Size matters at the world"s biggest penis museum
In a country where rotten shark meat and ram"s testicles are national delicacies, where a sizable percentage of the population believes in elves and trolls, and whose most famous citizen showed up at the Academy Awards swaddled in swan feathers, an attraction dedicated to the male member might not come as a surprise.
But the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which draws about 12,000 visitors a year and moved last month from a small town in northern Iceland to cushier digs in a former bank on Reykjavik"s main shopping drag, is no Viking-themed peep show.
"There"s nothing dirty or pornographic here," insists museum proprietor Hjörtur Gísli Sigurdsson, whose 71-year-old father started gathering phalluses after receiving a whip made from a dried bull"s penis as a gift.
Since then, the collection has grown to more than 280 specimens from 40-plus mammals - including Homo sapiens. The latter, floating in formaldehyde and looking more like a shriveled pig"s ear than a flag of manhood, was bequeathed this summer by 95-year-old Icelander Pall Arason.
While Arason"s organ may not raise many eyebrows, Moby Dick"s certainly does.
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