Illustrated GIF by Maira Delgado

Intimacy is so often whispered about, tucked away, or wrapped in shame. But if you zoom out, past borders and centuries, you’ll find a much juicier truth: humans have always thrown parties for pleasure. Erotic play has been carved into temples, shouted through parades, painted in colors, and set on fire beneath the stars. 

Grab your boarding pass and get ready to tour some of the boldest and brightest celebrations of intimacy across the world!

First stop: Candi Sukuh, Indonesia

On the slopes of Mount Lawu sits Candi Sukuh, a 15th‑century Javanese temple. Erotic reliefs of the lingam and yoni, interlocking bodies, and fertility imagery decorate its walls, revealing a culture where sexuality wasn’t hushed but woven into spirituality. Here, fertility and intimacy were seen as cosmic forces worthy of art, worship, and wonder.

Next stop: Kanamara Matsuri, Japan

Welcome to Japan’s “Festival of the Steel Phallus,” a tongue‑in‑cheek celebration in Kawasaki. Every April, enormous pink and black phalluses parade through the streets. What began as a fertility and safe‑sex blessing has become a joy bomb of humor, protection, and collective pleasure. This is erotic play at its campiest, and proof that taking sex less seriously can also mean honoring it more joyfully.

Next stop: Rio Carnival, Brazil

As Sukuh Temple has intimacy chiseled into stone, Rio Carnival explodes it in sequins, sweat, and samba. For a week each year, streets pulse with music and massive sensuality. Bodies shimmer under feathers, sequined nipples glimmer, and dance pushes hips into a dizzy new universe. Carnival is the definition of collective intoxication. It’s a freedom to be loud, playful, and together.

Time traveling to: Dionysian Festivals, Ancient Greece 

Festivals for Dionysus (the god of wine, vegetation, fertility, ecstasy, and theatre) blurred the line between sacred and profane. Think comic plays with oversized phallic props, wine‑soaked revelry, disguises, gender‑bending, and ecstatic performance. These were civic pleasures, where erotic play was folded into everyday theater and ritual. 

Next stop: Beltane Fire Festival, Scotland 

Every year, fire dancers and painted bodies light up Edinburgh for the Beltane Fire Festival. Rooted in ancient Celtic fertility rites, the event has been reimagined with modern performance art, drumbeats, and naked (or nearly naked) bodies leaping through firelight. Beltane channels erotic energy into ritual spectacle: sensual, pagan, and primal.

Last stop: European Tantra Festival, Netherlands 

Our last stop is contemporary but intentional. Each summer in the Dutch countryside, hundreds gather for Europe’s largest Tantra festival. Workshops, rituals, dance, and “sacred play” center intimacy with trust, consent, and curiosity. Participants co‑create spaces where erotic energy meets mindfulness, with less spectacle, more exploration.

Our tour comes to an end

From stone carvings to street parades, what unites these festivals is this: humans have always found ways to honor, flaunt, and ritualize intimacy. Pleasure is a language with countless dialects. Some shout through drums and glitter, while others whisper with touch. 

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