Typhoon washes away giant phallus from Shinto shrine

Last week, Japan was hit by Typhoon Lan. While Tokyo just suffered a bit of rain and wind, the west side of Honshu had more serious weather conditions, and public transport ground to a halt. And before that, Typhoon Khanun hit Kyushu and Okinawa. ‘Tis the season.

One small consequence that nonetheless caught our attention, though, was for the sacred wooden phallus at Inyoseki Shrine in Miyazaki.

It was washed away by the typhoon and is reportedly floating in a small lake by a dam!

So if you encounter a giant cock in the water, don’t panic and try to get it back to where it belongs. Your help is appreciated by the gods.

Here’s a video of a plucky man in a boat finding the phallus.

The fertility shrine, located in the city of Kobayashi, is built on a site where there are two special rocks in the Sannomiya Gorge along the Iwase River shaped, respectively, like male and female reproductive organs. The male stone stands 17.5 meters tall, which is quite an impressive erection, while the female stone is 5.5 meters. Locals believe these rocks to be sacred and they have long attracted visits from newly weds and those hoping to get pregnant.

Such phallic sculptures and statues are quite common in Japan, found at Shinto shrines and sometimes the center of big fertility festivals.

The most famous — or should that be infamous? — example is the Kanamara Festival in Kawasaki, during which hordes descend upon the shrine to celebrate the procession of a phallus with cock-shaped food.

Inyoseki has its own festival in September, which is the rice harvest season in Japan. Let’s hope the phallus is back in place (and cleaned up) by then.

There are also smaller examples of this kind of culture too, like phallic sculptures in fields that are probably linked to ancient agricultural fertility and harvest rites.

In other words, though the hotties are found on the streets of big cities, the real sexual energy is lurking in the countryside.