Museum of Sex

Inquiries/Questions:

• Given the subject matter of the museum I'm interested to see how they balance history as entertainment and history as scholarship. 
• The Museum of Sex website notes the following: "the desire to sexually break the boundaries of physical and social modesty has long revealed itself throughout history. Despite repeated attempts to censor, sequester or “sanitize” this sexual past, artifacts left from previous generations prove our ancestors were not as asexual as an expurgated version of history would like us to believe." I have two questions:

1. How has society sought to censor and sanitize?
2. What has been censored and sanitized?

At the Museum:

This is a fascinating and very well done museum that successfully bridges history and entertainment.  It is what you make of it though--it can be purely academic or it can be purely entertainment.  Notably, most of the patrons were there for entertainment purposes but it would be hard to walk out of the museum without the intellect stimulated given the quality presentation of information through well researched articles and provocative primary sources.

The museum had four exhibits—three were relevant to my inquiries—1.  Night Fever:  New York Disco 1977-1979:  The Bill Bernstein Photographs; 2.  Knowns/Unknown: Private Obsession and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art; 3.  The Sex Lives of Animals; ObjectXXX:  Selected Artifacts from the Museum of Sex Archive; 4.  Hardcore: A Century & A Half of Obscene ImageryAn underlying theme of the disco exhibit was freedom.  It’s been a while since I saw Boogie Nights or Studio 54, so, going in, I did not recall the extent to which disco was tied to the LGBT movement.  The exhibit chronicles six select Disco clubs in NY with oral history, music, and Bernstein’s photos.  All senses were provoked by loud music, a mirror ball, the opportunity to consume an alcoholic beverage, smell, perhaps for good reason, was the only sense not provoked by the exhibit.  Interesting about this scene was its crossing of racial, generational, class, sexual, and gender barriers of the day.  The timing of the disco movement was interesting as it came on the heels of the Stonewall Riots.  Underlying this entire exhibit was the sense of liberation and how people were freed in this disco environment.   It seems that throughout American history, nightlife has demonstrated the power of being a point of equal access for anyone interested to venture past the velvet rope. 

The U.S. market for obscene materials began in the 1700s as it was imported from Europe.  As those imports were cracked down on in the early 1800s, a domestic production and trade developed by the 1840s, and New York became the center of the trade.  The prints could be found for sale in many public spaces around the city including hotels, markets, and rail depots.  At the same time, the health reform movement was spreading across the U.S. which included education around all matters sexual.  It was the Civil War that created an even larger demand for pornographic literature, prints, and photographs, and helped to expand the sex industry overall.  By the 1870s, trade was flourishing but Victorian values led to a crackdown on creation, circulation, and ownership.  This crackdown was led by Anthony Comstock who helped to develop stronger obscenity laws as well as the burning of all recovered material.  

 Some interesting findings in the museum included sex education materials given to WWII soldiers, the fact that vibrators were invented to treat female hysteria, and that some of the earliest pornography was developed not for entertainment but to challenge ecclesiastical and political leaders.  I was intrigued to learn about a case that went to the supreme court regarding tax dollars supporting the Library of Congresses translation of Playboy into braille.  Such translation was affirmed by the Court on the grounds of first amendment rights.  Also interesting was the ownership over who defines pornography.  To this effect, one display addressed the heightening of the sexual connotations of racism with nude depictions of native populations in publications like National Geographic while nude images viewed as obscene were at the same time under fire societally. 

The Museum of Sex far exceeded my expectations.  It successfully raises important questions and tells an important story that is not easily accessible in your typical American narrative.  The museum is about far more than the obscene.  It is about gender, sexuality, civil and human rights, entertainment, bigotry, homophobia, legal history, art, freedom, reform, and conflict all in the context of American history.  Whether you’re going for the pictures or the articles you’re sure to leave this museum satisfied.