Sex Museums Around the World

Sex museums have been opening all over the world from Amsterdam to Saint Petersburg, Russia to Mumbai, India to Husavik, Iceland to the Museum of Sex on New York City's Fifth Avenue. Some of the items shown in these museums may include dildos and fertility icons from antiquity, erotic art and interactive sculptures, sex toys, odd gadgets, old-time sexual disfunction quackery, and even sex education demonstrations.

Mumbai

Mumbai's sex museum, also known as Antarang, is India's only sex museum. Antarang was opened by the government with the intent to educate not to titillate. HIV/AIDS is a major crisis in the Asian subcontinent. In fact, U.N. figures state that more people in India are infected than in any other country.

The museum's exhibits offer wood and plastic models that graphically depict various sexual diseases. The floor tiles are painted to look like sperm. While the museum consists only of one room, its location in the center of Mumbai's red light district adds a strong message of caution. Many of the museum's visitors are working prostitutes.

Prague

The Sex Machines Museum in Prague is a tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended) look at sex. The facility exhibits mostly bizarre Victorian gadgets aimed at sexual enhancement or abstinence such as the Electric Anti-Masturbation Machine, a 16th century German chastity belt, and a circa 1910 handle-operated vibrator. A special exhibit features two 1925 Spanish porno movies in a screening room.

New York City

New York City's Museum of Sex, also known as MoSex, purposely attempts to present a museum-quality history of sexual practices. Their 15,000 object collection ranges from the beautiful to the bizarre. It includes a Victorian Age brothel fashion display, silent film comedian Harold Lloyd's collection of 20s Hollywood nude photography, erotic art from the likes of Picasso, and even a clip from the notorious Paris Hilton sex video.

Tongli, China

China's Museum of Ancient Sex Culture spans 6,000 years of sexual behavior. Museum artifacts include a masturbation chair for men and a chair that raises a woman's hips during intercourse. The Chinese government has forced the museum to move several times.

Iceland

The Icelandic Phallological Museum claims to offer phallic specimens from every mammal in Iceland, a total of 250 mostly hanging on the museum walls. These include 16 whale penises and four human penises. Other exhibits include gadgets and utensils related to the male phallus.

Berlin

Berlin's Erotic Museum opened in 1996, but the most remarkable thing about it is the museum's founder, Beate Uhse, who died in 2001 at age 81. Since 1962, Uhse had been known throughout Germany for opening a chain of stores specializing in "marital hygiene." Her first store was the world's first retailer of contraceptives. At the time of her death, there were 80 Beate Uhse stores throughout Germany. Also remarkable, during World War II, Uhse became a Luftwaffe pilot at age 16, and flew the last plane out of Berlin at the end of the war.

Saint Petersburg

In 2004, Russia's first museum of erotica began construction. When it opened, one of the showcase items was the mad monk Rasputin's penis, which had been cut off and taken to France after his murder. Founded by a urologist at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the museum is staffed by buxom "nurses" in uniform.