Introduction
From Ancient Rome to China, genitalia worship is common to cultures all around the world, and Japan is no exception. While Japanese society today might appear conservative and strait-laced on its surface, historically speaking, attitudes towards sex were more relaxed prior to the 20th century. One only has to look at artistic traditions like shunga (popular, humorous erotic woodblock prints), the sexual imagery in traditional myths such as Izanami and Izanagi’s meeting, and, of course, the plethora of fertility shrines and temples across the country.
In general, shrines partly or wholly dedicated to the worship of phallic symbols far outnumber those focusing on yonic or ktenic (female sexual) imagery; where yonic representations exist, they are typically paired with phallic ones. In Japan’s Sexual Gods, Stephen Turnbull offers two possible reasons for the prevalence of penises. It could be that cocks are simply more recognisable images; on the other hand, it might simply reflect an old-fashioned belief in the superiority of all things male.
This two-part series is an introduction to shrines that showcase, venerate, and celebrate penises and their procreative energies. They are but the tip of the iceberg in a sea of dozens, if not hundreds, such places scattered across the country, many of which are small, ancient, and likely under-visited little monuments and shrines. For a deeper study of sexual beliefs in Japanese religion, I recommend Turnbull’s book cited above. The yonic equivalent of this series will have to wait another day.
Part 2 can be found here. (Forthcoming.)
Note: Readers may recall breast temples and shrines from a previous article. Breasts are anatomically distinct from genitalia proper, but for all intents and purposes most of them do overlap with fertility shrines like the ones below.
Kanayama Shrine, Kanagawa
No compilation of penis shrines would be complete without Kanayama Shrine. This sub-shrine of Wakamiya Hachimangu hosts the Kanamara Festival (lit. Festival of the Steel Phallus), one of the most famous penis festivals in Japan, on the first Sunday of April every year.
There are a number of myths and stories associated with Kanayama Shrine. The oldest of them tells the tale of Izanami giving birth to Kagutsuchi, the god of fire, leaving grievous burns on the lower half of her body. Kanyamahiko and Kanayamahime, the two deities of this shrine, supposedly healed her injuries. While both were deities of blacksmithing, this story encouraged people to pray for help with fertility, safe childbirth, matrimonial happiness, and venereal diseases.
The more amusing tale associated with the steel phallus involves a demon who fell in love with a beautiful woman. She didn’t return his affections, and married another. In a fit of jealousy, the demon hid in her vagina, and bit off her new husband’s tallywhacker with razor-sharp teeth. Twice she married, and twice were these men’s penises bitten off during intercourse. The desperate woman turned to the local blacksmith, who forged a steel phallus that broke the demon’s teeth, allowing her to finally find sexual happiness, and presumably, a less eventful marriage.
Sex workers make up a good proportion of regular worshippers at Kanayama Shrine. Kawasaki City, where the shrine is located, was located along the old Tokaido road that connected Edo and Kyoto. En route were tea houses serving food and drink, but also brothels. While most women visited the shrine to pray for children or safe childbirth, sex workers prayed for protection against sexually transmitted diseases, and still do so today.
The first Kanamara Festival was held in 1975, with the AIDS crisis giving it a boost from the mid-1980s onwards. These days, the festival does its part to raise awareness about STI transmission, with all proceeds going to HIV/AIDS research. That being said, most festival-goers are there to gawk at the parade of enormous penis shrines. Of particular note is the pink penis portable shrine named Elizabeth. It was donated by a drag queen who owned Elizabeth Kaikan, a now-defunct amateur cross-dressing club in Asakusabashi, and is proudly paraded through the streets by transgender shrine bearers on the day of the festival.
Naturally, the ema (votive tablets) at the shrine feature various dick-themed illustrations, such as a version of the Seven Lucky Gods where the deities have all been replaced by penises.
Konsei Daimyōjin, Okayama
Konsei Daimyōjin, or ‘Konsei the Great Shining God,’ is a particular (minor, I suppose) kami associated with fertility and procreation. Where he is explicitly named and worshipped, he is typically enshrined in large, prominent phalluses made of stone or wood. This eponymous shrine in Okayama is one such place.
Located on the border straddling Kumenami Town and Akaiwa City in Okayama Prefecture — the tourism boards for both towns claim Konsei Daimyōjin as one of their own attractions — this fertility shrine is believed to help with bedwetting and other lower body issues. Little information is available on this shrine, but it seems to have been erected in 1870.
En route to the main hall is a stone statue of a masculine guardian figure with an oversized manhood, and then another statue of a dick furred in moss. At the back of the offertory box in the shrine building are dozens of wooden phalluses in all lengths and thicknesses. Most if not all of them are offerings donated by worshippers whose prayers were answered. One has to wonder what these prayers were.
