Kate Connolly @ Prague
For years Oriano Bizzocchi harboured a dream, inspired, he explains, by King Kong. It was while he was working as the director of Rimini Fun Park, Italy, in the 1970s that he had the idea of putting on a tribute exhibition to his gorilla-like hero. The 55-year-old from San Marino enjoyed curating so much, he decided to direct his energies to one day opening up a sex machine museum.
Four years ago, with more than 20 years of savings, Oriano started befriending antique dealers across Europe. They in turn began providing him with a variety of sex machines and toys spanning hundreds of years.
"My pockets are now finito," says Oriano. But he is pleased with the result: a collection of almost 400 items ranging from erotic walking sticks and kimono buttons to "air-balloon" corsets.
Yet the amorous Italians had little time for Oriano's new venture. So he had no choice but to transform his candle shop, nestled in a cluster of Bohemian glass shops just off Prague's bustling and tourist-rich Old Town Square, into central Europe's first museum of erotica, and, he claims, the first sex machine museum in the world.
Oriano has chosen his staff with as much care as his exhibits: the aptly named Samuele Nubile is his coordinator. The 25-year old Nubile swishes down the museum's purple-carpeted stairs, past a set of silver busts into the entrance hall of the 17th-century merchant's house where the museum has its home. As if on cue, his mobile phone rings, not with the usual annoying trill, but the heavy breathing of a woman in the height of sexual ecstasy.
The suave Italian sweeps through the museum's three floors, past electric nipple clips, porcelain dildos, medieval chastity belts and a love throne which once toured the brothels of 19th-century France. "Everyone has a sexual fetish and we hope they will find it reflected here," he says, pointing to an elegant pair of hand-painted wooden Venetian prostitute's stilts, topped with a pair of delicate slippers, and a rather frightening looking 19th-century metal buttock protector - "made to protect ladies from sexual deviants who liked to prick buttocks with needles in public places".
It has to be said, the gallery of sexual treasures does not feel out of place in this baroque city. This is, after all, the capital of an unusually sexually liberated nation - a tendency put down to the secular persuasion of most of its citizens. Sex was particularly treasured under communism as the one area of life over which the authorities could have no control. Nowadays it is perfectly acceptable for family department stores to stock condoms in the likeness of Czech politicians - even the much-loved president, Vaclav Havel.
But that is not to say that the sex machine museum has failed to attract its critics. The mayor of central Prague tried to close it down on moral grounds after parents complained about the window display: a set of leather-clothed mannequins held together with a complex contraption of ropes, pulleys and posts controlled by a latex-clad nun.
"We didn't mean to offend," Oriano insists, stressing that the S&M machine has now been absorbed into the main body of the exhibition. "We certainly don't want to be considered rude by the people of Prague."
But such items, designed to serve a range of fantasies, sit rather uneasily beside the shocking "sex prevention" machines designed for 19th-century lunatic asylums. A 1897 "anti-masturbation" device was designed by a certain Michael McCormick to "control lascivious waking thoughts", with a set of nails arranged around the groin area of the straitjacket pyjama suit.
His most interesting find, Oriano says, is yet to appear, but he's reluctant to elaborate. "It's just too vulgar, and I'm embarrassed to tell you," he winces. Prague zoo has just been approached to provide the sex treasure-house with a quantity of crocodile droppings. When dried, according to the ancient Greeks, they are a highly effective method of contraception.
Four years ago, with more than 20 years of savings, Oriano started befriending antique dealers across Europe. They in turn began providing him with a variety of sex machines and toys spanning hundreds of years.
"My pockets are now finito," says Oriano. But he is pleased with the result: a collection of almost 400 items ranging from erotic walking sticks and kimono buttons to "air-balloon" corsets.
Yet the amorous Italians had little time for Oriano's new venture. So he had no choice but to transform his candle shop, nestled in a cluster of Bohemian glass shops just off Prague's bustling and tourist-rich Old Town Square, into central Europe's first museum of erotica, and, he claims, the first sex machine museum in the world.
Oriano has chosen his staff with as much care as his exhibits: the aptly named Samuele Nubile is his coordinator. The 25-year old Nubile swishes down the museum's purple-carpeted stairs, past a set of silver busts into the entrance hall of the 17th-century merchant's house where the museum has its home. As if on cue, his mobile phone rings, not with the usual annoying trill, but the heavy breathing of a woman in the height of sexual ecstasy.
The suave Italian sweeps through the museum's three floors, past electric nipple clips, porcelain dildos, medieval chastity belts and a love throne which once toured the brothels of 19th-century France. "Everyone has a sexual fetish and we hope they will find it reflected here," he says, pointing to an elegant pair of hand-painted wooden Venetian prostitute's stilts, topped with a pair of delicate slippers, and a rather frightening looking 19th-century metal buttock protector - "made to protect ladies from sexual deviants who liked to prick buttocks with needles in public places".
It has to be said, the gallery of sexual treasures does not feel out of place in this baroque city. This is, after all, the capital of an unusually sexually liberated nation - a tendency put down to the secular persuasion of most of its citizens. Sex was particularly treasured under communism as the one area of life over which the authorities could have no control. Nowadays it is perfectly acceptable for family department stores to stock condoms in the likeness of Czech politicians - even the much-loved president, Vaclav Havel.
But that is not to say that the sex machine museum has failed to attract its critics. The mayor of central Prague tried to close it down on moral grounds after parents complained about the window display: a set of leather-clothed mannequins held together with a complex contraption of ropes, pulleys and posts controlled by a latex-clad nun.
"We didn't mean to offend," Oriano insists, stressing that the S&M machine has now been absorbed into the main body of the exhibition. "We certainly don't want to be considered rude by the people of Prague."
But such items, designed to serve a range of fantasies, sit rather uneasily beside the shocking "sex prevention" machines designed for 19th-century lunatic asylums. A 1897 "anti-masturbation" device was designed by a certain Michael McCormick to "control lascivious waking thoughts", with a set of nails arranged around the groin area of the straitjacket pyjama suit.
His most interesting find, Oriano says, is yet to appear, but he's reluctant to elaborate. "It's just too vulgar, and I'm embarrassed to tell you," he winces. Prague zoo has just been approached to provide the sex treasure-house with a quantity of crocodile droppings. When dried, according to the ancient Greeks, they are a highly effective method of contraception.
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