In some ways I am a very bad New Yorker. I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty. I’ve never set foot in Rockerfeller Center. I’ve never visited half of the places I’d like to, half the places I’m supposed to. I am holding on to my New Yorker title by tenuous threads.
Saturday afternoon I finally, after six years in this city, made my way to The Museum of Sex.
Currently the Museum of Sex is running an exhibit entitled “Kink.” Supposedly, it is about BDSM. In reality, it is about fetish. I would guess that the curator would not know why I make that distinction. I would in fact guess that the curator is not kinky. But that is all right. It was enjoyable. May and I read about mud and macro fetishes, about how domination and submission are expressed in wolves, and peered curiously into the yiff tubes of plush stuffed animals. I applauded the way the exhibit handled their section on rape play. I was pissed that their leather sample was made from fake leather.
We followed the dark back staircase up and around, and wound our way through the history of pornography in film. I got a crash course in sexploitation films, and kept having to pull May away from screens of cute boys having sex, often pictured with demin around their knees and surrounded by the remnants of tight white tshirts. On the top floor we wandered through a sampling of the permanent collection, stopping on a bench to watch a film on a man who creates brilliant animated robot sex.
“I would have that in my house,” May said, indicating a series of graphic sex acts done in holograms, so that the images appeared only from specific angles. I was amused watching people walk by them and jump in surprise.
“No,” I answered.
“Why not?”
“I hate holographic art,” I answered. Although really, the content would be okay, maybe for a bedroom, I thought.
On the other side of the wall I pushed a red button and grinned in glee when a fucking machine next to me rumbled in to life. “Hee! Awesome.” The security guard chuckled with me.
The museum itself was enjoyable, small, and worth a second visit after new exhibits come through. Far more entertaining were the people, a constantly flowing crowd, mostly my age, maybe a little younger here, a little older there. It seems that in my age group the common reaction to sex is still to point and laugh. I almost don’t know why I was surprised.
I watched the people migrate, yelping and jumping, pointing and calling to their friends. Come look at this, look at that guy, what’s that a picture of, how does this work, are those really robots?” And even That’s disgusting!
And most often of all: Eewwww. Gross.
Oh, right, I thought to myself. Outlaw culture.
As May and I were walking down 6th avenue after we’d been kicked back out into the night, I mused. “Places like that make me remember how strange we really are,” I said to him finally.
“Mmmhmm,” he answered.
The curious thing about being an adult is that I finally understand the subtleties of how the world sees children. I see how we’ve linked maturity and age, though I don’t always see why. And yet, where are the lines being drawn between sexual maturity and emotional maturity? What do we say to the people who’re fully capable of fucking all the live-long day, and probably do, but who still need to snigger and point at genitalia?
The people for whom sex is still a dirty, weird, amazing mystery.
In some ways I grew up so, so fast. Sometimes I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
Standing on the third floor of that museum, Saturday night in New York City, I was unable to shake the idea that I was surrounded by children. I haven’t felt so old in years.
20 Comments
I lived in Manhattan and only went to the Whitney and Frick.
You’ve raised enough questions to fill a library or two.
I was a real sexual ignoramus as a kid. I really didn’t start thinking consciously about sex until I was almost 18. Sometimes I wonder if that is why I was lucky enough to never know sexual shame.
Laughter is a way of concealing shame. And not letting people know that you are really interested or excited: making yourself vulnerable to laughter that hurts.
A good portion of the shame must be the effect of living in such a Christianized country. The main religious forces in this country encourage ignorance and disapproval/shame.
Standing on the third floor of that museum, Saturday night in New York City, I was unable to shake the idea that I was surrounded by children.
You don’t know how much that frustrates me. Sex is fun, enjoyable, funny, intimate, passionate, relaxing, intense… and still people my age (I’m 49) manage to make it seem silly and embarrassing.
And don’t even get me started on the various groups I belong to on which people – anonymous people writing form the safety of their homes – can’t even manage to *write* about sex without getting completely weirded out by it. “Down there.” “My equipment.” “Doing the nasty.” Hello-o-o-o? Aren’t there any friggin’ grownups who enjoy sex around here?
I’ve said it before but I guess I’ll say it again:
Naturally, this is true regardless of one’s chronological age. I mentioned this same thing in regards to how people deal with so-called “Scene etiquette,” treating it as if it’s some big mystery instead of being just like any other kind of etiquette.
This is all, of course, part of the whole notion that sex can’t possibly be a part of everyday living. It must be different somehow, but nobody (religious institutions least of all) seems to want to explain what makes it so different.
Interesting corollary to my post that you commented on earlier. Especially in light of Richard’s comment above.
“Shame” has been a big word for me recently – namely, realizing that I’ve got a lot of it. I’m so happy that it’s finally time to shed it, like a too-warm jacket. Feels good.
For a long time I’ve been feeling like I’ve got one foot in both worlds you describe in this post – the outlaws and the gigglers – except my reaction is less “eww gross” and more “hee! if only they knew…” I’m pleased to be moving beyond that, too. You complain of feeling old in this post, and I know where you’re coming from. A lot of my middle/high school years were spent looking down my nose at my peers like an old lady on a porch. But lately I’ve felt perpetually childish, and I’m glad to be moving beyond it.
What do we say to the people who’re fully capable of fucking all the live-long day, and probably do, but who still need to snigger and point at genitalia?
Like I always say, you need to have a license to breed dogs, but any moron can make a person. It is frightening that those people have the ability to reproduce.
