Daniel, Author of Relationships & Sex, Recommends:
- The Museum of Sex (MoSex), New York: A diverse collection exploring the history, science, and culture of human sexuality. https://www.museumofsex.com/
- Erotic Art Museum, Amsterdam: Features a collection of erotic art, photography, and sculptures. Explores the history and evolution of sexuality through art.
- The Venustempel, Netherlands: A space with rotating exhibitions offering a wide range of sexual perspectives, often featuring art.
- The Sex Museum, Prague: Displays erotic artifacts from various cultures and eras, showcasing the evolution of sexual expression.
- The Centre Pompidou, Paris: Features a variety of modern and contemporary art, including pieces that explore themes of sexuality.
- The Broad, Los Angeles: Has exhibited works with strong sexual themes, prompting discussions of the complexities of sexuality & identity.
- The Tate Modern, London: Has included art that addresses human relationships and sexuality and challenges traditional views. https://www.tate.org.uk/
Source: Press Office Jamie McCartney
The body is beauty, and even sexuality can be revisited in artistic key. Especially when art becomes the bearer of messages of respect, inclusiveness, acceptance of every nuance and diversity. The culture of sexuality and eros, we could call it. There are places that celebrate this beauty, aesthetics and a culture and tradition far removed from pornography. They are the museums related to eros, the works of art that glorify bodies and eroticism in every nuance (respectful and intensely, intimately beautiful).
Let’s try a journey together, ready?
Penis Museum in Iceland
Yes, there is such a thing. It is called Icelandic Phallological Museum (Phallological Museum) and is located in Reykjavík, Iceland. It is a highly regarded museum, exhibiting the penis of more than 93 species of animals found in Iceland, with a total of 280 specimens in all. The museum was born in 1997 out of the long work of its founder, Professor Sigurður Hjartarson, who searched and collected animal members throughout the country with the help of professional hunters. Once he retired, his collection found a home for public display.
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So many “unique” pieces to see: a piece of the blue whale penis Is 170 cm long and weighs 70 kg. There is also the smallest one, that of a hamster, 2 mm long and to be observed with a magnifying glass. Like it or not, handicrafts such as sticks and lamps have also been made from the animals’ penises; as well as a fantasy section (which cannot be visited because it is magical and invisible to human eyes), with the genitalia of elves and trolls.
But since the goal of the museum was also to foster the study of anatomy male intimate, there is no shortage of space collecting human penises, received from the voluntary donation of four people of different origins. Not in the flesh, but in silver casts, we also find on display the penises of national handball team players.
The Great Wall of Vagina
“Female genitalia have long been a source of fascination but also confusion,” it says on the website presenting the works of the sculptor Jamie McCartney, author of thework “The Great Wall of Vagina”, created in 2006. An 8-meter-long wall sculpture consisting of four hundred plaster casts of vulvas, all unique, arranged in ten large panels. There are different vaginas, very different, one close to the other, to be looked at as a whole without focusing on the single print. It is a choral work, not at all sexy, but rather inclusive, with the casts all white to make these vaginas all look alike, without color.
The volunteers who volunteered for the casts range in age from 18 to 76. “There are mothers and daughters, identical twins, trans men and women, and many others. Vulvas are as different as faces, and many people, particularly women, don’t realize that.” The Milan Triennale in 2012/2013 was the first exhibition to host the work, which is now at the Wilzig Museum in Miami (through December 2025); while a photographic copy is at the Mu-sex in Lisbon Until International Women’s Day.
Source: Jamie McCartney 2011 Press OfficeThe Great Wall of Vagina, Jamie McCartney 2011
Museum of the Vagina in London
A museum created, and being newly opened, to celebrate “any person with a vagina,” whatever identity, orientation, and feeling. The Vagina museum in London appears to have been the first exclusively devoted to vaginas, vulvas, and gynecological anatomy, wanted by scholar Florence Schechter to respond to the Icelandic penis museum and made possible by money raised through crowdfunding. It had opened near Camden Market, but reopened in March after closing due to Covid, in a new location, twice the size, at Bethnal Green.
The idea remains always to creating culture around female anatomy and sexuality, knowledge and awareness. Because we still know too little about the vagina, men and women alike. The principles behind the museum say it well: “Erase stigma around the body and gynecological anatomy”; “Spread knowledge and raise awareness of gynecological anatomy and health”; “Give people confidence to talk about issues surrounding gynecological anatomy”; but also “Challenge heteronormative and cisnormative behaviors.”
