It’s Thursday, which as far as posting goes, it’s our Friday. Why not feature a few of the many places around the world that celebrate sex? While you might have to take a closer look to notice, the world is full of sex museums, fertility festivals, shrines, temples, and both ancient and modern sculptures depicting love making. Here are some of the best and most curious sex and fertility related sites around the world, courtesy of BootsnAll.
Prostitution Information Centre – Amsterdam
Established in 1994 by former sex worker Mariska Majoor, the Prostitution Information Centre provides free information to those interested in understanding this famous corner of Amsterdam. The centre tries to educate people and stresses that prostitution is not dirty or unhealthy, but simply a choice made by those who sell or buy sex in a legalised context. The centre also offers guided walking tours for a fee which take you through the district and ‘behind the scenes’ in the company of former or current sex workers. Money from this tour as well as that made through the centre’s partnership with the Wallenwinkel, or Red Light District Store, goes towards making sure that the centre continues to operate and give free information to its thousands of visitors each year.
Loveland – Jeju Island, South Korea
In the South Korean island of Jeju, a popular honeymoon destination for the locals on the mainland, is the weird and wonderful Loveland, a park filled with sculptures and artwork connected to sex and sexuality. Here, you will come across a beautiful woman about to drop a chili pepper into a vagina-like oyster, penis and breast-shaped handles on doors, sculptured couples in various copulating positions, and, actually, enough reproductive organs’ representations to last you a life time.
Museum of Sex – New York
The fact that the Museum of Sex, also known as MoSex, comes with a minimum age entry requirement of 18 should tell you that the exhibits here can get pretty explicit, but still, the museum, as its founder Daniel Gluck has said, is dedicated to “the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality,” be it connected to pornography, prostitution, hetero or homosexuality. The collection features permanent as well as changing exhibitions including videos, artifacts, works of art, costumes and technological inventions which illustrate the history and development of sex.
Kanamara Matsuri – Kawasaki, Japan
The Shinto fertility festival held in Japan traces its origin to a local shrine popular with prostitutes who visited the site to pray to be protected from sexually transmitted diseases, and whose yearly celebration now helps raise money for HIV/AIDS and attracts both happy locals and curious foreigners alike. But what makes this festival even more curious? Probably the giant pink penis which is paraded around the city and the many snacks, souvenirs and candy made in the shape of the male reproductive organ. And while the locals are perfectly used to this event, it is often the visiting traveler who cannot seem to contain a big grin when he sees an old grandmother licking away at a lollipop in the aforementioned shape.
