Japan: Festival of the Steel Phallus

The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ are relived during Holy Week in San Pedro Cutud to a degree it is hard to believe. On the morning of Good Friday there is a reenactment of the "Vin Crucis" which is performedby local residents, fittingly clad in Roman centurion costumes and the peasants' garb of Biblical times.
The reenactment starts between 10am and 11am after which the people move off to trek 4km to "Golgotha". Scores of penitents, inflicting self-flagellations using glass-spiked leather thongs on their bare backs, trail a "Christ", a Filippino penitent, who bears a heavy wooden cross during the trek. Upon arriving, the women kneel at the feet of the makeshift cavalry and wail a version of the Gospel of Seville Passion.

Then at least three penitents per year, and sometimes more, are nailed to makeshift crosses by their hands and their feet. The agony of the spectacle brings thousands to the reenactment. It has even become something of a tourist attraction. To secularised Westerners it must appear barbaric but for the penitents it is a means to become closer to God and the chance to truly test their Faith. "My Jesus, by Thine agony when the cruel nails pierced Thy tender hands and feet and fixed them to the cross, make me crucify my flesh by Christian penance." (Psalm for the Eleventh Station of the Cross).

Sexually transmitted diseases spurred the popularization of phallic symbols in some of Japan's festivals dedicated to the male member, such as this one dating back to the Edo period (1603-1867). At that time, Kawasaki's "ladies of the night" prayed not only that business would be brisk, but for protection from syphilis. Come cherry blossom time, they gathered baskets of bamboo shoots and other sprouting delicacies, carried the shrine's phallic image in procession through the streets, and then sat down to a merry banquet on mats spread out on the courtyard of Kanamara Shrine.

With the spread of syphilis now curbed, participants in the modern festival solicit donations for HIV/AIDS research. Today, the highlights of this saucy festival include transvestites parading through the town's streets carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine) with a humungous pink phallus on top. And, if that's not guaranteed to make you blush as deeply as the surrounding cherry blossoms, then the spectacle of grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus, is more than likely to.

Other attractions include locals carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings [..] Many revelers, Japanese and foreigners alike, turn out in kimono, Edo period attire or drag for this two-day event of phallic fun which is also attended by many of the area's community leaders and civic dignitaries.

Hirohiko Nakamura, the chief priest at his family shrine says, [..] "Shinto is traditionally non-judgmental in the matter of individual sexual behavior, and my family's shrine has long served as a place of help and a refuge to those suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. What could be more natural, then, that the shrine would embrace those who are concerned with the spread of HIV and AIDS," says Nakamura.

Thirty-six year-old Australian Nick Rowthorn [..] said the festival was the wildest thing he'd ever seen. [..] "I just can't image a bunch of drag queens turning up for a Christian religious festival in Australia. It's great," he said, playfully licking the red-headed lollipop he'd bought from one of the stalls in the shrine's courtyard.

the meat of the matter

Locals carry a large phallus mikoshi (portable shrine) during the Fertility Festival at Nagoya, Japan