The new spaces will house workshops, debates, readings and games, with a strongly inclusive sensibility that leaves room for the Lgbtq+ community, to the rights of women and trans and intersex people. Attention and awareness also towards the menstrual cycle, a source of embarrassment and shame still in too many countries around the world. All treated naturally and without taboos.
Venustempel Sexmuseum, the historic museum in Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam there is the most ancient museum of sex, opened in 1985 to collect more than 4,000 years of history of sex. The Temple of Venus, as the museum is also called, displays a unique collection of artifacts, artifacts, statues, paintings, photographs e paraphernalia on eros and its surroundings. Just a short walk from Dam Square, the collection has been expanded and updated over time, but there is a very strong reminder of the history, the customs and passionate and carnal customs. There are objects from the Middle Ages, Victorian, all the way to the present day.
Museum of Sex, New York
The Museum of Sex in New York has been open since 2002, but only for visitors and visitors with more than 18 years old. It houses virtual installations and an incredible amount of objects, costumes, artwork, and technology about sex and eros. The goal is not to provoke, but to educational and conservation, to be testimony of the history of sexuality and its evolution. On display inside the museum are exhibits and appointments with an artistic and scientific slant. There are the history of the condom, the origins of the pornography and customs related to the use of sex toys: over 2,000 square meters of curiosity, art and culture.
In Prague the Sex Machines Museum
Provocation and amazement are instead the watchwords of the Sex Machines Museum in Prague, which was established in 2001 in the heart of Prague primarily to collect machines and tools for pleasure. There are patented and manufactured objects, plans and drawings of toys that never came to life, and an exhibit that tells the story of how men (and women) throughout history have always ingeniously enjoyed themselves. Three floors and 600 square meters chock-full of erotic material with objects, over 350 of them, that are truly curious and incomprehensible at the first, naive glance: there are electrical anti-masturbation devices, chastity belts, vibrators of all kinds and shapes up to the most common and modern accessories. Inside the museum there is a small movie theater for the screening of old black-and-white erotic films.
Naples at the City of Science presents the human body
It is called “Body” and is the first interactive museum in Europe entirely dedicated to the topic of health, biomedical science and technology, and prevention, based on direct experimentation, so it is ideal for adults, teens and even children.
The exhibition and knowledge is developed through immersive videos, experiences of virtual reality, games, multimedia, workshops and immersive activities really for all ages. A tour route (available in Italian, English and Chinese) that winds through 14 thematic islands dedicated to different systems of the body. Between the various islands are set up rest areas dedicated to rest, dialogue, play and reflection, and open lab, where experts, university researchers and research centers will present to the public scientific experiments on our organism.
Five thousand square meters dedicated to the knowledge of the human body, with a section entirely devoted to “The Love Machine,” with the aim of illustrating to the public how the reproductive system of women and men works, without neglecting references to affectivity education. Also on topics related to sexuality, the following are planned meetings with experts, small exhibitions temporary, workshops interactive. Among the permanent exhibits: an interactive, multimedia map of the human reproductive system; the penises of some animals, to highlight biodiversity but also some of the curiosities of the animal world; genital development at various stages of life; and several sections devoted to fertilization, pregnancy and genetics.
Manga and erotic comics at Comics, Turin
Great news for the overage audience of the XXVII edition of Torino Comics (April 14 – 16 at Lingotto Fiere in Turin), which opens the Red Zone, an area dedicated to the erotic comics, at theinformation and awareness of sexuality issues. Two major exhibitions dedicated to comics: “The masters of Italian Eros.“, curated by Torino Comics, collects 10 plates by some of the greatest Italian cartoonists who have tried their hand at the genre; “The masters of Japanese Eros.” is an exhibition of 10 erotic-themed plates by Japanese mangaka, set up in collaboration with Magic Press. More, Sensuability brings to the fair an exhibition with works dedicated to the idea of disability and sexuality developed through the languages of comics, film and painting, and projects a short film which addresses these issues with cinematic irony. Right at the fair Alessandro Sidoti and Rossana Berretta present the new volume of “Dimoon Erotica.” Main partner of the Red Zone is Mysecretcase, who during the three-day event presents his illustrated and photographic manual on sex education and dedicates to young audiences meetings with sexologist, meet&greet, and other information and awareness activities with the typical smart tools and languages of the community. And for the dreamers? Inside the area is set up the “Your secret” box. where the public can leave little notes with the hottest and most secret wishes written on them; each day a few tickets will be drawn that will be graphically represented by guest cartoonists at the fair and displayed in the “Wall of dreams.”
