guest post by Burstein!

first portable shrine #2301

photo by Nemo’s Great Uncle

Kanamara Matsuri is a Shinto Festival of the Steel Phallus that takes place each Spring in Kawasaki, Japan. The origins of this festival stem from an innkeepers daughter who had the misfortune of having a demon with sharp teeth fall in love with her. As demons are wont to do, the little bastard decided to take up residency in her vagina, and then wield his sharp teeth against the innkeeper’s daughter’s male companions. Enter Hero Blacksmith who crafted a fine steel phallus, which broke the poor demon’s teeth.

Kanamara Matsuri

photo by Jordon Cheung

Nowadays, the festival focuses on the more general theme of sexual safety and sex worker safety. The festival is also used to raise money for HIV/AIDS research. Causes we all can get *ahem* behind.

Here are more photos of the festival from Akademi Fantasia Travel Blog.

kanamara 015

photo by Héctor Ratia

Jokes aside, we here in San Francisco have plenty of our own sex-positive festivals, but I still feel that we will be trailing Japan in the Awesome Party category until we get our own Squid Festival.

See Previously: Squid vs. Robots Featured in Hakodate, Japan Tourism Videos

via Akademi Fantasia Travel Blog


filed under Events, Japan, Sex

 

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

harry krishna April 30, 2009 at 8:39 am

is the news coverage pixellated?

anshu August 4, 2009 at 12:57 am

maybe this is what got LS banned at digg.

Scott Beale August 4, 2009 at 1:08 am

Digg has not confirmed that this is the reason for the block, in fact do not yet know the reason. Also why would someone submitting this to Digg cause the entire domain to be blocked? Many other blogs wrote about this, including the original source of the story, Pink Tentacle. That would be a really bad policy if true.

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