Inside the winding alleyways of London’s Camden Market , past walls of combat boots, money exchanges and bustling food vendors, a small white sign announces the presence of the complex’s newest tenant: the Vagina Museum.

On Saturday, during its grand opening, the humble brick space — dedicated to understanding and appreciating the vagina, vulva and gynecological anatomy — was packed, mostly with women but from all generations . I heard visitors exchange confessions like “I didn’t know what a period was until I had one” and “I used to think that all vulvas look the same.” Topics of discussion that are often reduced to hushed tones in public spaces, if they are brought up at all, were thrown around with ease and enthusiasm.

“It’s almost like there’s an embargo in society around having very open, frank, honest and educational conversations around vaginas,” said Marissa Conway, 30, who is a founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and attended the opening. “I didn’t expect to have a visceral reaction of gratitude, but there’s an element of relief that we can talk about this.”

The museum is the first of its kind, an answer of sorts to Iceland’s Phallological Museum . With nearly 300 penises and penile parts from local animals, the specimen-rich institution ranks among Reykjavik’s top tourist attractions. While this monument to male genitalia is in many ways an orthodox museum that revolves around a permanent collection of “marvels,” the Vagina Museum is not. Like the city’s Migration Museum, which is focused on the country’s immigrants and refugees, and the Museum of Transology, which purports to be the largest collection dedicated to the lives of transgender people, the Vagina Museum is an institution whose mission is driven by social justice and public health initiatives.