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      The Temple of Venus: The Sex Museum, Amsterdam

      Nobody thought it would make any money when the Sex Museum opened its doors in 1985. For the first few weeks, admission was actually free. Today, however, over 500,000 visitors to Amsterdam enter the museum every year.

      Perhaps it was a good omen when two ancient objects of an erotic nature turned up in the soil during excavation for the building of the museum. One of them was a cracked tile on which a card-playing man was depicted sporting an evident erection – maybe betraying the excitement of a winner. The other was a small statuette of the Greek god Hermes with a giant tumescence, probably imported from the Mediterranean centuries ago by a Dutch merchant. In their time, such figurines were not only fertility icons but also good luck charms.

      At the opening of the Museum, Monique van Marle may well have been the youngest museum director in Europe – young enough still to depend on the support and advice of her father. The museum’s contents were not particularly numerous. All that could be taken for granted in the enterprise was public interest in the erotic, whether for historical, artistic or other reasons.

      Museums are meant to reflect every aspect of life and culture in Europe, yet this clearly crucial part of life remains under-represented, despite the fact that artists of cultures from all over the world have created outstanding works on the subject. Simply asking a curator where the erotic art may be found in an art museum is often met with a negative response. And in any case, erotic works tend to hit museums’ moral blind spot – so that they might, for example, on the one hand display the borrowed Landscape with Stagecoach by Thomas Rowlandson, a master of erotic caricature, while showing nothing else characteristic of his work; and on the other hand, they might hide any erotic work that formed part of their own inventory away in a secluded basement. “Unsuitable for listing in inventory” was the label on a suitcase of art works found in the cellar of one renowned German museum.

      Public morality in matters of sex has moved more slowly over the past thirty years than other aspects of modern culture – with the result that the Sex Museum has had to be established through private initiative.

      The reactions of the Museum’s first visitors confirmed the proprietors’ hopes: the public not only accepted the Museum as a museum, but – regardless of age or gender – were intrigued. The listed contents increased in number and variety as the museum itself gained attention and success. After sixteen years of apprenticeship, Monique was able to assess all of the objects that came into the Museum’s possession with reverence and expertise, as well as an idea of how to display them appropriately.

      The scope of the collection was initially, perhaps, rather too wide. Today, the focus is on being more eclectic. (The author is both sad and glad to see some of his own collected pieces on display in the cases.) As the collection expanded, so it became necessary to extend the accommodation within the building – a fairly old house in Amsterdam. The result is a somewhat labyrinthine tour of the exhibits, but with new and surprising insights at every twist and turn.

      As a woman, Monique has made sure that the choice and style of exhibits in the Museum are not specifically male-oriented. Another objective of the Museum is to point out that sex and the erotic are not just inventions of modern times. What is sometimes described as ‘the most natural thing in the world’ is of course also one of the most historically well-represented things in the world, depicted and expressed in thousands of ways and forms. It is Monique’s opinion that ‘many women do not know why men are so interested in sex’. It would equally seem that many men know little of eroticism.

      Certainly, curious as they may be, they won’t find in the Temple what much of the rest of Amsterdam seems to be advertising. No vulgar expectations are to be met here. Red light presumptions must be left where they belong – outside the Museum. Nonetheless, what the world once considered forbidden, sinful, even pornographic, is here presented cheerfully and without a hint of shame.

      French plates decorated with an erotic motif, late 19th century. Porcelain.

      French plates decorated with an erotic motif, late 19th century. Porcelain.

      Japanese shunga watercolour, c. 1900.

      Japanese shunga watercolour, c. 1900.

      Erotic scene on an Ancient Greek vase.

      After all, is there really such a thing as pornography? Images and objects currently admired as works of art might well have been considered unspeakably rude when they were first created.

      Is it the elapsing of time over decades that lends these objects some sort of respectability? Does history outweigh the pressures of contemporary morality? Can we only be pleased with these things when they are old enough?

      Certainly, pleasure is evident in the faces and voices of the visitors to these rooms, whether they come in groups, in pairs, or solo. The atmosphere is always cheery.

      Monique tells how a woman once undressed completely at the cash desk on the way in. She wanted to go round the Museum ‘in her natural state’. Isn’t that splendidly appropriate? Isn’t it appropriately splendid?

      Following the successful opening of the Amsterdam Sex Museum, various other erotic museums have popped up in imitation – in Hamburg, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Paris, for example. The motivation behind some of them was undoubtedly the prospect of a fast buck.

      But that meant the quality of the exhibits took a back seat. Monique will tell you, though, that it is just not enough to put a few curiosities of fair to middling value on public display, to switch on the lights and the heating in the morning, and count the money in the till in the evening.

      For a museum to be lively and inspiring, it has to be filled with life and inspiration – wherever it is, even without the unique connotations inherent in the location of the Amsterdam Museum.

      Monique proudly opened her safe to show me some new exhibits she had acquired at auction in Paris four weeks previously. I was fascinated. No matter how many times I come to the Museum, there is always something new and

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