A journey through the most famous erotic museums in the world, which house from the first sex toys to the works of Picasso and Rembrandt
Sex is the expression of the most basic and the most sublime of humanity. It is the mechanism by which we reproduce, something we share with most multicellular living beings. If you are more than just an amoeba, it is very likely that you are having sex.
But sex is also different in our species, since it goes far beyond mere reproduction. We are one of the few animals that have sex for pleasure, as a mechanism of social and personal cohesion. Cooperation between humans is the only thing that has made our species survive, and sex is the channel that binds us to each other. It is behind artistic expression, personal transcendence, and the highest states of consciousness.
It is not surprising that there are museums dedicated to sex and eroticism. However, they are relatively recent. They began to appear in Europe in the late 60s and during the 70s, during the sexual revolution. From the 90s they were called erotic museums or erotic art museums instead of sex museums.
Surely you have an erotic museum near you or you can visit it on your next trip. You cannot miss them.
The Museu de L’Erotica, Barcelona
The Museu de L’Erotica de Barcelona, ​​in the heart of Ciutat Vella, created in 1997, exhibits more than 800 works of erotic art. Works include paintings and sculptures by the great masters (Picasso boasts great erotic works of art), and a historical look at Spanish pornography. The collection of forbidden Japanese art and the room dedicated to pornographic films made by order of King Alfonso XIII stand out, where he exhibits three of them.
The Secret Cabinet, National Archaeological Museum, Naples
The Roman Empire had a great appreciation for erotic art, as can be seen from the remains found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum . Unfortunately, the art that was discovered was too much for the socially conservative customs of the Victorian era. Among others were statues of gods and men with huge phalluses, oil lamps depicting explicit sexual scenes, and a sculpture of the god Pan having sex with a goat. These works were transferred in the 19th century to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where they ended up locked in a secret cabinet, open only to well-educated gentlemen. In the years that followed, the cabinet was closed and opened to the public depending on the conservatism of the government in power. In 2000, the collection was reopened, this time also to women.
Icelandic Falological Museum, Reykjavik
You may not have heard of the science of phallology before, or the study of penises. The term was coined by Sigurdur Hjartarson when in 1997 he founded the Icelandic Phalological Museum, a unique institution of its kind. In the museum’s collection there are 283 samples of mammalian phalluses. Hjartarson’s son, Hjortur, expanded the collection, which includes a human specimen and a sperm whale penis weighing 75 kilograms and 1.5 meters in length, as well as casts of the penis of the national handball team. Although it is not dedicated to eroticism, the museum has an essentially educational vocation, stripping penises of the taboos that surround them.
Venustempel, Amsterdam
The capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, is considered one of the freest cities in Europe. Among other things, both prostitution and drug use are legalized and regulated. Not surprisingly, it is home to two sex-themed museums.
The Venustempel (Temple of Venus) is the oldest erotic museum in the world. It opened in 1985 and contains a modest collection whose main attraction is a wide assortment of Victorian pornography, the most sexually conservative era in European history, and also one of the most prolific in erotic art.
Sex Museum, New York
The New York Museum of Sex (MoSex, in a nod to MoMa) admirably combines the academic with the comic. It has a permanent collection of 15,000 erotic objects, but the most interesting are its temporary exhibitions. You can find some that could be in a natural history museum, such as The Sex Lives of Animals, even others a little rarer, such as Lovers From Hereafter (lovers of the afterlife) with sexual encounters between skeletons . The museum also features Play, a bar that serves cocktails with obscene names.
World Erotic Art Museum, Miami
The World Museum of Erotic Art (WEAM) in Miami is one of the most intellectual and with some of the most respected erotic works in the majority culture. It contains more than 4,000 pieces including a Karma Sutra-themed decorated four-poster bed, a six-foot carved wooden phallus, and works by Rembrandt and Picasso, along with works from all eras and from around the world.
The owner and founder of the museum, Naomi Wilzing, who passed away in 2015, aimed to demonstrate that erotic art is much more than pornography. It can be a work of art and also offer a window into different cultures.
Museum of Sex Machines, Prague
Inventors have long been making gadgets with which to improve human sexual life, or vice versa, limit it, for much longer than we think. This Museum of Sex Machines in Prague exhibits 16th century chastity belts along with ‘copulation tables’, furniture designed to facilitate sexual intercourse, sex machines including motorized chairs and phalluses, and gadgets such as a feathered spinning wheel. of bird in its perimeter, in addition to a cinema with old erotic films. The museum is a tribute to the inventiveness of the human mind, especially when it comes to sex.
MusEros, Saint Petersburg
When leaving the Hermitage visit, it may be worth going through the Museums of Saint Petersburg. The museum made headlines in 2004 when it acquired a 12-inch human penis that supposedly belonged to the “Mad Monk”, Grigori Rasputin, the confidant of Tsarina Alexandra, although this claim has not been verified. In any case, Russia’s first erotic museum houses a large collection of erotic paraphernalia, with special attention to the sex lives of ancient Russian rulers. They even have a “naughty chair” that supposedly belonged to Catherine the Great.
Quo Science Travel Section sponsored by Hyundai