There may be a Penis Museum in Iceland, or Sex Museums in New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Shanghai, Bombay and other cities.

But now a new type of museum opened its doors this week in London: Amora, The Academy of Sex and Relationships, dedicated to looking at love in a new light.

Rather than emphasizing erotica and pornography, Amore focuses on educational exhibits on subjects such as orgasms, sexual chemistry and sexual dysfunction.

"We consciously differentiate ourselves from a museum: we are about sex today and tomorrow, not in the past," said Amora's founder and chairman Johan Rizki.

"The Amsterdam sex museum is sleazy; New York's is rather boring," added the Frenchman, New Yorker and Harvard Business School graduate.

Visitors are offered an aphrodisiac cocktail on entry while a backdrop of sonic background of seductive whispers is emitted from the red walls.

Amora employs visuals, interactive displays and sound to explain about relationships and sexual behavior, like touch screens, hands-on exhibits (including dildos, model vaginas, and fake breasts and testicles) to teach how to verify for potentially dangerous lumps, video screens, audio guides, life-size models, computer animations and wall displays.

Amora has seven sections about sexual relationships tackling the chemistry of dating, erogenous zones, fantasies, techniques and sexual health.

"My idea was to create somewhere for talking about sex, but in a very fun, interesting, up-to-date way. No-one before has ever brought love into a physical space where it is accessible to people. We have sex therapists where people can go and ask questions and there are workshops and academics host debates," said Rizki.

Amore is the result of the work of 30 experts: academics, medical doctors, relationship councilors, psychologists and sex therapists.

Inside the Sexplorium section is displayed sex furniture while in the Fantasy and Fetish zone, a couple can check their strength on the spankometer.

"School parties have already asked to visit and will be able to explore the health section -- complete with its gory pictures of sexual disease sufferers -- the gallery-cum-seminar room and the library." said Rizki.

The Amore investors come from the finance and health sectors, not from the pornography industry.

"My first drive is making the world a sexier place and helping people pick up a few tips and tricks that can make a difference to their lives. I've always been attracted by 'how-to' things."

"In Britain, there is a desire to learn, and to learn about love. Shops like Ann Summers (a well-known sex toy and lingerie shopping chain) and broadcasters like Channel Four here have brought sex into the mainstream, using down-to-earth language. People are attracted to things around sex." said Rizki.

Some disagree.

"One problem is that we've glamourised sex to the extent that ordinary people feel uncomfortable when they don't live up to their imagination. If the sex academy does that it's a shame," said Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In the future, another Amoras could be opened in Paris, Germany and the United States.