Shanghai China Sex Museumof Ancient Chinese Sex Culture

With rapid modernization and rapidly urbanizing of Asian countries, topics on sex cease to remain a taboo and are pervading into a once very conservative society. A growing acceptance and openness to sex had meant that Ancient Chinese Sex Culture Museum founded in 1995 is making money for the first time.

Restrictions on advertising and financial problems have forced the museum to move several times over the years, but it seems he has finally found a location that he can flourish in. The hall reported a profit of about 400,000 yuan (US$49,382) last year, and hosted 120,000 visitors.

A sharp increase in numbers due to change in city official's attitude and growing acceptance was hardly envisaged a decade ago in China . Hardly anyone in China would expect that such a museum will be located in the bustling Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall.

Within the hall, which covers 400 square meters, contains 500 sex-related artifacts that Liu has collected over the years from home and abroad. The exhibits include jade carvings and sculptures, paintings, furniture, shoes and clothes, some of which are thousands of years old.

China Sex Museum

The sex museum, a museum owned by Liu Dalin, a leading sexual culture scholar in China, displays sex-related historical artifacts dating from primitive times.

The first sex museum in China opened in 1999 in the center of Shanghai; in 2001 it moved to the outskirts of the city. It was variously called "Museum of Ancient Chinese Sex Culture" or "Dalin Cultural Exhibition" after its founder, sexologist Dr. Liu Dalin. In early 2004 it moved again, to Tong Li, and is now known as the China Sex museum, with over three thousand erotic artifacts.

The Ancient China Sex Culture Museum, at 1133 Wuding Road, Shanghai, is the only private museum of the kind in China. It has been a point of controversy ever since its establishment in September 1999. Some people are opposed to its exhibits, considering them distasteful and unhealthy, while others believe that they form part of ancient Chinese civilization, and reflect objectively humankind¡¯s attitude towards sex. For a time the museum seemed likely to close down, but as people are now more aware of the cultural value of ancient sexual practices, the museum has fortunately met with development opportunities, and a branch has opened in Zhejiang¡¯s Hangzhou.

A couple visits Shanghai's China Sex Culture Museum March 27, 2006. Although the museum is just a branch of the Sex Culture Museum in nearby Jiangsu province, it receives some 500 visitors daily


A woman visitor looks at a pornographic clay of early 19th century at the Museum of Ancient Chinese Sex Culture in Shanghai.