Iceland in November and December? Really? I saw an Icelandair promotion on Instagram which I couldn’t resist. The catch? It had to be late November to the start of December 2022. But I could – easily – enthuse Oriol to come along for a road trip in the South and West of Iceland.
Saturday was our last full day in Iceland and we explored Reykjavík. We started with The Icelandic Phallological Museum, aka the Phallus Museum, aka the Penis Museum.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum or Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn houses the world’s largest display of penises and penile parts. As of early 2020 the museum moved to a new location in the Hafnartorg complex, three times the size of the previous one, and the collection holds well over 300 penises from more than 100 species of mammal. Also the museum holds 22 penises from creatures and peoples of Icelandic folklore.
In July 2011, the museum obtained its first human penis, one of many promised by would-be donors. Its detachment from the donor’s body did not go according to plan and it was reduced to a greyish-brown shriveled mass that was pickled in a jar of formalin. The museum continues to search for “a younger and a bigger and better one.”
Actor Jonah Falcon, who has reputedly the biggest cock in the world, promised his.
History
Founded in 1997 by since-then retired teacher Sigurður Hjartarson and is now run by his son Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson.
“The foundation was laid in 1974 when I got a pizzle or a bull‘s penis. As a child, I was sent into the countryside during summer vacations and there I was given a pizzle as a whip for the animals”, Sigurður Hjartarson says on the museum website.
“At that time in 1974 I was living in the town of Akranes on the southwest coast, working as the headmaster in a secondary school. Some of my teachers used to work in summer in a nearby whaling station and after the first specimen, they started bringing me whale penises, supposedly to tease me. Then the idea came up gradually that it might be interesting collecting specimens from more mammalian species. “
“Collecting these organs progressed slowly in the beginning and in 1980 I had 13 specimens, four from whales and nine from land mammals. In 1990 there were 34 specimens and when the museum opened in Reykjavík in August 1997 the specimens were 62 in number. “
“In the spring of 2004 the museum moved to the small fishing village of Húsavík, the whale watching capital of Europe. It was moved back to Reykjavík in the autumn of 2011 and opened there under the direction of a new curator.”
Hjartarson obtained the organs of Icelandic animals from sources around the country, with acquisitions ranging from the 170 cm front tip of a blue whale penis to the 2 mm baculum of a hamster, which can only be seen with a magnifying glass.
The museum jokingly claims that its collection includes the penises of elves and trolls, though, as Icelandic folklore portrays such creatures as being invisible, they cannot be seen.
The collection also features phallic art and crafts such as lampshades made from the scrotums of bulls.
The museum has become a popular tourist attraction with thousands of visitors a year and has received international media attention, including a Canadian documentary film called ‘The Final Member‘, which covers the museum’s quest to obtain a human penis. According to its mission statement, the museum aims to enable “individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion.”
History
It started as a hobby but got out of hand. The collection was at first housed in Sigurður’s office at the college until he retired as teacher. He decided, more as a hobby than a job, to put it on public display in Reykjavík and was awarded a grant from the city council to support the opening of a museum in August 1997.
He put the museum up for sale in 2003, but also offered it to the City of Reykjavík as a gift.
However, he was unsuccessful in obtaining financial support from the state or city. When he retired in 2004, he could no longer afford the rent.
So he moved along with his collection to Húsavík. The museum was housed in a small building, formerly a restaurant, that was marked with a giant wooden penis and a stone phallus standing outside on the street. The village’s inhabitants were at first skeptical of the new arrival, but came to accept it when they were persuaded that there was nothing pornographic about the museum.
In 2012 he handed over the collection to his son. It was relocated from Húsavík to Reykjavík’s main shopping street at Laugavegur 116. Its former location in Húsavík is now home to The Exploration Museum.
Offers from Germany and the United Kingdom to buy and relocate the museum were rejected.
Attitudes
According to University of Iceland anthropologist Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, Icelanders’ tolerance of the museum is an indicator of how Icelandic society has changed since the 1990s, when a newly elected neoliberal government fostered a more open outlook on entertainment, creativity and tourism that has “enabled new ideas to emerge publicly”.
Collection
According to the museum’s website, the collection comprises 280 specimens from 93 species of animals. They range from some of the largest to some of the smallest penises in the animal world. Its largest exhibit is a portion of a blue whale’s penis measuring 170 cm long and weighing 70 kilograms which Iceland Review has dubbed “a real Moby Dick“.
The specimen is just the tip, as the entire organ, when intact, would have been about 5 m long and weighed about 350–450 kilograms. The baculum of a hamster, only 2 mm long, is the smallest item in the collection and needs a magnifying glass to be viewed.
Sigurður has described the collection as the product of “37 years of collecting penises. Somebody had to do it.”
Fake phalluses
The museum also has a ‘folklore section’ exhibiting mythological penises; its online catalogue lists specimens taken from elves, trolls, kelpies, and ‘The Nasty Ghost of Snæfell‘.
Sigurður says that the elf’s penis, which the museum’s catalogue describes as “unusually big and old”, is among his favourites. It cannot be seen, as Icelandic folklore holds that elves and trolls are invisible. The folkloric penises also include those of a merman, a one-legged, one-armed and one-eyed monster called a Beach-Murmurer, an Enriching Beach Mouse (said to draw “money from the sea to enrich her owner”), and an Icelandic Christmas Lad found dead at the foot of a mountain in 1985 and whose penis was presented to the museum by a former mayor of Reykjavík.
