KAWASAKI IS FULL OF DICKS

It’s no secret that many Japanese people have a rather liberal response to the admittedly subjective question, “What’s weird in the bedroom?” But that doesn’t mean they’re running around being all pervy and pulling their dicks out in the street. In fact, the only ways you will ever see a Japanese penis in public is by sneaking a peek into the sento (the neighborhood public bath), or by heading to Kawasaki on the first Sunday in April, where you will be bombarded with more dicks than you can shake a stick at. Short, fat, crooked, straight, hard, squishy… they’re all there, and many of them are edible.

This 300-year-old matsuri, called the Festival of the Steel Penis, is based on a legend about a demon who hid inside the vagina of a young girl and castrated two men on her wedding night—why two men? I have no idea. She then asked a blacksmith to forge an iron dildo to shove up her hungry orifice to slay the demon. This inspired Shintoists to build a gigantic penis shrine to protect her and other sexual deviants from STDs.

It has been a month since the big quake in Miyagi and, in many ways, Japan is still feeling the after affects. To show respect for the lives and homes lost, many events have been canceled or toned down a bit, including the Kawasaki festival where, this year, the big penis omikoshi (a portable Shinto shrine carried on the shoulders of men) was kept in its pants and not brought out into the streets. According to people who come annually, this year’s festival was much smaller in length and girth than usual.

This guy, who was around 80 years old, was selling wind-up penis toys. They were kind of pathetic.

Two cute girls sucking small dick-shaped lollipops.

These guys came last year too… They will probably come every year forever.

This was the only time I got turned on during the whole festival.

Can we put this on the internet?

The sign says “Chinko (penis) 600 Yen, Manko (vagina) 600 yen… Please line up.”

These cute young girls danced in front of the shrine and were super popular with photographers even though they didn’t have dicks in their mouths.

Penis Head Man greets everyone at the entrance…

even kids.

You were supposed to throw them as hard as you could onto that shitty cardboard sign to relieve stress… then they gave you a pamphlet about some cult.

This is Tengu, a demon waiting to climb into some girl’s vag. I think the big pink penis to the left is the omikoshi they march down the street with every year except this one.

They had vaginas too!

PATRICK TSAI

via viceland.com