From fertility shrines to sex museums, the world celebrates sexuality in boldly authentic ways. Discover how different cultures approach love, fertility, and sex through art, ritual, and museums.
The shrines, festivals, and museums that celebrate sexuality around the world reveal how every culture grapples with the same fundamental human experience — just with wildly different aesthetics.
Updated in March of 2026
Across cultures and continents, sexuality and fertility find expression through festivals, shrines, sculptures, and museums. These sites move beyond taboo to celebrate the human experience with directness and even joy. Whether rooted in ancient tradition or modern art, they reveal how different societies approach intimacy and procreation - topics often whispered about but rarely displayed with such confidence. Here are some of the world's most striking sites dedicated to sex and sexuality.
Kanamara Matsuri - Kawasaki, Japan
Every April, Kawasaki celebrates the Kanamara Matsuri - the "Festival of the Steel Phallus" - at Kanayama Shrine. Held on the first Sunday of April, the 2026 festival takes place on April 5th. The celebration attracts thousands of visitors who come to witness the unlikely parade: elaborate phallic portable shrines, street performers, and vendors selling candy and crafts shaped like male genitalia. The festival traces back to the Edo period, when local blacksmiths and sex workers visited the shrine to pray for protection from sexually transmitted infections and business prosperity. The modern festival has evolved into a vibrant celebration of fertility, marital harmony, and sexual health awareness, with proceeds benefiting HIV research and prevention.
Getting there: Kanayama Shrine is a 2-minute walk from Kawasaki-Daishi Station on the Keihin Express Daishi Line.
Prostitution Information Centre - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam's Red Light District remains one of the world's most famous centers of legalized sex work. At the heart of this neighborhood, the Prostitution Information Centre (PIC) has operated since 1994, founded by former sex worker Mariska Majoor. The PIC's mission is direct: educate visitors about the reality of sex work and challenge stereotypes. The center provides free information to anyone curious about the history, regulations, and lived experiences of people in the profession. Unlike the surrounding sex shops and touristy venues, the PIC treats its subject with genuine respect.
The center offers guided walking tours led by current or former sex workers who share their perspectives on the district, the work, and the legal framework that makes Amsterdam's approach distinctive. Red Light Walking Tours occur Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 5:00 PM, last approximately 1.5 hours, and cost 17.50 per person. Tour proceeds, along with income from the adjacent Wallenwinkel shop, sustain the center's free educational mission.
Visitor info: Located at Enge Kerksteeg 3, the PIC is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 11:30 AM to 7:30 PM. Visitors must be 18 or older.
Loveland - Jeju Island, South Korea
On Jeju Island, South Korea's premier honeymoon destination, sits Loveland - an outdoor sculpture park dedicated entirely to sex and sensuality. Opened in 2004, Loveland features roughly 140 sculptures of couples in various intimate positions, alongside larger-than-life phalluses, vulvas, and breast-shaped structures. The park's design is intentionally playful - couples embrace on stone benches, hands frame doorways, and gardens flourish with explicit imagery. Yet the works are art first: provocative sculptures by established artists exploring human sexuality, intimacy, and desire.
The park's appeal is dual: honeymooners and curious visitors come for the novelty and beauty in equal measure. It's worth visiting for the artistry alone - the sculptures are thoughtfully composed, and the outdoor setting allows the work to interact with landscape and light. The experience is refreshingly frank about human sexuality as worthy of artistic celebration.
Visitor info: Open daily 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM (last admission 9:00 PM). Adults only (18+). Admission: 12,000 KRW. Located 10 minutes from Jeju International Airport.
Museum of Sex - New York City
Founded in 2002, the Museum of Sex in Manhattan is the only institution in North America dedicated exclusively to the history, evolution, and cultural significance of human sexuality. Housed at 233 Fifth Avenue (at 27th Street), the museum houses rotating exhibitions and a permanent collection spanning pornography, prostitution, sexual orientation, gender identity, and the relationship between sex and art, technology, and society. Exhibitions change regularly, ensuring return visits reveal new perspectives on the subject.
