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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.
- 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.[1][2]
- The Antarang Museum, India's first sex museum, opened in Mumbai in 2002. It eventually shut down due to a lack of business.[3]
- South Korea's first sex museum, Asia Eros Museum, opened in the Insadong neighborhood in Seoul in 2003. The museum has since closed.[4] After a five-year legal battle, private collector Kim Whan Bae opened the Museum of Sex and Health in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, in March 2006.[5]
- 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.
- Love Land was a planned sex museum in China, but construction was suspended by the Chinese government.[6]
- In Japan, there are many sex museums called Hihokan across the country. They are located in amusement centers in popular sightseeing spots or destination spa resorts, and are usually run by individuals, not by organizations. They date back to the 1960s–70s; more recently such amusement resorts for older men have declined, and most sex museums closed in the 1990s-2000s.[7][8][9][10][11]
- Sexmuseum Amsterdam opened in 1985.
- The Schwules Museum in Berlin opened in 1985 and was the world's first museum dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.[14]
- The Museum of Eroticism in Paris opened in 1997 and closed in 2016.[15]
- The Erotic Art Museum near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg opened in 1992.[16]
- The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum in Berlin opened in 1996 and closed in 2014. It claimed to be "the world's largest erotic museum".[17]
- The Museum Erotica in Copenhagen opened in 1993.[18] It was closed in 2009 due to financial problems.
- The Museo de la Erotica in Barcelona opened in 1996.[19]
- The first Russian sex museum opened in 2004 in Saint Petersburg; it claims to exhibit the preserved penis of Rasputin.[20][21] However, experts are divided about the truth of this claim and it’s not scientifically proven to be his. It was allegedly sold to the museum in 1977 by Rasputin’s lion-tamer daughter, Maria.[22]
- While not specifically 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.[23]
- 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.[24]
- The Secretum, or Cupboard 55, was a secret collection containing erotic objects at the British Museum in 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 items related to human sexuality.[25]
- The first erotic museum in Lithuania opened in Kaunas on 13 July 2009.
- Athens's first sex museum, "Kama Sutra: the World Museum of Erotic Art", opened in 2012.[26]
- Moscow's first sex museum, named "Tochka G" ('G Spot') opened in 2011.[27]
- 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.[28] The museum closed at the beginning of 2012.
- The Museum of Sexual Cultures opened in Kharkiv in 1999.[29]
- The Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavík, Iceland, opened in 1997.[30]
- The Vagina Museum in London was established in 2017.[31]
- The Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana was established in 1947 and merged with Indiana University in 2016.[32]
- The Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago was founded in 1991 by Chuck Renslow and Tony DeBlase as a "community archives, library, and museum of Leather, kink, fetish, and BDSM history and culture."[33][34]
- The Museum of Sex in New York City opened in 2002.[35]
- The Hollywood Erotic Museum in Hollywood opened in January 2004 and closed in 2006.[36]
- The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami Beach opened on October 16, 2005.[37]
- The Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas opened on August 3, 2008.[38]
- The Julia C. Bulette Cafe, Saloon, and Red Light Museum in Virginia City, Nevada was a small museum attached to a restaurant in the Comstock Lode boomtown. It is named for Julia Bulette, a local woman who was murdered. It closed in 2020.[39]
- The Sexploratorium's Educational Sex Museum in Denver, Colorado opened in August 2024.[40]
- The Museu do Sexo Hilda Furacão opened in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil in 2016.[41]
- The Vaginamuseum is a virtual museum that launched in 2014.[42]
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