Tagata Shrine, Aichi
Located on the outskirts of Komaki City, Tagata Shrine was founded some 1,500 years ago, which shows you just how far back phallus worship goes. The shrine itself has phallic elements dotted around the precincts, including an amusing penis-shaped bell (literally, a bellend), but it is most famous for its annual spring harvest festival, the Hōnensai, which has supposedly taken place every year for over 1,400 years.
It’s not unusual for Japanese shrines to hold harvest festivals in conjunction with agricultural cycles. What distinguishes the Hōnensai from most of the others is the explicit focus on combining fertility and agriculture. That, and the portable shrine or ‘O-Owasegata,’ a wooden penis weighing around 260 kilograms, measuring 2-2.5 metres in length and 60 centimetres in diameter. This is usually carved afresh each year from a cypress tree, 8 days before the festival begins.
The Hōnensai is a lively, raucous affair, with free-flow sake for all and sundry. Naturally, the festival stalls sell all manner of penis products: candies, taiyaki, chocolate-coated bananas, cakes, cookies, keychains, and more.
One of the most impressive parts of the entire affair is during the start of the procession, when the huge shaft in its portable shrine is furiously spun before setting off — it’s simply surreal to watch a large phallus spinning like the hands of a broken compass, not to mention later being carried across a railroad crossing. Accompanying the shrine bearers are eight shrine maidens, all of whom carry an infant-sized phallus figurine.
Towards the end of the procession, everyone gathers outside Tagata Shrine to participate in the mochi toss, where shrine officials rain little rice cakes down on everyone for a few minutes.
There is a yonic equivalent of this festival held at Ōagata Shrine in Inuyama City which includes vulva-shaped floats, but that is a story for another day.
Niike Hachiman Shrine, Aichi
Niike Hachiman Shrine is best known for hosting the Tenteko Festival on 3 January. Like the Hōnensai, it is also a harvest festival that’s been held almost every year since 859. It links fertility and agriculture, though in an even more explicit fashion than most, thanks to the men who participate in the parade.
Six men are selected each year. All are yaku-otoko, men who will be experiencing a calamitous and inauspicious year according to Japanese superstitious beliefs. Fully clad in red kimono, they hang radishes carved into phalluses on their hips, and as they make their way through town to the shrine, they sway and thrust their hips to the lively rhythm of the taiko drums. Men are the seeds, and women are rice fields; it’s ostensibly about sowing seeds, but could these actions be any more obvious? The name of the festival derives from the rhythm of the drums: tenteko, tenteko.
Upon arriving at the shrine, the unlucky men take bamboo brooms and stir up straw ash into a cloudy mess on themselves and the crowd. Covering oneself with the ash is supposed to protect one from misfortune. Warding off bad luck is probably worth a little mess.
Takasai Shrine, Ibaraki
Takasai Shrine in Shimotsuma City has hosted the Dōsojin Festival for around 40 years, with some COVID-related interruptions. This is a fertility festival, as befits a shrine where worshippers pray for marital harmony, fertility, safe childbirth, sexual health, and so on. It seems that visitors are allowed to straddle the phallus in the main hall, which is supposed to bring good fortune and additional help in bedroom affairs.
Festival-goers can purchase lucky charms called sayaribō, a pair of mochi shaped like genitalia that one takes home to grill and eat. One is white, in the shape of a phallus; the other is a peach-pink yoni with a slit that represents the vagina. They come in four sizes, at 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 yen respectively. That last one is surprisingly expensive but does net you a sizeable set of snacks – the mochi cock is 30 centimetres long, with a girth of 8 centimetres.
If the IVF sessions and shrine blessings haven’t had any effect yet, couples who are having trouble conceiving a child should apparently try the mochi. The wife is supposed to eat the penis-shaped mochi, and vice versa.
The festival typically ends with the ‘takaramaki,’ where the mayor and shrine officials toss beans and sweets to an eager crowd waiting in front of the kagura hall.
Ochinpō Shrine, Hokkaido
‘Chinpo’ is one of many Japanese slang words for ‘penis,’ but it seems slightly too on-the-nose for a phallus shrine to take the word as its name. However, it turns out that Ochinpō Shrine in Hakodate City uses the kanji characters that mean ‘rare treasure,’ thereby giving it the faintest veneer of respectability and elegance.
Located near the base of Mt. Hakodate in Yachigashira Onsen, this was originally a roadside shrine unearthed during a site excavation in 1952. Its true origins are lost to the annals of time, but the mayor at the time deemed it a ‘rare treasure,’ giving it the name it has today. Hakodate once had many brothels, however, including one that stood nearby until it burned down in 1907, and it is possible that this shrine catered to both the workers and patrons.
The shrine itself is fairly unprepossessing — a weathered wooden building housing a large stone phallus with a smaller cock at its base. A YouTube video showed two even smaller dicks flanking this smaller member, covered with what look like knitted condoms. Someone had to knit those, which I hope brought them great joy.
Written by Florentyna Leow