Community | March 20, 2010 | 26 comments

Japan's penis and vagina festivals

source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/100315/japan-penis-japanese-vaginas

xiola
It's springtime in Japan and that means one thing.

Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals.

It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan's agricultural past. They're held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making.

Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman), which experts blame on stagnant incomes and changing gender relations.

The center-left government that came to power last year hopes to make child-rearing more affordable with a $280 monthly stipend per kid.

Meanwhile, the festivals provide an economic shot in the arm for host cities, a party for foreign tourists and expats, and a chance for locals to let loose, too.

One of the best-known penis festivals is at Komaki City's Tagata shrine, about 45 minutes outside Nagoya, every March 15. In a neighboring village, a vagina festival is held the Sunday before that. This year, that was the 14th — meaning rare, back-to-back genital
worship days.

At the Hime-no-miya grand vagina festival, parents dress up their kids, pray for healthy babies, and celebrate with sake, beer and snacks galore.

In the morning, children carry a small vagina to the Ogata shrine. Later, some 40 grown men strain under the weight of a massive vagina while carrying it to the shrine in the main parade. They're followed by two smaller vagina litters.

At the end of the day pink and white mochi (glutinous rice ball treats) are hurled into the crowd.

The penis festival the following day drew far more foreign and Japanese tourists — some 100,000, according to a festival brochure. Festival foreplay included much posing with wooden and candy penises. The main event is the parading of a two-foot by six-and-a-half foot long phallus carved from Japanese cypress.

read more and see photos: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/100315/japan-penis-japanese-vaginas
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26 comments // Japan's penis and vagina festivals

  • condomelite1
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • I want to see a temple where the spires are giant erect penises and the doors to the temple are the lips of a giant vagina and the vestibules on the sides are giant testicles.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • jubal
  • remanns
  • jubal
  • newinusa
    • 0
      newinusa  

    • "Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman)" yeah sure but "As of March 2009, Japan's population is 127,076,183[1], making it the world's tenth most populated country."(wikipedia) there is no room for newborns

    • 1 year ago
  • pandaman2105
    • 0
      pandaman2105  

    • I'm very intrigued by this, i'd love to go.

      they have the big sex industry over there, and now this?
      i guess this shows that they are a lot more comfortable with the entire concept of sex and our bodies than anybody around here.

      I'd love to go to one of these here in America. It doesn't even appear to be pornographic, but we all know that's what an American festival would be perceived as, simply because there would be large penises present!

    • 1 year ago
  • ryan8566
  • cmd80
    • 0
      cmd80  

    • I guess it's safe to say that there will be a lot of pricks and cunts at that festival.

      Also, how the hell is it possible for Japan to be averaging 1.37 babies per woman? Exactly how many half babies and under are be born over there on a regular basis? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this or what?

    • 1 year ago
  • cmd80
    • 0
      cmd80  
    • cmd80:

      Ok, I just realized how stupid that comment was about the 1.37 children per woman. Anyway though, Japan you need to start breeding. Maybe we should export some Al Green or Barry White over there to set the mood. Get a lil "baw-chicka-waa-wwaan" going on. And here I always thought that the Japanese were crazy about sex. Maybe they just use birth control and condoms or their methods of pulling out far exceeds ours? Who knows?

    • 1 year ago
  • JamesAJanisse
    • 0
      JamesAJanisse  

    • I definitely have never heard of a penis or vagina festival, but that's pretty interesting. Can't say I support the Japanese government's enticements for people to have children when looking at it from a Global perspective, though.

    • 1 year ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  

    • What about the fire festival - everyone's blown out from the years' toil and rolls up to the fire festival with all the wood they could get, including everything they didn't want anymore, etc. It burns, they dance.

      They dance and dance, closer and closer - the men wear penis masks and the women getting over-heated. They dance into frenzied euphoria - when the Gods come out of the Forest sweeping the girls away - and chasing them.

      Nobody knows what happened - but everybody got laid.

    • 1 year ago
  • panichead
  • flyingkick
  • remanns
  • lionessgrrl
  • remanns
  • spinoza2
    • 0
      spinoza2  

    • Let me make sure I understand this: Japan has almost 130 million people, on an island notably smaller than Sweden. Sweden's population is 9 million, and Japan's population grew more in the past decade than the entire population of Sweden. And this article tells me the Japanese are threatened with extinction because of "low birthrates"? Where does this put poor Sweden, the country that wiped out Japan, performance-wise, in the last Winter Olympics?

      Where would you rather live, Japan or Sweden?

    • 1 year ago
  • JosephJinx
    • +2
      JosephJinx  
    • spinoza2:

      The issue, to my understanding (as I saw on a previous Vanguard episode) is that due to the boom of births, the economy expanded greatly to encompass the amount of people being born, which included housing, shopping, etc. But now, many less Japanese are seeming to want to have children, or have children, which means when their "baby boom" generation dies out, they're going to get hit extremely hard with lack of work force, among many other problems. We will have a similar backlash in America, but it won't be nearly as destructive (or so I understand).

      And... I don't know enough about Sweden to answer fully, but I'm in love with ceramics and pottery, so Mashiko, Japan, would be an amazing place to live for me. :)

    • 1 year ago
  • uptop
  • ryan8566
  • lionessgrrl
  • pandaman2105
  • Cicada_Song
    • +2
      Cicada_Song  

    • I wish we did that america, yet we make these things out to shameful or pornographic. I love genitals. "the body parts that give back"

    • 1 year ago
  • xiola
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