They Must Be Dicking Around

A lot of people have a problem with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They argue that when you stick a pin through rock & roll and place it behind glass, a roaring flood of emotion that was originally a rhythmic “fuck you” to polite society gets systematically robbed of its life-force and lays there like a giant turd. It’s just not the sort of thing that belongs in a museum.  

Generally speaking, I agree with that stance. So I didn’t know how I would feel about a visit to Manhattan’s Museum of Sex, a two-floor Fifth Avenue erection dedicated to all things penis, vagina, tongue, mouth, anus, and lotion. The humanist in me says that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with such a place, and, from a moral standpoint, anyway, there isn’t. But maybe there is something wrong with it. After all, you can’t get more direct in the rhythmic “fuck you” department than intercourse. And aren’t you robbing sex of its life force by definition once you number and catalogue semen?  

Is it possible that sex, The Best Thing In The World, could be turned into a giant turd?

Understand that I was raised in a classic, skin-fearing Catholic family. When I was growing up, if you were courageous enough to actually say the word “breast,” you were referring to the more-expensive piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken that you wouldn’t be getting once your mom placed the order. Although I’ve finally removed the residual hanging chads of my Catholicism, I still couldn’t help expecting the museum to finish the long-overdue job of corrupting me to my very soul. After 18 alarmingly deconstructive years in New York City, I was ready to get it over with. 

So much for expectations. It turns out the Museum of Sex is the sort of thing you’d see in Panama City Beach, if only the tourism board would loosen up and start doing poppers. The floors are gray-painted cement, and a lot of the exhibits are more depressing than boner inducing. The average person is bound to see something at the museum that he or she hasn’t seen before, no doubt about it. But there’s not much zing in the presentation, and that dulls the fun of the discovery. I felt like I was at an embarrassment seminar in my Aunt’s basement.   

“Digital designers are creating virtual genitalia that mimic the phases of arousal and orgasm.” 

They are? That’s what it says in a little paragraph on the wall in the opening gallery, which features, among other goodies, a vase with breasts on it, a phallic-looking urinal, and a hand-cranked “vibrator” that could probably also be used to scramble eggs, if you washed it really good first. However, much to my chagrin, there’s no sign of virtual genitalia. I ask you now—what kind of sick mind would do that? In the theater, if you bring a gun on stage, the rule is you fire it. As far as I’m concerned, when you bring up arousal-and-orgasm-mimicking virtual genitalia at a sex museum, you fucking show it. 

Next up is a room full of video monitors covering the history of sex on film. My jaw certainly dropped over an ancient silent cartoon that featured a Barney Google-like character (Google him) who whips out his cartoon man-meat and pounds away at an equally cartoony woman, who, it turns out, has an alarm clock lodged in her vagina. Then a crab removes the man’s penis from his body (!) and runs away with it. Unfortunately, Popeye isn’t around to punch the penis.  

There are also clips from supposedly erotic artsy-crappy films like Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, which I have successfully avoided watching for the past 25 years, and Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, which I once watched half of before falling asleep. Turn the corner, and there’s the usual grab bag of Russ Meyer snicker-core, and ’70s hardcore, with guys whose penises would be as big around as my forearm, if only I worked out more. Plus, you get to see Paris Hilton perform oral sex on a guy, just in case she hasn’t gotten around to you yet.

Then it’s on to the third and final gallery, which features sex-through-the-years, or something like that. I know you won’t believe this, but it turns out our attitudes toward sex have changed over the past century! The first part made me feel like I’d stumbled upon Thomas Edison’s porn stash in the Menlo Park lavatory. But, soon enough, it was on to the . . . um . . . the penis holograms. There’s also an S&M rack, because Federal Sex-Quirk Law requires it, and a barber chair that’s been thoughtfully outfitted with a big metal dildo. Of course, if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll have to call the shop ahead of time so they can adjust the chair. BUH-DUMP. 

And that’s about it, really. It’s decidedly nutty gawking at stuff like this in a museum setting. If you ask me, a dildo should be utilized rather than pondered by groups of strangers holding ticket stubs. That’s basically how I felt about the entire place, though. There’s a lot of outré paraphernalia to consider, but it seems so lonesome without somebody licking it or bouncing on it. And the footage and photographs of actual sex grow so overwhelming, a sense of “seen that labia, done that position” eventually kicks in. Frankly, my privates couldn’t have cared less.

At least the people who work there aren’t a bunch of dicks.