Paris: Pigalle’s Erotic Museum

It’s just a g-string’s throw away from the Moulin Rouge, and down the hill from Montmartre. La Musee d’Erotisme, or the Erotic Museum in plain English, is as much a part of Paris life and tradition as the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. If you only ever visit one Sex Museum in your life, it really ought to be in Paris.

There is another reason for that too, apart from it seeming the natural thing to do in the French capital, the City of Light and the city of love, sex, romance and intrigue. The other reason is that the Erotic Museum isn’t sleazy or tacky. It is actually very tastefully done, very slick and modern, and absolutely fascinating.

In Paris there are museums devoted to magic, and to locks, to publicity, to wine, to children and to Edith Piaf. Why not have one devoted to sex and the erotic arts?

The Erotic Museum was opened in 1997 by Joseph Khalifa and two friends of his. They were all collectors of erotic art, and Khalifa had built up a large collection on his travels in Japan and the far east. By combining their collections and acquiring new material they were able to put on display over 1500 exhibits, spread across seven floors of a 19th-century town house.

Rather surprisingly there was no such museum in Paris at the time, and if any city ought to have an erotic museum, it’s Paris. Sex shows and strip shows might be taking place along the road and in the sleazy back streets of Pigalle, but the Erotic Museum is right on the main road and closer physically and in spirit to the great Moulin Rouge cabaret, just the other side of the Blanche metro station.

The Erotic Museum is not a sex museum, although it’s certainly sexy, and it has more women visitors than men. Perhaps that’s because it takes the subject seriously, but never boringly. Much of the erotic art on display has been made by women, giving a female perspective to the subject. But was it a man or a woman who made the Indonesian drums in the form of male figures with phalluses so big that you could play baseball with them?

One cabinet displays Japanese figurines, the epitome of respectability till you see the mirrors underneath them making their private parts public. An early 20th-century wooden automata from India of a couple almost in the missionary position, with no prizes for guessing which bits move and where they go. From Japan there is an early 19th-century sex manual illustrated in color, and some late 19th-century miniature ivory carvings... well, mostly miniature. There are some Thai betel nut crackers - use your imagination - and from China there are snuff bottles painted with erotic scenes.

The Erotic Museum also houses ever-changing exhibitions, and there are usually several shows on at the same time. It is a great celebration of what makes the world go round. The gift shop also gives the opportunity to buy some rather unusual souvenirs.

The Erotic Museum is at 72 boulevard de Clichy, Paris 75018. Open daily 10am-2am. Nearest Metro: Blanche.

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