Problem
Where are the Penis and Sex museums? Do they really exist? Any point in going there? Have they been closed down?
Answers
I'll deal first with the Phallic Museum in Iceland, which I've seen online, then the Museum of Sex in New York, which I have visited, then others around the world from China (which I visited) and others in Europe and (previously) in Australia.
Sex Museum, Iceland
My friend Ruth is going to Iceland and when I asked if there were any museums she told me about the Penis museum, which she won't visit because she is with the family. I looked on line and found it. I wondered what they display, drawings or plastic models and mummified bits of animals? Polar bear penis? Does a polar bear have one? How do they stop it freezing up and falling off?
I looked at the list of museum pages and burst out laughing when I saw the word souvenirs. Surely not a real one? I recalled reading about somebody who had a transplant from another person of a different race and colour. (Links at end of this post. Wait and read the rest of my post first. More laughs to come.)
I would have thought that a black man with a white penis or a white man with a black penis would be something of a novelty. An unforgettable experience. However, perhaps he did not like the idea that it was not his. Or the lady friend might wonder, who did you take that from? Or will it fall off, inside me?
Anyway, I read on, checking out the souvenirs page. Not that I needed one. Doesn't everybody over 18 already have a collection of plastic spares? You can buy them in Ann Summer shops in many high streets in the UK. A shop on Orchard Road, Singapore, has all sorts of things in the window and on sales. I checked the website page of the Iceland Museum for you, dear reader, in case you were too shy to look.
You can buy a key ring with a large synthetic penis attached. Imagine going into the lost property office at Baker street. "
"I've lost my keys."
"Yes, sir. (or Madam). What do they look like?"
As Mae West never said, "Is that a pistol in your pocket or just a key ring from Iceland?"
(If anybody doesn't recognize the quotation, Mae West said, "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" She wrote her own lines. Once she was told there were twenty one men to see her. She replied, "I'm tired. Send one of them home.")
If you visit the penis museum in Iceland, they can also sell you a bag with a penis printed on the outside. So you can carry your souvenirs back home through Customs.
Again, if you lose a bag, when asked, "What does it look like?" you can say, "It has a penis on the front." The same goes for the hat (like a baseball cap).
The same drawing is used on several products. So it is all a bit same-y. I flipped through the list. Once you've got the idea, no surprises. However, I supposed each item has different uses. There was one surprise. The toys. Not what expected. (Sex toys.) A wind-up penis which hops around. Like those jumping chicken and eggs. I just laugh thinking about it. Maybe I should get one. For a dull day. If a laugh helps ward off depression or raise morale and cure cancer, then a jumping penis might be a good investment.
Joke entertainment for a hen party or stag do? I am not into rude jokes myself. Not in public and restaurants. I suppose some people would like it.
Other souvenirs include drinking glasses, and condoms with assorted designs, and a 'willy warmer' in the shape of an elephant's trunk.
Now, as I have not, yet, visited this museum in Iceland, let me turn my attention to a place I have visited and can recommend. The sex museum in New York. Museums of all kinds evolve and hold exhibitions to keep visitors coming back, if you'll excuse the pun, and renew their novelty value as a news item.
I enjoyed learning about the history of sex through the ages, censorship in the cinema. But what influenced me and was most memorable was the films of the sex life of animals, recorded by zoos attempting to improve their breeding programmes.
I had visited a flamingo farm in Florida and found that flamingoes breed better when in large groups. A sort of live porn film. Watching all the others at it seems to put flamingoes in the mood. Odd, because other animals or birds are the opposite and will only breed in seclusion.
I was also shocked by the number of half witted or immoral creatures which breed with anything, any relative, parents, siblings, children, any sex, any age, even an inanimate object. The story I had learned at an all girls school that swans (or some other bird) mate with a member of the opposite sex for life and devotedly bring up children together, was entirely wrong, or only part of a much bigger picture.
On the other hand, some creatures have invisible sex organs. It's very hard to identify the sex of some creatures, such as tortoises, and get them to mate.
At the time of my visit to the Sex Museum in New York, and for ever afterwards, my mind has been mulling over these questions. If I remember rightly, they had items such as chocolate this and that, items and condoms.
I then remembered I had visited the Sex Museum in Shanghai, a museum which later moved to another city, I believe not to banish the museum from Shanghai, but with the aim moving the museum to a place needing publicity with the idea of attracting more tourists. This museum was far more serious, lots of small stone age representations at the start, the more modern items at the end.
I then discovered a page in Wikipedia listing sex museums. To my amazement there were far too many for me to analyse and report on every one or list all the addresses. Suffice it to say that you can find erotic museums of one kind of another, ranging from sado-machochism to penis and sex in (alphabetically): Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and many more.
Tips
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4535072/Black-man-penis-transplant-tattooed-white.html
ICELAND
www.phallus.is/en
www.shop.phallus.is.souvenirs
THE NETHERLANDS
www.amsterdam.info/museums/sexmuseum
USA
Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10016.
Tel: (212) 689 6337.
www.en.wikipedia.or/wiki/list_of_sex_museums
WORLDWIDE
Individual museums reviewed on
TripAdvisor.co.uk (the website changes according to the country from which you are signing in, so on holiday or working or living in the UK you get this website, from other home or holiday destinations the website name you get will be different.
If you want something visual, Indian temples in Khadjuraho have entwined figures of threesomes and foursomes. When I went there our guide tried half-heartedly to ward off the sellers of plaster imitations. I think I packed them inside shoes or boots to guard agains damage or discovery.
Buying them seemed a good idea at the time. After I got home I placed them prominently on display. However, I discovered within 24 hours that I didn't want them seen by most people who came to the house: the window cleaner, parents, people collecting money for worthy causes, neighbours, neighbours with children.
I thought my erotic carvings would be no problem for the blind piano tuner. I walked out, then walked back in and knew something was missing. He apologised for moving items. He told me had felt for fragile objects on the piano before opening the lid. Not to worry. My carvings were now on the windowsill, by the busy street.
Wikipedia says that the Australian sex museum has closed but the collection 'is growing'. I don't know if that is a joke. But everybody likes a joke, so long as it's not obviously rude. The more subtle the better. As Marilyn Monroe said: "If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything."
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Author of several books including:
Quick Quotations.
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