Tokyo, Japan – Tourists, couples, and families flocked to Tokyo’s outskirts on Sunday to witness the annual Kanamara Festival, a spring event famed for its phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies. The lively celebration offers a bold, open display of sexuality intertwined with Japan’s centuries-old fertility traditions.
Participants, dressed in colorful attire, carried three giant phallic objects through the streets, celebrating fertility, childbirth, and protection from sexually transmitted infections. The festival’s origins date back to the Edo Period (1603–1868), honoring a local blacksmith who forged an iron dildo to defeat a demon that was harming newlywed men. Today, a three-foot black steel phallus resides in the Kanayama Shrine, the event’s spiritual center.
Over time, the festival has evolved from a pilgrimage for sex workers seeking protection to a broader rite celebrating fertility and destigmatizing sex. Hiroyuki Nakamura, chief priest at the shrine, told AFP,
“I hope the festival can help disabuse people of the notion that sex is a bad, dirty thing.”
The festival also arrives amid growing concerns over Japan’s declining birth rate. Preliminary health ministry data released in February showed that only 705,809 babies were born in 2025, marking a 2.1 percent decline from 2024 and the 10th consecutive year of falling births.
Despite its risqué theme, the festival is inclusive, drawing tourists, families with children, and LGBTQ supporters in rainbow outfits. Jimmy Hsu, a 32-year-old tourist from San Francisco, remarked,
“It feels like it’s more than just ha-ha sex. There’s a whole understanding behind it. I think by American standards, this is so wholesome.”
Julie Ibach, 58, a tourist from San Diego, described the playful atmosphere, saying,
“There was one little boy who had two penis stickers, and he’s just going back and forth and we just were laughing. Everyone is embracing it and making fun of it. You don’t see that anywhere else.”
The festival’s unique blend of historical tradition, fertility awareness, and playful celebration continues to attract crowds from across Japan and beyond, highlighting a culture that openly engages with sex while maintaining its spiritual and communal significance.
