A journey through the most famous erotic museums in the world, home to everything from the first sex toys to works by Picasso and Rembrandt
Sex is the expression of the most basic and the most sublime of humanity. It’s the mechanism by which we reproduce, something we share with most multicellular living things. If you’re more than just an amoeba, chances are you’re having sex.
But sex is also different in our species, as it goes far beyond mere reproduction. We are one of the few animals that have sex for pleasure, as a mechanism for social and personal cohesion. Human cooperation is the only thing that made our species survive, and sex is the channel that connects 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 started to appear in Europe in the late 60s and during the 70s, during the sexual revolution. From the 1990s onwards, they were called erotic museums or erotic art museums instead of sex museums.
Surely you have an erotic museum near you or you can get closer on your next trip. You cannot miss them.
The Museum of L’Erotica, Barcelona
Barcelona’s L’Erotica Museum, ​​in the heart of the Ciutat Vella, created in 1997, displays more than 800 works of erotic art. The works include paintings and sculptures by the great masters (Picasso has great works of erotic art) and a historical overview of Spanish pornography. The Japanese prohibited art collection and the room dedicated to pornographic films made by order of King Alfonso XIII, where he exhibits three of them, stand out.
The Secret Cabinet, National Museum of Archeology, Naples
The Roman Empire had a great appreciation for erotic art, as can be seen in the remains found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Unfortunately, the art that was discovered was too much for the socially conservative mores 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 in Naples, where they ended up locked away in a secret cabinet, open only to educated gentlemen. In the years that followed, the cabinet was closed and opened to the public due to the conservatism of the government in power. In 2000, the collection was reopened, this time also for women.
Iceland Phalological Museum, Reykjavik
You may not have heard of the science of phalology before, or the study of the penis. The term was coined by Sigurdur Hjartarson when in 1997 he founded the Phalological Museum of Iceland, a unique institution of its kind. 283 samples of mammalian phalluses are preserved in the museum’s collection. Hjartarson’s son, Hjortur, has expanded the collection, which includes a human specimen and a 75-kilogram, 1.5-meter long sperm whale penis, as well as penis molds from the national handball team. Although not dedicated to eroticism, the museum has an essentially educational vocation, stripping the penis of the taboos that surround it.
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’s 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 range of Victorian pornography, the most sexually conservative era in European history and also one of the most prolific in erotic art.
Museum of Sex, New York
The Museum of Sex in New York (MoSex, named after the MoMa) admirably blends 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, like The Sex Lives of Animals, even a little more rare, like future lovers (afterlife lovers) with sexual encounters between skeletons. The museum also has Play, a bar that serves cocktails with obscene names.
World Museum of Erotic Art, Miami
The World Museum of Erotic Art (WEAM) in Miami is one of the most intellectual and has some of the most respected erotic works in the majority culture. It contains over 4,000 pieces, including a four-poster bed decorated in the Karma Sutra theme, a six-foot carved wooden phallus, and works by Rembrandt and Picasso, along with works from all eras and around the world.
The museum’s owner and founder, Naomi Wilzing, who died in 2015, wanted 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 creating devices to improve human sex life, or vice versa, limit it, for much longer than we think. This Museum of Sex Machines in Prague displays 16th century chastity belts along with “copulation tables”, furniture designed to facilitate sexual intercourse, sex machines including motorized chairs and phalluses, and devices such as a feather spinning wheel . Birds on its perimeter, in addition to a cinema with old erotic films. The museum pays homage to the inventiveness of the human mind, especially when it comes to sex.
MusEros, St. Petersburg
On the way out of the visit to the Hermitage, it may be worth visiting the Museums of St. Petersburg. The museum made headlines in 2004 when it acquired a 30-centimeter human penis that allegedly belonged to the “Mad Monk”, Grigori Rasputin, Tsarina Alexandra’s confidant, although that 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 former Russian rulers. They even have a “naughty chair” that supposedly belonged to Catherine the Great.
Quo Science Travel Section sponsored by Hyundai