The Museum of Sex sounded promising, but was boring and expensive. For fifteen bucks I was expecting a lot more.

Though on the back of my ticket it said, “A portion of this ticket will benefit ACRIA—AIDS Community Research Initiative of America, New York, NY, The Kinsey Institute and The Lesbian Herstory Archives, New York NY”—so I guess some of the money went somewhere good.

Now I’m kicking myself for not visiting the sex museums in Prague---yes, I meant that to be plural. Unfortunately, I was traveling with a platonic male friend who was already sexually frustrated enough. I didn’t want for the museum to push him over the edge.

I walked into the NYC Museum of Sex amidst a rain storm and was very wet.

“You poor thing,” said the ticket girl. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt as was the coat check/gift store girl. They both looked like nice NYU students who probably bragged to their friends about working there.

I was given an audio device (in vagina pink) for free after giving the girl my California Driver’s License. The museum had a modern hipstery feel to it with its red walls and stark setting, but it was all smoke and mirrors.

I soon got annoyed trying to coordinate my audio with the displays. I was trying to act like what I was seeing and listening to was interesting and novel (I did pay $15), but it wasn’t.

I jotted a few notes down on a small piece of paper, and then noticed the security guard was watching me. (And why were all the security guards black wherever I went in NYC? I had never noticed that before.)

It took me an hour to get through the exhibit, but that’s only because I was listening to the audio, otherwise it would’ve taken fifteen minutes. The other black security guard was watching me, too--que lame.

Toward the end of the exhibit there were two cement areas where you could sit on plush pillows. They were like cement couches with pillows. This kind of reminded me of the grotto at the Playboy Mansion. I was wondering if any sexual fluids had ever touched these pillows.

I decided I was being paranoid and sat down to catch up on the audio portion. I winked at security guard #2, and he stopped staring at me. There was a large plastic container with sex surveys in it, but no more blank ones left. I wanted to see the questions--oh, well.

In the gift store, I was wondering if the key chains that said “Museum of Sex” with a condom in them could be used in an emergency. I think they were only meant to be novelty items.

Things I Learned That Were Interesting:

1. Mutoscope- A hand cranked motion picture machine. It was the first “Peep Show.”
2. Anything “French” in the early 1900’s conotated something considered dirty sexually like oral sex.
3. Around 1927 the striptease began
4.Strippers worked into their 60’s and 70’s.
5. Sally Rand was considered classier than Gypsy Rose. She was considered an artistic nude.
6. The White Slavery trade in NYC in the early 1900’s was run mostly by Chinese and Jewish men.
7. Porno trading cards were cool looking with people from the early 1900’s
8. The creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston was a Harvard grad and psychologist. He also invented the polygraph. There was a bondage overtone to Wonder Woman. She would get captured and bound. WW also had her lasso, which she would tie people up with.
9. In the States S/M started in NYC.
10. NYC and sex are synonymous