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WARNING: Photos featured in this post depict sex,sexual content and nudity. Photos are censored, however, if easily offended, please tune in later for other posts.
There are those who don’t like to talk about sex.
And, there are those who do.
And those who like to see it.
Amsterdam, a very liberal place, is one of extreme freedom. Marijuana is legal as well as prostitution. Sex shows can be found in the red light district in addition to a few museums, depicting the sex trade and erotica.
One museum, the Sexmuseum Venustempel, located on busy Damrak Street, has been around since 1985, welcoming curious visitors by the thousands. With its convenient location near Amsterdam’s Central Station and many of the city’s hotels, plus its relatively cheap admission, it has evolved into one of the most visited museums in the Netherlands, with 675,000 visitors in 2015 alone.
Having visited the museum about twenty years ago, when I was younger, I knew that I probably remembered it in a different way. Aware of what it offered, I was curious to see what changes, if any, had take place after all these years.
The museum’s full name is Sexmuseum-Temple of Venus and the first thing you encounter is a full sized figure of Venus at the entry.
After issuing a greeting to Venus, I paid my admission and made my way inside looking for a familiar display…and there he was!
The flasher.
“Pssst!” He whispers from a dark nook. A motorized figure moves forward, whipping his coat open. Well, you can figure out the rest!
Moving on, life-sized wax figures of Mata Hari and her male partners stand proudly to the right side of the room. In the rear, a long line waits for entry into the fetish room, offering hundreds of pictures of different types of fetishes including domination, exhibitionism, nudism, bondage and larger partners.
Guiding yourself through the rooms, each offers a view into different types of sex or cultural views of sex. Downstairs you’ll detour through the dimly lit prostitution room, depicting the sex act as it may have been a couple of hundred years ago, as well as a displays on erotic pastries and African erotic art and fertility gods.
As you make your way up the stairs, plastic body parts line the stairwell and each floor offers encounters with various exhibits including Asian Art, Sex Through the Ages, Sex and Artists (with a depiction of Rembrandt painting a nude subject, Demons and Sex and numerous phallic representations, displayed singularly and in groupings. In the architecturally compelling atrium, which houses the Venus Gallery, make sure to look up at the window where a leather clad sex worker perches asymmetrically atop a stool.
Finally, I encountered something else that I remembered from all those years ago…Marilyn Monroe.
Yes, Marilyn, the sex symbol from the 1950s. Her life-sized wax figure reproduces the iconic scene from her movie The Seven Year Itch in which she fights the upward breeze from the subway grate blowing her white dress.
The rich and interesting collection offers hundreds of pieces of art, unique objects, rare old photographs brought together in an interesting way.
Though not for those easily offended, the museum is both amusing at times and quite compelling. Judging from people’s reactions when I mentioned that I visited, it is also probably not what most people imagine it to be. You’ll definitely get your five euros worth (and maybe more!).
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Sexmuseum Amsterdam
- http://www.sexmuseumamsterdam.nl/
- Address: Damrak 18, 1012 LH Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Hours: Daily, 0930-2330
- Admission: €5.00. Minimum age, 16 years
- Getting There: Walk from the Central Station direction Dam (2 minutes) or from the Dam square direction to the station (5 minutes).