Sex and Worldmaking: A Review of New York’s Museum of Sex

Abstract

Conflicts over shifting social hierarchies, expression and repression, the moralists’ ongoing love affair with the things they hate, are represented within the artefacts, photos, magazines, posters, tabloid headlines, early 20th century stag films, pulp fiction covers, vintage gay pornography, and S&M equipment that make up the debut exhibition of New York’s new museum of sex NYC Sex: How New York City Transformed Sex in America. The museum establishes a historical context for the development of debates that continue to come up again and again over the rise and demand for sexual materials vs the moralist attack. Yet, by putting sexual culture on display in a museum, it successfully and critically establishes that sex is a complicated issue defined by various discourses.

Keywords

Anthony Comstock moralist attack obscenity reaction formations Sex Wars sublimation War on Sex

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bérubé, Allan

(1996) ‘The History of the Gay Bathhouses’, in

Dangerous Bedfellows

(ed.), Policing Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism, pp. 187-221. Boston, MA: South End Press.

Chauncey, George

(1994) Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Harper Collins.

Crimp, Douglas

(1989) ‘The Museum’s Old/The Library’s New Subject’, in

Richard Bolton

(ed.) The Context of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, pp. 3-14. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Crimp, Douglas

Pelligrini, Ann

Pendleton, Eva

and

Warner, Michael

(1997) This is a SexPanic!In SexPanic!New York: Sheep Meets Sheep Collective.

D’Emilio, John

(1992) ‘Women Against Pornography: Feminist Frontier or Social Purity Crusade?’, in John D’Emilio Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University. New York: Routledge.

Delany, Samuel R.

(1999) Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. New York: New York University Press.

Eigo, Jim

(2002) ‘The City as Body Politic/The Body as City Unto Itself’, in

B. Shepard

and

R. Hayduck

(eds) From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization, pp. 178-201 (citation taken from unpublished draft of essay). New York: Verso.

IES

. (1995) ‘Smut Zones: Proposed Porn Restrictions Anger Activists’, Lesbian and Gay New York. 23July: 8.

Kendrick, Walter

(1996) The Secret Museum: Pornography and Modern Culture. Berkeley: SAGE Publications.

10.

Krakauer, Siegried

(1995[1963]) The Mass Ornament, Weimar Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

11.

New York City Planning Commission

(1995) ‘Zoning Resolution/the City of New York City Planning Commission, Dept. of City Planning’. http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/html/zonedate.html#top.10/25/95, N950384 ZRY-Adult Establishments. (Accessed October 2001).

12.

Unsigned review by SexPanic!

(1997) ‘Know Your Enemy: The New York City Zoning Law’, in SexPanic!New York: Sheep Meets Sheep Collective.