s nethers, everyone lived happily ever after, and today thousands of people celebrate by parading a gargantuan dingus through the streets.
South Korea’s Haesindang (Penis) Park
Neighboring South Korea has its own special location that’s dedicated to the glory of the gonads. Haesindang Park (also known as Penis Park) is on the east coast of the republic, within the town of Sinnam. It’s remarkable for its large number of phallic statues (and even a lighthouse shaped like a penis). The most interesting thing about this location is the legend that led to its existence. As the tale goes, a man put his virginal bride on a rock out in the sea as he left her to go to work for the day. After an unexpected storm caused her to drown, the fishermen of the area were suddenly unable to catch anything and blamed the dead woman. And so the man urinated in the water, which caused the fish to come back. Why? Because his wife, being still a virgin, was so happy to see male genitals that she lifted the curse and allowed the fish to return.
The Naked Man Festival of Okayama
After getting your fill of penis at the Kanamara Matsuri, a fitting follow-up could be to attend a Hadaka Matsuri, or Naked Man Festival. These events happen in various locations across Japan, with the largest taking place at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama. It’s relatively unchanged from a ritual that began five hundred years ago; a priest at the temple tosses talismans into a crowd of thousands of men. Naked men. Actually they’re all wearing skimpy loincloths, but close enough. To be one of the few who manages to acquire one of the talismans is considered fantastically lucky, so the competition to locate one among all the flesh pressing is sweaty and fierce.
Make that multiple dinguses. Recently the number has actually grown to three, with all of them serving as portable shrines. The first is the metal one for which the festival gets its name (and to commemorate the vagina demon’s extremely bad day). The second is made out of wood and is old and twisted. And since 2017, there’s been a third, designed and carried aloft by a group of transvestites calling themselves “Elizabeth Kaikan” after a Tokyo salon that caters to cross-dressers. Who can say what the future will bring, but as the old saying goes, “the more (penises) the merrier,” we suppose.
Inevitably, food vendors and souvenir purveyors are out in force during the festival, all of them putting an erotic twist on things like popsicles, candles, and whatever else you might expect to find if porn star Ron Jeremy operated a roadside gift shop. But despite all the flagrant flaunting of male dangly bits and turgid trouser mice, the atmosphere isn’t one of filth or perversion but rather of happiness and good-natured frivolity. There are plenty of children on hand, and nobody finds that unusual because it’s less about what people consider the “dirty” aspect of sexuality and more of an excuse for people to simply have a good time. Also, nowadays the main focus of the event is a noble one indeed—to raise both money and awareness for HIV/AIDS research. And with fifty thousand people now showing up to watch the procession take place, that sure is a whole lot of penis. Uh, we mean awareness.