You are more familiar with cultural festivals, focused on music or movies, or maybe with Oktoberfest. But those tiny hard working Japanese, so sober at a first glance, can go crazy in some occasions.

If you hurry up, in just about 2 weeks you can be a participant in the annual three-day Kanamara (Iron Phallus) Festival, held at the beginning of April on a Sunday at Wakamiya Hachimangu Shrine in Kawasaki, Aichi province (Japan), in the honor of Kanamara Sama (Lord Iron Penis).

At the peak moment of the festival, you could be part of a crowd carrying a huge 3 m (10 ft) long and 0.5 m (91.3 ft) wide pink wooden statue of a penis, in a Shinto (the traditional animist Japanese religion) rite that people of all ages participate in.

Everybody must wear a huge artificial penis, penis-shaped mikoshis (Shinto shrines), penis-carved daikon (Japanese radishes), indulge in penis shaped candies and hot dogs and dress up as their favorite manga (cartoon) character (I meant hentai) with, you guessed... their penises dramatically enlarged! Fellatio mimicking is allowed...

Various types of holly penises can be bought from each street shop. Hugging the giant wooden phalluses will bring you good luck! Women who touch the penises will become mothers easier (that's why many childless couples praying for fertility attend the festival) and men will have success in conquering sex partners. Children and elders are believed to turn more vigorous if they touch the phalluses.

The ceremony is led by a priest. The festival is kept for honoring the victory over a demon that lived inside a woman's vagina and bit off the penises of those trying to marry her! Two men fell victims. But a local craftsman made a steel phallus which broke the demon's teeth, and the phallus was made a shrine.

The festival is dedicated to the Shinto Goddess of Fertility, Takeinadane-no-mikoto.

The earliest records of the festival are from the 17th century, when Kawasaki was a station town along the Tokaido Road when… Meshimori Onna - a name meaning 'waitress', but which is actually the term given to prostitutes who serviced travelers along Tokaido - started the tradition of the Kanamara Festival.

Locally, many brothels "bloomed" in the Edo (1603-1868) era, so the prostitutes would attend the festival to pray for protection against STDs (gonorrhea in particular) and prosperous business.

Currently, the festival raises funds for AIDS charities and attracts many tourists (foreigners outnumber the locals by far) and a large gay and lesbian community.