Once again I invite you to join me for Romance Wanderlust. This month we celebrate our nerd love by venturing to New York City and The Museum of Sex, a place filled with such explicit displays that my search engine kept blocking it.
Daniel Gluck founded the Museum of Sex in 2002. Its primary mission is to educate, but that doesn’t stop it from being riotous and fun (there is, for example, a “Bouncy Castle of Breasts” which is exactly what it sounds like – a bounce house filled with inflated fake bouncy boobs). You must be eighteen years of age or older to visit the museum since the displays are explicit in nature.
Here are some of the exhibitions on display at the museum as of this writing:
The Sex Lives of Animals: If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “You know what I want to see? Fake pandas getting it on!” then this is the exhibit for you. Many biologists contributed their insights so that we could see a sculptural representation of deer engaging in a ménage a trois. If you go, please report back to me regarding cephalopod representation. Asking for a friend.
Object XXX: Artifacts from the Past: Want to see an ancient dildo or a Victorian anti-masturbation device or a sex bicycle? Good, because the museum has lots and lots of those types of things on display.
Splendor in the Grass: Kinesthetic Camping: I can’t even begin to sum this up so I’ll let the museum’s website do it for me:
For its 2nd annual Kinesthesia Art Commission the Museum of Sex presents Splendor in the Grass, an immersive installation by world renowned Studio Droog. Splendor in the Grass translates the campground setting into a surreal adult playground where the complexities of human sexuality are at play in multiple physical, visual and olfactory experiences. Enveloped in elaborate forest-like scenery, this sensual habitat is complete with a moving sky, campfire and live park rangers. Five interactive camping tents connect the visitor to phases of sexual stimulation and the thrill of arousal in an encounter that is both whimsical and titillating.
I don’t even like camping and I thought the display sounded hot. There’s also erotic art on display (historical and contemporary).
Does the thought of wandering through the Museum of Sex with your sweetie seem romantic and sexy? If so, be sure to visit the gift shop, which sells toys and also a variety of condoms. You can find out more about the Museum, including hours and current exhibits, at museumofsex.com. And if you want to REALLY impress your nerdy love, you can take them for a post-museum stroll to the nearby Radio Wave Building, which was the home of Nikola Tesla.
The Museum of Sex is one of many museums around the world that celebrate sexuality, and they all have their own take on the subject. The Museum of Sex is focused on sex education and the cultural history of sex. Venustempel, in Amsterdam, keeps the emphasis on art. It claims to be “the world’s first sex museum” and is reported by Amsterdam Advisor to be the fourth most frequented museum in the city (after the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House, and Rijksmuseum). Prague has an entire museum devoted to sex machines (vibrators, anti-masturbation devices, that sort of thing). The Museum of Erotica in St. Petersburg claims (controversially) to have Rasputin’s twelve-inch long penis on display. You can find a list of these museums and many others at ABC News (“Visit the World’s 12 Sexiest Museums,” by Marlei Martinez).
As my readers know, this column represents my trip through the exotic land of Google. I have not been to The Museum of Sex and this post is neither a review nor an endorsement. However, I’ve observed that our readers are a well-travelled lot – has anyone checked this place out in person? What about some of the other sexy museums in the world? Give us your candid report!
Noice.
I’ve been to the Museum of Sex several times back when I lived in NY (even have a t-shirt!) and it’s a tremendously fun place to visit. The exhibits are both fun and informative, the gift shop if t’riffic, and it’s a fun place to spend a few hours. The only downside is that it’s a smaller size compared to other NYC museums, so this isn’t a place where one can spend the whole day.
I went around when they opened. There wasn’t much to see and it was super expensive. Basically an excuse for a gift shop, and most straightforward stores have a much better selection. But I think they had a lot of funding issues they’ve worked through, and they’ve expanded, so maybe it’s better now.
” If you go, please report back to me regarding cephalopod representation. Asking for a friend.”
Of course you are …
Not a sexy museum, per se, but my husband & I visited the Phallological Museum in Reykjavik this past March. It was…enlightening. Lots of whale & seal penii. And, of course, they’re always looking for human donors.
The Museum of Sex is for people who love to giggle “OOOOOH SEX!!!!” If you’re more like, “aw, yiss, sex” you’ll think it’s kind of silly. I went with a big group of women celebrating one woman’s triumph over breast cancer, and we all enjoyed the giant-boob-filled bouncy-house, and having boob shaped jell-o shots at the bar, but i mostly thought the exhibits (including the animal one) were silly, kinda lazy and faux-titillating. I did enjoy a special exhibit on the history of sex writing, which involved some interesting old pamphlets and repurposing of celebs and cartoon characters for porn-y purposes. The gift shop, which is free to visit, is indeed fun. And I agree on the exorbitant admission fee to the museum itself. The bar is really nice, book-lined, quiet. I meant to check whether you could have a drink there without actually paying for museum admission.
Also: I recall no cephalopod representation whatsoever. Perhaps you should protest.
In the giant stack of library books I have in my house I happen to have a recent book titled “Sex in the Museum: My Unlikely Career at New York’s Most Provocative Museum”. The author, Sarah Forbes, was the museum’s curator and is now its curatorial consultant. Haven’t read the book yet, but thought y’all might be interested in it, especially if the chances of actually visiting the museum are small.
I have never been to it , in fact i didn’t realize it existed and I have been to NYC a million times…On my way now..