CZECH REPUBLIC: First ever museum dedicated to sexual gadgets has opened in Prague

Record ID: 334898

  • Title: CZECH REPUBLIC: First ever museum dedicated to sexual gadgets has opened in Prague
  • Date: 21st September 2006
  • Summary: (CEEF) PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC (RECENT) (REUTERS) PEOPLE IN FRONT OF TOWN HALL IN OLD TOWN SQUARE TOURISTS WALKING IN TOWN SQUARE TOURISTS LOOKING AT TOWN HALL ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK VARIOUS OF FIGURES IN CLOCK TOWER PEOPLE WALKING PAST SEX MUSEUM TOURISTS TAKING PICTURE THROUGH MUSEUM WINDOW PEOPLE IN MUSEUM RECEPTION MUSEUM EXHIBIT PEOPLE ENTERING THE MUSEUM MAN AND WOMAN L
  • Embargoed: 6th October 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Czech Republic
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA8Q8NK3S2PK9FGNU26CGQOCBE
  • Story Text: While many visitors in Europe like to absorb the history of a country by visiting its museums, those who travel to Prague have the opportunity to witness a rather more different history than most.
    In the small and busy streets of Prague's Old Town, it is hard for visitors not to miss the bright red signs promoting a museum which delves into the peculiar history of the world's sex machines.
    The museum is the first of its kind and has over 300 sex machines and gadgets dating back to the 14th century on display.
    Located just a stone's throw from Prague's famous Old Town Square, the museum collection consists of items from all over the world and includes movable "furniture" like chairs and swings specially created for sexual play. Anti-masturbation apparatus for both sexes and a sex steam engine created for "hysterical" women in the 19th century can also be seen.
    The museum is the result of its founder and owner Oriano Bizzochi's thorough research and curiosity. It opened two years ago and is constantly expanding.
    "The collection was prepared some years before it first opened and the collection expands all the time. We plan to open two more rooms," said museum director Lucie Poricka.
    The museums takes the visitor on a tour through the history of the human quest for sexual pleasure.
    An entire department of the museum is devoted to erotic dresses, underwear, corsets, bras and night shirts with holes for the genitals.
    Visitors at the museum were positive and a little stunned by the exhibition.
    "It's bizarre. Very very strange," a man visiting said. "Interesting," a young woman added.
    A young Russian tourist agreed.
    "It is very unusual. We don't have museums like this in Russia," he said.
    The exhibition is completed with a cinema showing rare erotic films from the early 20th Century, ordered by Spanish King Alfonse XIII, the grandfather of Spain's current King Juan Carlos.
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