Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona Erotic Museum

An unusual stroll through gentlemen's erotica demonstrates that pornography is timeless.

If the burning sun of the Catalan coast hasn’t already raised your temperature enough and you’d like to get your blood pumping a little faster, a tour of Barcelona’s most aphrodisiacal museum, the Museu de l’Eròtica de Barcelona, will do the trick.

A common destination for both kink enthusiasts, museum lovers, and giggling couples, the museum itself appears to be modest, the collection a small but intriguing hotchpotch. The erotic artifacts and contraptions gathered in this tiny building transmit the slightly uncomfortable feeling that they were all owned and cherished by the same collector. You imagine a debaucherous explorer, obsessed with the idea of Orientalism and its voluptuous sensuality, the flexible bodies of Kama Sutra or Japanese Shinga, and pornographic woodcut prints presenting the ordinary sexual practices of the Edo Era.

Some may find this museum too small and a bit shabby, but witnessing the sexual habits of our ancestors is always a fascinating experience. An awkward time warp where one’s realized kink can be recorded for the pleasure of others is an ageless concept. In that sense, Barcelona’s Museum of Eroticism can be envisioned more as an archive of mankind’s desires and fantasies than a sultry tourist trap.