Moscow’s first sex museum opened last month is already courting controversy for featuring soviet condoms, a wall of drawings celebrating spanking, and US President Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fighting against each other with oversized penises as main attractions.
The museum, subtly titled Tochka G (‘G Spot’) opened off Arbat, Moscow’s famous tourist street boasts of offerings ranging from the absurd to the historical, reports the Guardian.
The museum’s main draw is an oil painting by St Petersburg artist Vera Donskaya-Khilko titled Wrestling (2011). The canvas is dominated by Putin and Obama, standing face to face as they prepare to do battle with their enormous penises.
To make clear who stands stronger, Putin has two (one red, the other green). "Putin has two members, as a symbol of hyper-potency, a symbol of the gray cardinal," the wall text reads.
Paintings of orgies, mermaids with two sets of breasts and men serving cocktails on their erections compete for attention with sculptures of different species of animals engaging in sex.
But for founder and curator Alexander Donskoi, the museum isn’t really about sex.
“It’s a project about freedom,” he said.
Donskoi is a loud critic of the Putin regime and modern Russia’s system of governance.
His main goal appears to be to provoke. He is less concerned about Russians’ attitudes towards sex than about restrictions on freedoms.
His ire extends to the Russian Orthodox Church, a highly traditional organisation that has gained increasing power under Putin.