Is it serious?
The museum’s website states that it enables “individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion”, giving due prominence to a field that until now has only been “a borderline field of study in other academic disciplines such as history, art, psychology, literature and other artistic fields like music and ballet.”
The museum aims to collect penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland. It also exhibits phallic artwork and penis-related objects or ‘phallobilia‘ such as lampshades made from the scrotums of bulls.
Other exhibits range from an 18th-century engraving depicting the circumcision of Christ to a 20th-century plastic penis pacifier.
Most of the collection has been donated, and the only purchase to date has been an elephant’s penis measuring nearly 1 m long. The penises are either preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in jars or are dried and hung or mounted on the walls of the museum.
Sigurður has used a variety of techniques to preserve the penises, including preservation in formaldehyde, pickling, drying, stuffing and salting.
One particularly large penis taken from a bull has been converted into a walking stick.
Many of the museum’s exhibits are illuminated by lamps made by Sigurður from rams’ testicles. Sigurður has also carved wooden phalluses, which can be found adorning various objects around the museum, and has a bow tie decorated with images of phalluses that he wears on special occasions.
Human penis
For many years, the museum sought to obtain a human penis. Sigurður was able to obtain human testicles and a foreskin from two separate donors; the foreskin was donated by Iceland’s National Hospital after an emergency circumcision operation.
The museum also contains sculptures of 15 penises based on the Iceland men’s national handball team.
As the team had won the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the penises were made from a silvered material. According to Sigurður, they are not displayed in the same order as the individuals shown in the photograph that accompanies them.
In an interview Hjartason suggested that “their wives would recognise them”.
According to Slate, these sculptures were created by Sigurður’s daughter, Þorgerður Sigurðardóttir, and were based on her own experience rather than any knowledge of the team. The team’s goalkeeper denies that the sculptures are casts.
The museum has so far received pledges from four men—an Icelander, a German, an American and a Briton—to donate their penises.
The Icelandic donor was a 95-year-old man from nearby Akureyri. His penis was given priority over those of the non-Icelandic donors in accordance with the museum’s mission to display the organs of Icelandic mammals. Removing and preserving it was not an easy proposition, as Sigurður explained: “The donor and the doctors are in agreement, it must be taken while the body is warm. Then bleed it and pump it up. If it cools you can’t do anything, so [the donor] is eager to have it taken warm and treated to be preserved with dignity.”
In January 2011, the Icelandic donor died and his penis was surgically removed so that it could be added to the museum’s collection. The penectomy was not entirely successful and left the penis “a greyish-brown, shrivelled mass”.
There is also a plaster cast of Jimi Hendrix‘s erect penis, created in 1968 in Chicago by Cynthia Plaster Caster. The famous groupie, whose real name was Cynthia Abritton, donated the item to the museum in April, 2022, shortly before her death.
A visit
The museum is a cellar. Everything oozes penis. The doorknobs are knobs, artwork showcase cocks, the many clothing, trinkets, memorabilia and other objects are dick themed. The café offers penis shaped waffles.
The exhibition is more ‘quite interesting’ in the way the television show ‘QI‘ is rather than educational. As cock lovers, we loved to study all those cocks. Don’t expect to be flabbergasted, or to spend hours and hours. It’s gimmicky but it’s a fun gimmick. And I’m a big advocate to lessen the taboo around penises.
The displays are quite modern and are not too dry.
When in Reykjavík you definitely should check out this museum.
Iceland, November & December 2022
- REVIEW | Icelandair Brussels Airport (Zaventem) to Reykjavík (Keflavík International Airport) on Boeing 737 MAX 8 in Economy.
- ICELAND | Kevlavík – Bridge Between Continents – Reykjanesviti Lighthouse – Reykjanestá – Gunnuhver Hot Springs – Grindavík – Reykjavík.
- REVIEW | Hotel Cabin in Reykjavík.
- ICELAND | Seljalandsfoss Waterfall – Skógafoss – Sólheimajökull – Dyrhólaeyjarviti – Reynisfjara – Vík.
- REVIEW | Hotel Katla in Vík.
- ICELAND | Skeiðará Bridge – Diamond Beach – Jökulsárlón – Skaftafellsjökull – Dverghamrar – Kirkjugólf – Fjaðrárgljúlfur – Skaftáreldahraun.
- ICELAND | Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights at Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach near Vík.
- ICELAND | Fjaðrárgljúlfur – DC-3 Plane Wreck at Sólheimasandur – Geysir – Gullfoss.
- ICELAND | Secret Lagoon in Flúðir.
- REVIEW | Guesthouse Flúðir.
- ICELAND | Þingvellir or Thingvellir National Park – Hvalfjörður Fjord – Húsafell.
- REVIEW | Guesthouse Bjarg in Borgarnes.
- ICELAND | Eldborg Crater – Bjarnarfoss – Búðakirkja – Arnarstapi – Hellnar – Djúpalónssandur – Kirkjufell – Stykkishólmur.
- ICELAND | Esja(n) – Úlfarsfell – Krýsuvík – Seltún Geothermal Hot Springs.
- ICELAND | Blue Lagoon hot pool.
- Queer Iceland & Rainbow(baiting) Reykjavík.
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