Well, here’s to my daring topic of the year… this is adult-content related. There’s no nudity or pornography — just sexual content. You need to be 18 years and over to go to the museum so as privacy policy, I’m not responsible for this article being viewed unsupervised by an adult. However, there’s nothing raunchy posted.

I bought a groupon to the Museum of Sex for myself and a date or friend. Who else would do something as moderately daring as me?  My friend @gevitage. We had a good time despite what I’m going to write because the night concluded with us catching up and having Chipotle (OMG I love Chipotle – Send me coupons!).

The Museum of Sex is dedicated to the exploration of the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality, advocating open discourse and striving to present to the public the best in current scholarship unhindered by self-censorship. It’s located at 233 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.

I went to the Museum of Sex in Paris (Musée de l’érotisme) a few years ago before graduating from college. I remembered being shocked by a great deal of the displays and artifacts from way back when. There were collections of toys, equipment etc that would have probably shocked everyone. It’s like this: Before plastic or rubber or whatever those toys were made of, they were made of wood (imagine the splinters…). I expected the exhibit to be as informative and entertaining as Paris — I was wrong. (See some photos online here for the Musée de l’érotisme)

Yes, I was informed but this is information that I could have looked up on the internet. The Sex Store was much more interesting and you can actually start and end there… however, I think it’s worth a visit if your expectations weren’t as high as mine.

Sexuality is something that I think many people struggle with. The act of intercourse itself. I’m very observant that not many people want to talk about it. Even if I think I’m more or less opened to discuss it, I respect my peers who both do or don’t. Whatever you do with your practices and acts, I definitely believe that everyone should just be aware of what works for them and understand that others might not share their same feelings/thoughts.

Anyway, back to the museum.
The very first floor was about pornography. Pornography is described as obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit. @Gevitage made a statement that was very apparent when I compared the years of the videos projecting on the walls, “If you notice, over the years bodies got smaller and less hairy and people became more daring.”

I also realized that even panties got smaller. Guys if you only knew there are other panties aside from thongs, bikinis and granny panties. If you’re interested you can take a look at this book: Dessous (25th Anniversary Special Edtn)

I’m also aware that sex in the American society was very much repressed, definitely far ahead than most countries however. As I noticed the depictions through the cartoon displays over the years, sex seemed to be a forbidden act. A great deal of clean cartoonists did dirty drawings.

There was also a robot exhibit:

Vibrators were used to treat female hysteria. Apparently the female orgasm was a myth at that time so there was “female hysteria.” Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and “a tendency to cause trouble”. Since ancient times women considered to be suffering from hysteria would sometimes undergo “pelvic massage” — manual stimulation of the genitals by the doctor until the patient experienced “hysterical paroxysm.” …  A page from a Sears catalog of home electrical appliances from 1918 includes a portable vibrator with attachments, billed as ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.” [source]

Animal Sex
The last part of the exhibit was very interesting. Maybe now that we are aware that even animals have homosexual tendencies it might be more accepted? Even in dolphins… homosexual dolphins use the blowhole (no pun intended).

Also, Bonobo monkeys are feminists. Did you know that macaques show forms of prostitution by exchanging food for sex? Some other weird things: Some animals are necrophilic.

However some acts were quite beautiful:

“In species, either or both sexes may not be monogramous. Lifelong monogamy is rare, even within monogamous species.”

At the end of the exhibition:

I went to use the bathroom and I wish that the experience was at least interesting. I did learn new things so I can’t completely write off the visit however, I expected the experience to be similar to the Parisian visit.

Have you been to this museum before?

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