Beate-Uhse Erotik-Museum

Description:

• This "museum" lies on the corner of the seediest-looking block in Berlin. You start out on the third floor and work your way down. Believe it or not, this is now Berlin's fifth-most visited museum. The museum shelters some 5,000 sexual artifacts from around the world, including many Indian and Asian miniatures of erotic positions, even large carved phalli from Bali, along with such relics as African fertility masks. Life-size dioramas explore such topics as S&M and fetishism. There are some Chinese wedding tiles from the 18th and 19th centuries that were supposed to provide sexual education to a newly married couple. The museum in its exhibits also honors the "queen of the Rubber Willy" herself, Beate Uhse, a household name in Germany until her death in 2001. Her life is documented from her Luftwaffe days to pictures of her at the helm of a large speedboat. This septuagenarian opened the world's first shop devoted to "marital hygiene," ultimately championing the right to sell contraceptives, and headed the world's largest sex-related merchandising business. Downstairs are video cabins filled with middle-aged men in raincoats and a "sex superstore."

• © Frommer's 2012