Remember the old posts I put up about penis festivals? Well, there are even more pictures of these festivals! Reuters and Destructoid talk about phalluses being marched down streets of Japan during a festival called the Kanamara Festival. According to Reuters, the Kanamara festival is actually over a hundred years old and was originally done to prevent Japanese women from getting syphilis. That's right. SYPHILIS. The festival is also held to protect people from AIDs. There were approximately 30,000 people at this event to boot. Man, I wish I could go celebrate my name!
This is the wikipedia entry:
"The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. It is said that there are divine protections also in business prosperity and the clan's prosperity, easy delivery, marriage, and married couple harmony, etc. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research. There's also a legend of a demon that hid inside a young girl and castrated two young men on their wedding nights before a blacksmith fashioned an iron phallus that was used to break the demon's teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the item."
Original articles from Destructoid and Reuters.
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