Love Rituals

Japan (1x1)

: 27, 2019

To conjure up the magic of being together again and again, there are love rituals all over the world. In the ARTE series "Love Rituals" Charlotte Roche tracks down these culture-specific love rituals. They sometimes seem so bizarre and strange that the western creatures from Germany, France, Europe simply seem knitted. And yet one recognizes the deeper meaning, a universal validity of the underlying motives, which also appeals to the Western romanticism. In the episode "Love Rituals in Japan" Charlotte Roche visits the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki. Once a year, big phalluses are carried through the streets, girls suck on penis lollipops and boys on sugar vaginas, while older ladies make radishes from phalluses and local party chairmen bow to wooden pegs. It is an ancient ritual and it should anchor the knowledge of a healthy portion of sex in the minds of the Japanese. So how does that fit together, this visual overkill of sexual permissiveness, how he is lived at the festival - and the reluctance of the Japanese? As a cultural interpreter, Charlotte is supported by the journalist Kyoichi Tsuzuki: He is not only considered the discoverer of Haruki Murakami, but also the expert for Kinkyness. Thanks to Kyoichi, Charlotte Roche meets a free-spirited shrine priest, gets a love of Japan explained by a geisha and her son, experiences bizarre sexual practices and understands the problem of having sex in modern Japanese society.