The museum approaches sex education with intellectual rigor and without shame. Recent exhibitions have explored topics like the evolution of erotica, queer identity in art, and the intersection of technology and desire. The museum also offers talks, films, and cultural programming. While explicit in subject matter, the curatorial approach is thoughtful - this is a venue for serious engagement with sexuality as a fundamental aspect of human culture, not prurient spectacle.
Hours & admission: Monday-Thursday 1:00 PM - 10:00 PM, Friday 1:00 PM - 12:00 AM, Saturday 12:00 PM - 12:00 AM, Sunday 12:00 PM - 10:00 PM. Admission starts at $36 (18+ with ID required).
Haesindang Park - Samcheok, South Korea
Also called Penis Park, Haesindang Park sits on a clifftop in Samcheok on South Korea's east coast. The site contains over 50 wooden phallic sculptures in various styles - some carved with faces, some realistically proportioned, some abstract and colorful. A Folk Museum onsite chronicles the park's origins through phallic symbolism across cultures and history. The setting is surprisingly serene, with sea views and walking paths connecting the sculptures.
The park originates in local legend: a young woman drowned in the surrounding waters, and her restless spirit allegedly caused the village's fishing catch to plummet. A fisherman's act eventually appeased her, leading villagers to erect phallic sculptures as permanent offerings to her spirit. Whether viewed as folk belief or artistic expression, the park honors female desire and fertility in its own distinctive way - a maritime landscape transformed into a shrine of sexuality.
Visitor info: Admission 3,000 KRW. Summer hours 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, winter hours 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (closed 18th of each month). Bus 24 from Samcheok bus terminal takes approximately 45 minutes.
Chao Mae Tuptim Shrine - Bangkok, Thailand
Hidden behind the Nai Lert Park Hotel in central Bangkok, Chao Mae Tuptim Shrine honors a female spirit who protects fertility and grants wishes. Women seeking to conceive come to pray and leave offerings - lotus flowers, jasmine, and increasingly, wooden phallic lingams. The shrine is compact (roughly 60 by 70 feet) but entirely packed with carved wooden phalluses in every conceivable style, texture, and finish. Visitors brush against sculptures as they navigate the space, creating an intimate and sometimes humorous encounter with fertility symbolism.
The phallic form, known as a lingam in Hindu and Tantric Buddhism, represents Shiva and symbolizes the generative power of the universe - spiritual rather than merely sexual. At Chao Mae Tuptim, this sacred symbol merges with folk fertility practice and genuine spiritual devotion. Visitors should approach with respect: these offerings are made by people actively seeking to create life and family. Modest dress (covered shoulders and knees) is appreciated.
Visitor info: Located behind the Nai Lert Park Hotel. Free entry. Dress modestly (covered shoulders and knees). Open daily.
China Sex Museum - Tongli and Hainan, China
Founded by Liu Dalin, a retired sociology professor, the China Sex Museum chronicles 9,000 years of Chinese sexual culture through sculpture, painting, ceramics, and historical artifacts. The collection spans from prehistoric carvings to contemporary work, organized into categories including marriage customs, sexuality in daily life, and historical approaches to procreation. The museum's existence itself represents cultural progress - when it first opened in Shanghai in 1999, Chinese authorities initially forbade the word "sex" from the building's signage.
The museum has relocated several times due to government restrictions, moving from Shanghai to the canal town of Tongli (80 km west) before relocating again. The collection's longevity and persistence speaks to growing cultural openness - the museum demonstrates that sexuality is a legitimate subject for serious academic and artistic study, not something to be hidden. Whether you visit in Tongli or its current location, the museum offers insight into how one of the world's oldest civilizations understood and expressed sexuality across millennia.
Why these sites matter
These destinations share a common thread: they acknowledge sexuality and fertility openly and respectfully. In cultures and contexts where sex is often shrouded in shame or euphemism, these sites allow direct engagement with desire, procreation, and intimacy as legitimate aspects of human life. Museums offer educational frameworks, shrines honor spiritual dimensions of sexuality, and parks celebrate the human form without apology. Visiting them requires intellectual curiosity and openness, but rewards travelers with a genuinely different perspective on how humans across the world experience and express sexuality.