A penis festival is clearly no hard-sell in Japan as crowds gathered at the Osawa hot springs in Hanamaki Sunday to celebrate the annual Konsei Fertility festival.
The main attraction – an enormous wooden penis – was carried through the streets before being bathed in the hot springs. The wooden deity, referred to as the ‘Konsei-sama,’ is meant to bless reverents with fertility and safe births.
Women hoping to get married or pregnant (or both) typically ride the wooden phallus once it is placed in the water in the hope that some of its good fortune will rub off on them. The wooden penis, carved from a zelkova tree, is normally stored in the nearby Konsei Shrine high in the mountains, but is brought down to the hot springs during the winter months.
Both the massive member, which weighs a whopping 150kg (330 lbs) and measures 1.4 meters (4.7ft) and its accompanying ceremonial testicles are brought down the mountainside by a group of young men to the soundtrack of pounding taiko drums.
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