“i wanna know what it’s like on the inside of love. I’m standing at the gates, I see the beauty above. I’m on the outside…” – nada surf
dripping wet and babying a cup o coffee in vain hopes of bringing my hands to a healthy lukewarm, I browsed the 1st display which alanis the mid-eastern doorman had pointed to when i bought my golden ticket for the manhattan museum of sex. “sex in design/design in sex” was an unveiling of the x/y charisma that gives pop-culture its pop and a celebration of the sexuality in the rest (most) of pop-culture, which wasn’t so very well veiled to begin with. this was good fun, a collection with the likes of a heel with a vamp that electrically induced a chemical reaction, a collage of images with good ol kitsch favs like james browne, janet jackson, leopard-skinned jane-tarzan and che guavera as a woman, and an hour-glass curved mirror, to illustrate the media wields the invincible charm of sex to draw the unsuspecting mob into the snare of their evil will.
upstairs the display was interested in the history of ”sex and the moving image.” I was not, so I talked to Sean Conlon about the portrayal of the romantic image in the media, the subject of his undergrad thesis. Its important and empowering to know the roots of feminism, post-feminism and, dare I say it? yes I will, even 3rd feminism, but more to the point that Sean was quite an authority on the mirror-reflections echoing between the media and the mob that shape our image of gender and the body, as well as being a passionate believer that we, the people, the mob, should be educated in how the media uses that image. (XXXploitation, if you will.) The the last display was the equivalent of a novelty shop with a bit of historicity to back it up.
The last display clenched the issue for me, even though I spent the least time in it and it was the least helpful. It was a scattered amalgamation, a collection of unsorted data on glass shelves in an all-white room that scientific experiments should be conducted in. I felt like I should have on a facemask – but who needs one? I was a scientist already because there I was in the museum: it presented me with data, to make what I would of it.
and that’s when I realized the aptitude of the museum to my generation. postmodernism is always on the outside, peering at the beauty above it – and sometimes, inside of it – and wondering, like king kong. the Manhattan Museum of Sex sees The Beautiful in the act of intimacy, and dissects it to discover its essence. for someone without a comprehensive understanding (i.e. Biblical worldview) to set a backdrop for weird physical phenomena, it makes sense to show its history and ripples in the public arena, such as the highly relevent results of the media’s sexploitation.
I have an unscientific mind. I hate dissection. I prefer a butterfly happy and careless in a field than defeathered on tile. but overall? the museum was a good experience because the exhibits on display were windows to my time and my culture.
violetskye
That took alot of guts to go there, and it seems like it paid off.
preservationist says : I absolutely agree with this !