Que horror!
In a story that never found its way into the headlines of the Philippine STAR because they knew it would eventually find its way into my column: Jonah Falcon — the man with the world’s largest recorded penis (which makes me wonder who did the recording) — was thoroughly frisked by San Francisco International Airport Security because his “bulging” package was initially perceived to be a “biological threat.”
I know exactly how it feels. To be thoroughly frisked, that is.
But maybe, just maybe, Falcon (or more appropriately, Falcon’s “bulging” package — 9 inches when flaccid, 13.5 inches when angry) — belongs to a place where it will be extended the due respect that it deserves. A place where his bulging package will be met with honor, nor horror. A place where it will feel right at home.
In a museum. And not just any museum, mind you, my three female readers. Not even the Smithsonian’s Museum of Unnatural History (that place is reserved for me and my pink parts).
I am referring to the Erotic Museum (or, if you want to sound more cultured the same way that bacteria is cultured — Museu de’ l’ Erotique), a museum found along La Rambla — an iconic tree-lined pedestrian street in Central Barcelona that is popular among locals, tourists, street performers, rallyists, pickpockets and those in search of pink parts.
(For the regular No Girlfriends Since Birth [NGSBs] and Dirty Old Men [DOMs] reading this column, be warned: due to the stimulating nature of the pictures that I took at the museum, we will be unable to reproduce many of them in the newspaper. You can use the fertility of your imagination to recreate these images in your mind’s eye. But please use your fertility in the privacy of your own cubicle, room or dungeon.)
As we clambered up the staircase to the museum, we were greeted by the sight of a man-sized wooden penis. That wooden sculpture left me both awed and emasculated at the same time. Little did I know that this would be the first of (literally) hundreds of penises fashioned from marble, metal, clay, bubble gum, kryptonite, adamantium and plutonium that one could feast his or her eyes upon for the duration of the visit. I warn you, though, there are more penises in this museum than a heterosexual man should legally feast his eyes on for several lifetimes.
But if you think about it, there is nothing a well-adjusted man should fear about the feast of phalluses (Let us use another word for our favored member lest the CBCP get involved in the article). In fact, phallic symbols were present even since the first DOM crawled out of the sea to represent different meanings in various religious and socio-cultural contexts. For example, citizens in ancient Rome wore little wooden phalluses around their neck as protection to ward off the “evil eye” (I have tried to do the same with the phalluses that you purchase at the Baguio tourist markets, but they’re just too darn heavy). Phallic symbols were also used as virility symbols during Roman orgies.
(NGSB representative: Sigh, I wish I was a phallus…)
In Pompeii, they found archaeological remains with phallic iconography engraved on walls to indicate the location of the nearest brothel.
(DOM representative: Sigh, I remember those brothels…)
Phalluses were also associated with the worship of a god who represented fertility, such as the minor rustic Greek fertility god Priapus, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia (his image may sometimes miraculously appear in your used underwear). Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism (Priapus is also rumored to be the real father of Jonah Falcon).
(DOM representative: Where can I convert to Priapism? So that I can venerate him in the privacy of my bathroom.)
After having had my fill of phalluses, I needed to sit down and relax. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the only chair available was the pleasure chair. The pleasure chair is a steampunk-inspired massage chair that holds down both your arms and legs with metal cuffs and secures your head with a metal clamp. Then, once you are comfortably strapped into the chair, a large metal phallus protrude from the center of the chair into the appropriate or inappropriate body part(s) (it’s a judgment call). Attached to the pleasure chair is a prehistoric device that resembles a rotary phone. I wasn’t sure if the dial was there to control the pleasure or to dial up 911. Upon further study, I could not tell if this was a device from the Victorian Era or from the Spanish Inquisition.
Still in search for a place to sit down, I was comforted and mildly terrified to find a repurposed kiddie ride in the Erotic Musuem. But instead of riding on a cartoon mascot that resembled a bear or a rabbit, you ride on top of a cartoon mascot that resembles an anatomically correct albeit highly augmented woman in her birthday suit. And because those augmentations could lead to a bumpy ride, the ride actually carries the following warning: “It is recommended that children riding this machine should be supervised by an adult.” I suspect that what the museum curators meant was that this kiddie ride was meant for DOMs suffering from Alzheimer’s or senility, to be accompanied by their nurse.
After shoving our way through the line of DOMs waiting their turn on the kiddie ride, we entered a corridor full of black and white post cards from the early 20th century Paris where the subjects of the postcards were doing very colorful French things to one another. These erotic postcards were the FHM of an earlier generation — a social phenomenon that arose in Europe between 1900 and the end of the First World War. According to the museum commentary, these erotic postcards were the perfect means of, ahem, relaxation and “private entertainment” that would help privates entertain their privates while on the battlefield. The commentary went on to say that these postcards were as essential as soup, bread or wine for the troops. Troops would exchange these pictures and “let their imaginations run wild with them in the trenches.” I think that’s perfectly fine as long as they were shooting the correct weapons in the battlefield.
