New Meaning for the Verb "Nail"

From: info <info@iprc.org>
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Date: Fri, Jul 20, 2001 11:49 PM
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From

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Ride Theory

Source:
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/flash_2.html

TRAVELLERS' TALES

By Nury Vittachi
Issue cover-dated July 19, 2001

A PALPABLE HIT: Suspicious wives in Japan are stopping their men from
cheating on them--with the help of magical holy phalluses. Worried women
head to the Yumizori Shrine in Kumamoto, a fertility temple with a
two-metre long phallus as a centrepiece. Each buys a scaled-down version
of it, and inscribes thereon her husband's name. The women then hammer
nails into the phalluses--one for each year of their age. The result:
The gods will ensure that the named husbands will be physically unable
to commit adultery.

The tradition started 25 years ago, when a wronged wife asked the chief
priest what she should do about her husband's extramarital affair. He
suggested she hit nails into a phallus to assuage her anger--and a great
tradition was born.

These days, the priests who run the complex seem rather embarrassed
about the temple's specialty. Its theme was supposed to be marital love.
Stone tablets representing the genitalia of each sex are supplied for
single people to pray at, asking the gods to supply a spouse. "We're
really supposed to be a place where people come if they're looking for a
life partner," chief priest Teruomi Ikifuji told Flash, a weekly
magazine. "That we've become famous as a place to pray for partners not
having affairs is a bit of a pain." Priests estimate that these days 80%
of visitors are interested in getting guarantees that their spouses will
not stray, and the temple is filled with the cheery sound of women
hammering nails into phalluses.

The good news is that the magic spell is said to actually work, the
Mainichi Daily News reported. "Merely watching the process has
apparently turned countless men off the idea of cheating," it said.

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Original file name: New Meaning for the Verb "Nail" - converted on Thursday, 20 December 2001, 03:29