This post is NSFW in photos and content and has been placed behind a cut in case you’re browsing here on a break. Save yourself an awkward talk with HR and come back later!
Every once in a while, I’ll catch wind of a place that seems like it was tailor made for my interests. Or other people will point out the same place to me, saying they think it was tailor made for my interests–and they’re usually right. When I posted on Facebook that I would be traveling to Iceland (Because does a vacation even happen if you don’t talk about it on social media? I would posit that it does not.) a friend asked if I’d be visiting their, uh, very unique museum.
Of course. Of course I would be.
I had actually heard about the phallological museum some time ago, as the documentary about the curator searching for “the final member” was being filmed. I have a suspicion I heard about it from my friend Felix, who has a talent for finding and sharing unusual human interest pieces but I can’t confirm it one way or the other. It turned out that The Final Member was available on streaming, so I watched it the night I booked the flights in order to become better acquainted. I found it weirdly charming with the exception of the American vying to donate his penis, named “Elmo” and tattooed with the American flag, which was utterly cringeworthy in every possible fashion. The curator himself seemed to have taken a joke gift and run with it, building his collection over time, and even hand-crafting all of his gift shop items, which is the sort of dedication one rarely sees in an offbeat museum.
At some point, however, the museum changed hands, and while I can’t say for a fact that it was better before, I can say that what I did see was awful. Just absolutely distasteful and gross, and this is coming from someone who has participated in a penile art show, someone who has made so many gross and distasteful jokes that it’s probably impossible for me to ever hold any form of public office, or really, ever be gainfully employed again, except maybe at a penis museum but definitely not this one after they find out about this post. This is a place where the light fixtures are made out of hairy testicle skin, where no instance of “hey that kind of looks like a penis” is overlooked, where no toy is too lowbrow if it’s got a dick, where by all available evidence, they display paintings made with pubes, where the souvenirs are now t-shirts that say “This place isn’t for pussies”. Just tacky and gross.
Afterward, Jason told me he knew all along this place would be gross.
I’d like to say I suspected the same, but I was utterly blindsided by my own distaste. Every time I turned away in disgust, my eye fell on something else that was equally if not more disgusting.
There’s just row after row of sad looking disintegrating jarred dongs.
And then there’s this fucking guy.
I don’t even know what this gross thing belongs to. I don’t want to know. I don’t want it pointing at me.
No longer for sale, the original gift shop items are now exhibits.
The very definition of tasteful.
Please tell me it’s not made out of dick leather.
Oh har har.
Brits, can I interest you in a bit of spotted dick?
In the documentary, the filmmaker was obsessed with acquiring a human penis of “the legal length”, and was afraid that the old man penis he was promised wouldn’t be long enough.
Now we see it was all based on a stupid dirty joke.
This thing that looks like a disgusting tumor is the human penis that was the source of so much angst for the curator. Yeah, I could see how the collection wouldn’t be complete without a wrinkled hairy blob that resembles something my dog coughed up.
At the very end, they have a box covered in black cloth, imploring you to recover it once you’ve finished looking. What could be so bad that this museum couldn’t display it openly? So revolting? So shocking?
…oh. A dildo, some sex figurines, a “sexy” calendar from 2001, and…a pineapple toy? And bear in mind that this is after a whole room full of openly displayed schlong toys. So it’s the sex or the hint of any female part that makes it too dirty for general viewing?
I guess I’m just glad we visited the hot dog stand before and not after.
