These photos (found here) are from the Kanamara fertility festival in Kawasaki, Japan.
WARNING: These probably aren’t safe for your workplace–pictures of huge fake penises:
I am just immature enough that they make me giggle. I’m sort of impressed by the carrots and radishes cut into the shape of penises. I am glad, however, that I do not have a job where I wear a hat with a giant wooden penis sticking out of the top.
See also the Incan penis pottery post. I’m sure you can think of all kinds of ways to use these images (other than just giggling), like discussing fertility rites (including the medicalization of fertility, such as buying ovulation detectors) or a discussion of how different societies talk about sex (I can’t imagine a festival displaying huge penises happening in the U.S. without causing an outcry,* although I guess for all I know people in Japan were scandalized by it), and so on.
Thanks to L. for sending it in!
* Well, maybe in San Francisco’s Castro district.
