Sex museum

New York City's Museum of Sex

A sex museum is a museum that displays erotic art, historical sexual aids, and documents on the history of erotica. They were popular in Europe at the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s, the era of the sexual revolution. Since the 1990s, these museums are often called erotic museums or erotic art museums instead of sex museums.

Notable sex museums

North America

• The first sex museum was opened in San Francisco by Ted McIlvenna in the 1970s and is now closed.
• The Museum of Sex in New York City opened in 2002.^[1]
• The Hollywood Erotic Museum in Hollywood opened in January 2004. This museum is currently closed and now contains a Frederick's of Hollywood retail shop.^[2]
• The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami Beach opened on October 16, 2005.^[3]
• The Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas opened on August 3, 2008.^[4] This museum closed in February 2014.^[5]
• Samantha's Room (Red Deer Alberta) - hosts an array of paraphila paraphernalia, including torture items and dildos from a pre-historic era.

Europe

• The Museum of Eroticism in Paris opened in 1997.^[6]
• There is a small sex museum in the heart of the Amsterdam red light district, de Wallen, and a second larger and more upscale one (Venus Temple) nearby, on the Damrak. Venus Temple is the oldest still operating sex museum; it opened in 1985.
• The Erotic Art Museum near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg opened in 1992.^[7]
• The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum in Berlin opened in 1996. It claims to be "the world's largest erotic museum".^[8]
• The Museum Erotica in Copenhagen opened in 1993.^[9] It was closed in 2009 due to financial problems.
• The Museo de la Erotica in Barcelona opened in 1996.^[10]
• The first Russian sex museum opened in 2004 in Saint Petersburg; it claims to exhibit the preserved penis of Rasputin.^[11]
• While not itself a sex museum, the National Archaeological Museum in Naples opened its extensive collection of historic erotic art in its Secret Cabinet to the public in 2000. Most of the exhibits are from Greek and Roman times, and many were recovered from nearby Pompeii.^[12]
• The Museo d'Arte Erotica, devoted to the erotic history of Venice and showing historical and contemporary erotic art opened in Venice, Italy in February 2006.^[13]
• The Secretum or Cupboard 55, containing erotic objects at the British Museum, London.
• The Sex Machines Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, contains "an exposition of mechanical erotic appliances, the purpose of which is to bring pleasure and allow extraordinary and unusual positions during intercourse." On display in the museum are "more than 200 objects and mechanical appliances on view, a gallery of art with erotic themes, a cinema with old erotic films, erotic clothing and many other things pertaining to human sexuality.^[14]
• First erotic museum in Lithuania opened in Kaunas, July 13, 2009.
• Athens's first sex museum, the Greek Erotica Museum, opened in the center Omonoia Kapodistriou 44 in 2012.^[15]
• Moscow's first sex museum, named "Tochka G" ('G Spot') opened in 2011.^[16]
• The Erotic Museum in Warsaw, the first sex museum in Poland, opened in 2011 with over 2,000 exhibits. It reveals the erotic fascinations of artists from all continents.^[17] The museum closed at the beginning of 2012 as they search for a new location and more funds to keep the museum afloat.

Asia

"Beppu Hihōkan", a sex museum next to the Shiraike-Jigoku in the Kannawa Spa, Beppu, Ōita, Japan.

• The first sex museum in China opened in 1999 in the center of Shanghai; in 2001 it moved to the outskirts of the city. It was variously called "Museum of Ancient Chinese Sex Culture" or "Dalin Cultural Exhibition" after its founder, sexologist Dr. Liu Dalin. In early 2004 it moved again, to Tong Li, and is now known as the China Sex Museum, with over three thousand erotic artifacts.^[18][19]
• India's first sex museum opened in Mumbai (Bombay) in 2002.^[20]
• South Korea's first sex museum, Asia Eros Museum, opened in the Insadong neighborhood in Seoul in 2003. The museum has since closed.^[21]
• Love Land Park on Jeju Island, South Korea opened in 2004. It is an outdoor sculpture park focused on a theme of sex, running sex education films, and featuring 140 sculptures representing humans in various sexual positions.
• In Japan, there are many sex museums called "Hihokan (House of Hidden Treasures)" everywhere across the country. They are located in amusement centers in popular sightseeing spots or spa resorts, and usually ran by individuals, not by organizations. They date back to the 1960s–70s; more recently such type of amusement resorts for elder men have declined, and mostly personal sex museums closed in the 1990s-2000s.^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

Australia

• The small National Museum of Erotica in Canberra opened in 2001. The museum closed soon after, although the collection continued to grow.^[27]

Online

• The Venusberg Erotic Art-Museum is a virtual Erotic-Museum, founded 1997 by a German collector and run as a paysite.
• Vintage Erotica Museum is a virtual Erotic Art Museum, online since 2007 and run as a paysite.
• The private DMK Erotic Art Museum is based on the collection Roger Peyrefitte, Paris and founded 1982 by the German art collector D. M. Klinger. It is not open to the public and virtual access will start in the near future. The collection including more than 4000 rare collectors items, paintings, watercolors, sculptures, historic documents of all kinds is up for sale.
• The Virtual Museum of Erotic Art was created as a diploma work in the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, Poland. The Adobe Flash based site is available in Polish and English. It is a collection of 69 erotic art works by prominent artists commented with selected quotes on the subject of eroticism.

See also

• Icelandic Phallological Museum

References

External links

• The Era of Sex Museums, by Marianna Beck and Jack Hafferkamp, in Libido, the Journal of Sex and Sensibility, vol 10(3), Fall 1998. A survey and review of various sex museums.
• Interview of Dr. Laura Henkel
• 944 Magazine Sex Ed
• Las Vegas Review Journal, Embracing Erotic Art
• Erotic Museum in Las Vegas
• The New Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas