Praha.
How to describe her.
Prague is that high-maintenance Eastern European beauty who shows up late, smokes in your face, and somehow still makes you feel lucky just to be in the room with her.
She is effortlessly stunning, at times outright hostile, and absolutely worth all that emotional whiplash.
This city.
Is such a tease. She shows you her beauty, then hints there is more to come. The cobblestones, proverbial crumbs keeping you on the path, and hook.
Twisting lanes spill into grand squares, and cathedrals rear up from rounded corners, towering over you. They know they are commanding your attention, inspiring awe, and generally besting you in every category. It’s almost like they’ve been waiting centuries just to make you feel small. And it hurts, and humbles, so good.
The rooftops blush in the sunset, and the water of the Vltava hums below it all, like a secret being kept. Prague is the kind of place that could melt even the most jaded traveler into a puddle of poetic mush… if only she wasn’t so busy ignoring you.
Because just as you’re about to fall headfirst into the romance of it all, Prague lets you know she is far more than some one-dimensional Disney beauty. The message, or shall we say text? No, definitely sext, is clear.
And that brings us to the sex machine museum.
Yes. That’s a thing.
Tucked away in this fairytale landscape is a quirky little shrine to kink, complete with rusty contraptions, a whole lotta leather, and a gallery of “devices” that would make even the feisty, sex-positive Freud short-circuit.
If you are anything like me, you’ll vacillate wildly between myriad emotions: morbid curiosity, mildly embarrassed fascination, and utter confusion/horror intermittently. You will also stay longer than you meant to, and most likely leave wondering why half of Europe seems to be okay with swinging from the rafters. It’s emotional whiplash round twenty-two, or something similar (I’ve lost count, to be honest), and it’s perfect. Because this is Prague. She seduces you with stained glass, then smacks you with a mechanical spanking bench.
And I think that’s kind of the point.
There’s a defiance to her, a brazen middle finger unfurled. Like a gorgeous cup of warm, velvety coffee, with a whiskey kick. There’s a chill in the air that isn’t the weather. Customer service that borders on existential protest.
But somehow, weirdly, I respect it. Maybe even love it. Certainly am fascinated and intrigued by it. In a sex machine museum vacillation of emotions type of way.
Because Prague doesn’t beg to be liked. She doesn’t bow or bend to the man (or in this case, woman — love is love).
She doesn't smile just to please. She dares you to look deeper, past the Instagram charm and fairytale castle turrets, into her onion-esque maze of bizarre layers—the hedonic, the haughty, the horny.
This is a city with a dark sense of humor, and zero interest in your approval.
Of course, we find that kind of intoxicating.
