Passion Droops For France's Only Erotic Museum

PARIS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 03rd Nov, 2016 ) - France's only erotic museum is closing its doors, its owners said Thursday, after passions flagged in the "city of love" for its titillating though surprisingly tasteful collection of artefacts.

Just down the street from the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret in Pigalle, the closure hastens the slide of Paris' naughtiest neighbourhood towards respectability. Owners Jo Khalifa and Alain Plumey, a former porn star, who founded the museum nearly 18 years ago, said the double whammy of falling tourist numbers and rising rents caused by creeping gentrification had done for the Paris Erotic Museum.

"We never got any support from either the state nor the city of Paris," Khalifa told AFP. "Although it has to be said, I could never imagine politicians supporting us." He said its whole collection, including its love chairs and a notorious 18th-century French musical automaton of a couple in flagrante, will be sold off when the doors close on Sunday.

Auctioneer Bertrand Cornette described the sale as "exceptional" saying the museum's collection was a "world tour of erotic art, a unique panorama of customs and cultures" through their sexual proclivities and fetishes.