Man donates penis to Iceland museum
Rasputin’s penis, displayed at the first Russian museum of erotica in St. Petersburg on June 9, 2004. Iceland’s Phallological Museum will soon add a 95-year-old’s pickled penis to its large collection.
A 95-year-old Icelander’s pickled penis will be the main attraction in one of his country’s most bizarre museums.
The Phallological Museum, opened in the tiny Icelandic fishing town of Husavik, already features extensive collection of phalluses from whales, seals, bears and other mammals, according to curator Sigurdur Hjartarson.
Several people had pledged their penises over the 15 years the museum has operated — including an American, a Briton, and a German — but Arason’s was the first to be successfully donated, Hjartarson said, the AP reported. “I have just been waiting for this guy for 15 years.”
Arason was described by Hjartarson as a former tourism worker who died on January 5 in the nearby town of Akureyri.
"I have just been waiting for this guy for 15 years," Hjartarson said.
Hjartarson, 69, said his interest in what he calls “phallology” began when, as a youngster in rural Iceland, he was given a whip made from a bull’s penis to help him herd cattle, started the museum in Reykjavik but has since moved to Husavik.
It has become an important part of the region’s tourist industry, bringing in thousands of visitors every summer.
Highlights of his collection include a 5.5-foot sperm whale penis preserved in formaldehyde, lampshades made from bull testicles and what the museum described as an “unusually big” penis bone from a Canadian walrus.
Hjartarson said he opened the museum with 62 specimens and now had 276.
Most items are donations from friends and well-wishers, people listed on the museum’s website as "honorary members."
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