After calling a truce with the erotic postcards, we shuffled into the East Asia room (not to be confused with the club along Roxas Boulevard) that was adorned with Japanese woodblock prints called Shunga produced between the 17th and 20th centuries. The literal translation of Shunga from Japanese is “picture of spring.” Spring, in turn, is a euphemism for sex. And a lot of these prints were definitely springing into action. Get it? “Springing into action”? Hehehe… I kill me.
I do not want to describe those woodblock prints in detail for fear that the images that form in your brain might make you want to perform a self-lobotomy. Suffice to say, there were animals with tentacles involved. And those tentacles were in places they didn’t belong. This is probably the type of porn that Godzilla likes to watch.
The next portion of the exhibit was dedicated to erotic porcelain figurines from our favorite neighbor China. The museum commentary explained that these porcelain figures from the Qing Dynastry (1664-1911) in various stages of, um, prowess, served a didactic function (I’m not sure what “didactic” means, but I hope it doesn’t mean you put porcelain in areas where they don’t belong). These porcelain figures were offered by mothers to their daughters as a circumspect way to teach young brides how to make their husband’s heads rotate 360 degrees. When I got back to Manila, I secretly rifled through my wife’s personal belongings to check if she had any figures — porcelain, terracotta, Play-Doh or otherwise. Apparently, my wife was not a beneficiary of any heirloom. But my father-in-law did give me a porcelain chastity belt right before my wife and I got married. Up to now, my father-in-law is wondering how his daughter had two immaculate conceptions.
We closed out our tour of the pink parts of Asia with a visit to the favorite room of Guru Shivaker: the Mallanga Vatsyayana Kama Sutra room.
(DOM representative: You had me at “Kama.”)
For those who are not Guru Shivaker initiates, the Kama Sutra is a 2,000-year-old Indian Hindu book that most Westerners have compartmentalized into a “sexual position” handbook.
(DOM representative: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
But taking the Kama Sutra as a whole, the museum commentary tells us that it really presents itself as a guide on the nature of love, conduct of wives and family life, among other things. Only one of the seven existing chapters in the Kama Sutra have been turned into pin-up pages by DOMs for thousands of years.
(DOM representative: So that’s what the other sections with no pictures in the book were all about...)
The room features pictures of reliefs from the Khajuharo group of temples — a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh — depicting full-bodied figures in elaborate states of intimacy that were achievable only if you did not have a spine (or if you had a good chiropractor). In most of these reliefs, I also noticed that there was always a third person in each scene. I have been trying to figure out if that that third person was the coach, the saling pusa, or the cheerleader.
The museum commentary explains, “According to Hindu philosophy, any sexual activity has an intimate relation with soul and spirit, and for this reason the Kama Sutra was written as a multi-sensory experiment to enjoy our sexual life and not get carried away with monotony.” When I told my wife that it was our duty to battle that monotony, she bought me a Kama Sutra coloring book at the museum gift shop.
After taking in all the pictures and sculptures and portraits and plates and torture devices, I turned to my wife and said, “That was like going through the It’s A Small World ride in Disneyland. But with naked people.”
But the ride was not yet over because we had come to the climax, quite literally. We had the opportunity to screen turn-of-the-century restored adult movies with the extremely titillating titles, “The Minister,” “The Confessor” and “Ladies Doctor’s Office.” Unfortunately, modern audiences will be titillated with these titles once you append them with an XXX (for those who did not grow up in the ‘80s, “XXX” does not mean 30).
But what is more interesting about these adult movies was that — according to museum commentary — they were commissioned by King Alfonso XIII (1886-1931). And I quote “The monarch was a great fan of pornographic cinema and eroticism in general, and not only did he commission movies but he also suggested scripts as well.”
(DOM representative: That’s my monarch!)
We sat down to watch the movie “The Minister,” huddled together with lolos and lolas who were watching the film out of nostalgia (and who also had learned a thing or two from the Khajuharo temples). I really couldn’t understand what they were saying in the film because it was all in Spanish. It was a good thing that we were watching a silent movie. Based on my rudimentary non-understanding of Spanish, what I gleaned from the story is that it involved the Minister of Culture, a psychiatrist, and a cleaning lady with a very large bosom. Then there were some household chores to be performed. And then there were… oh, who cares about the story. Basta it took 23 minutes and 17 seconds before anything started springing into action. At 23:18, I thought, “It must have been difficult to have been a fan of adult cinema in those days. Imagine, no fast forward, then play, then rewind and play again, then rewind and play again, then…”
After I purchased the DVD of the movie at the gift shop so that I could rewind and play it again at my own leisure, I turned to my wife and said, “I feel so knowledgeable and so dirty at the same time.” So we made our way to the La Sagrada Familia for a general confession and flagellation.
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