Papky

Huge pink and black phalluses were paraded down
the streets of this Japanese town in an annual
fertility festival, as some 30,000 worshippers
asked for blessings and protection from sexually
transmitted diseases.

The Kanamara festival, dating back over three
hundred years when ladies of the night asked for
protection from an epidemic of syphilis, was
hosted on Sunday by a small shrine in Kawasaki,
south of Tokyo.

Now its portable phallic shrines are known not
only to locals but also to foreigners, who accounted
for nearly half the crowd, and cross-dressers.

Its core ceremonies remain mystical and date back
to a time when even Buddhism had not reached Japan.