Japan Penis Festival

Festivals in Japan provide opportunities for locals to break free from the constraints of everyday life by drinking, dancing, and generally having a good time. The Kanamara Matsuri, or Penis Festival, is a one-day celebration of cross-dressing, penis-shaped lollipops. And, of course, a few giant phalluses, which puts an end to sexual repression. Given Japan’s reputation, they are mild-mannered, respectful, and extremely private, a raucous genitalia festival they are celebrating may be out of place.

In Japanese culture, however, there are many opportunities to let your hair down – they are only more clearly defined. So, even if you get a little tipsy at the office nomikai (drinking party). And sing some ill-advised karaoke with your boss, all they will forgive and forgot on Monday. Even though it’s not usually appropriate to discuss or confess to having a sex life in public, the Kanamara Matsuri attracts entire families to celebrate sex, fertility, and the production of life itself.

Though the festival had fallen out of favor for a while. It’s maybe not shocking that it’s back on the festival schedule in 2019. After all, Japan’s decreasing birth rate is posing an unparalleled demographic threat. With the government supporting everything from child allowances to officially approved speed dating. It seems like the right time for an ancient fertility festival to make a comeback. Kanamara Matsuri’s success has a more modern explanation as well.

About Community

The festival has become a safe haven for Japan’s marginalized LGBTQ communities. As the notorious Japanese proverb “The nail that sticks up will be pounded down,” as the saying goes. The community of cross-dressing men and transwomen. Who hold one of the portable shrines is the most obvious example of how fluid gender roles and sexualities across the spectrum are celebrated here.
Kanamara Matsuri, also known as the Penis Festival, takes place every year on the first Sunday in April at Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo.
According to legend, after falling in love with a young woman, a wicked demon hid inside her vagina. Following this gruesome ordeal, the woman sought assistance from a blacksmith. Who fashioned an iron phallus to smash the demon’s teeth, leading to the item’s enshrinement at Kawasaki’s Kanayama Shrine.