{"id":2751,"date":"2026-04-05T16:34:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/2751\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:34:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:34:30","slug":"crowds-march-with-giant-phalluses-at-japans-fertility-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/2751\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowds march with giant phalluses at Japan\u2019s fertility festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival teemed Sunday with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The spring “Kanamara” celebration near Tokyo features colourfully dressed worshippers carrying a trio of giant phallic shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee.<\/p>\n

The festival as legend has it honours a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The open-minded, all-inclusive annual event attracts everyone from tourists to families with children and LGBTQ supporters sporting rainbow outfits. \u00a9 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP <\/p>\n

Today a three-foot (one-metre) black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of the Kanayama Shrine honouring the Shinto deities of fertility, childbirth<\/a> and protection from sexually transmitted infections.<\/p>\n

Over the centuries, sex workers pilgrimaged to the shrine to seek its powers of protection before the festival evolved into a broader fertility rite seeking to destigmatise sex.<\/p>\n

“I hope the festival can help disabuse people of the notion that sex is a bad, dirty thing,” Hiroyuki Nakamura, chief priest at a shrine that hosts the festival, told AFP.<\/p>\n

In February, preliminary data released by the health ministry showed that Japan’s birth rate had fallen for the 10th straight year in 2025.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A shrine maiden leads a ceremony as others pray before the start of a procession during the Kanamara festival. \u00a9 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP <\/p>\n

A total of 705,809 babies were born that year in Japan down 2.1 percent from 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The data includes births to Japanese nationals in Japan, foreign births in Japan and babies born to Japanese nationals overseas.<\/p>\n

The open-minded, all-inclusive annual event attracts everyone from tourists to families with children<\/a> and LGBTQ supporters sporting rainbow outfits.<\/p>\n

“It feels like it’s more than just ha-ha sex. There’s a whole understanding behind it,” Jimmy Hsu, 32, a tourist from San Francisco, told AFP, referring to the event’s underlying fertility theme.<\/p>\n

‘Everyone is embracing it’ <\/p>\n

Despite the penis-themed T-shirts, toys and candies galore, “I think by American standards, this is so wholesome”, he said.<\/p>\n

The view was echoed by Julie Ibach, 58.<\/p>\n

\"Despite<\/p>\n

Despite the penis-themed T-shirts, toys and candies galore, one tourist said the event felt ‘wholesome’ per American standards. \u00a9 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP <\/p>\n

“There was one little boy who had two penis stickers, and he’s just going back and forth and we just were laughing,” the tourist from San Diego said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is embacing it and making fun of it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You don’t see that anywhere else.”<\/p>\n

(FRANCE with AFP)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival teemed Sunday with tourists, couples and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[355,2719,2721,5,558,2720,598],"class_list":{"0":"post-2751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-childbirth","10":"tag-festivals","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-sex","14":"tag-the-bright-side"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}