I bet some of that laughter in the sex museum was of the good curiosity type, as in what the hell was that person thinking when they made that thing and I wonder how it would get me off.
I’m of the mind that there needs to be more sex museums, especially here in the states. There needs to be more laughter and openness toward sex in general because more openness would help people to stop hiding who and what they are, perhaps help them to not have to sneak around to the bad part of town (since that is where they usually put all the sex shops and such, least around here) and just maybe they wouldn’t wind up physically hurt due to some ignorant bubba who watched them purchase something that he doesn’t understand and can only deal with it by beating them up.
That will never happen, not any time soon, because too many people in authority are still trying to cram the idea down everyone’s throat that every mom and dad gets married first(and that parents are of one of each sex and will not vary from that rule), sleep in separate beds and just magically wake up one day to find that the stork left you, or they found you in a field or in a barn and they kept you as their own.
In some ways I am a very bad New Yorker. I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty. I’ve never set foot in Rockerfeller Center. I’ve never visited half of the places I’d like to, half the places I’m supposed to. I am holding on to my New Yorker title by tenuous threads.
Is there really social pressure for city natives to do all that visity stuff? In London we seem to go the opposite way – never having been to St Pauls is the mark of a true native.
“I would have that in my house,” May said, indicating a series of graphic sex acts done in holograms, so that the images appeared only from specific angles. I was amused watching people walk by them and jump in surprise.
-that reminds me of the holographic pornstars in Bobby’s room at the beginning of Count Zero. [/geek]
That’s a fascinating crowd dynamic you’re writing about. It sounds like Bizarre Magazine, like softcore porn, like lad-mags, like Channel 5.
Richard-
The Whitney and the Frick? Seriously? I mean hey, great choices, but the Met is only five blocks away from there, and it’s *free.*
Hmm. Am being an art geek. Will stop.
Laughter is indeed a way of concealing shame. As Sierra pointed out, though, it’s also a way to simply enjoy yourself. I was laughing too.
And it is a shame that laughter can hurt. The other thing about being a little more grown up is that I finally get the chance to see (or remember) how cruel children really are.
Tom-
Well that’s a bit disheartening. I had been holding out the naive hope that this would get better eventually. But oh, right, I should *still* know better than to connect maturity and age.
Maja-
I have an amazing image now of you with grey hair sitting in a classroom filled with miniaturized children. I don’t know why they are miniaturized. Just my brain.
I like the “Hee! If only they knew” kind of laughter. I still do that sometimes, mostly when May and I get clearly identified as a sweet vanilla couple. I liked your post. I’m glad you’re writing, and also having such a good time.
Sierra-
I think you’re absolutely right. I like the idea of there being more museums and places to go, not only because it provides that kind of atmosphere, but because attending is a choice. There will always be people who simply don’t want to talk about sex, just as there are people who don’t want to talk about politics, or relationships. That’s a tricky balance to strike in public forums. Currently the balance is heavily loaded in favor of not talking, maybe someday it will swing to being heavily loaded in favor of talking, and I’m hoping it lands somewhere in the middle.
And more of the excited laughter. Yes. Very well put.
Thene-
Kind of a curious mix, actually. I’m not a native New Yorker, but technically a transplant. Most of the people I know here have this idea that they should take advantage of everything the city has to offer, but at the same time are overwhelmingly caught up in their own lives. I am best & worst with museums. I love them, I want to visit more of them, and finding the time is beyond hard.
It *is* a mark of a true New Yorker to never, ever go through Times Square on weekends if at all possible.
Perhaps we can refer the “true native” question to May, as he has lived here his entire life. And has also been to the Statue of Liberty.
Ooo, a geek reference I do not know! Fun! What is Count Zero?
I *love* crowd watching. Especially in cities, and especially in cities I’m not familiar with. I spent huge chunks of my time in London doing just that. The surroundings of the Museum of Sex just made everyone seem that much more like characters.
Yeah, but since when are tourist traps “what the city has to offer” to natives?
In 23 years of living in New York City, I only went to the Statue of Liberty once and that was because I was showing people around and they wanted to go.
I concur. I have felt this way, like an adult among children, many, many times. I resist the temptation to say something nasty.
“I watched the people migrate, yelping and jumping, pointing and calling to their friends. Come look at this, look at that guy, what’s that a picture of, how does this work, are those really robots?” And even That’s disgusting! And most often of all: Eewwww. Gross.”
Yep. I just had a dose of that at, of all places, the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. I do agree with everyone else on here that a large part of it can be chalked up to nervous interest, but still…doesn’t feel good to be laughed at, and I can’t help but shrink just a little further back into the closet when I hear people making disgusted faces and “gross!” comments about stuff I enjoy. I wish I had a better way of dealing with it than simply ignoring as much as I can, and trying not to let it get to me. But what’s the alternative — confronting people about it? “Hey, I happen to like that thing you think is so icky and weird and perverted…”
Alexis-
I’ve been feeling like I was older than people my age for years. Not quite the same as feeling like an adult among children, since I was smart enough at the age of 12 to know that feeling older didn’t make me an adult. My adulthood is relatively new.
Aw. Thanks.
Subversive Sub -
Confrontation is an option, but not a very effective one. It migth be my ever-present instinct to be easy going, but I find those confrontations, if you need to have them, go better when framed as half joking. Instead of “I happen to like the thing you think is icky” I’m more likely to say “Seems kind of hot to me” with a sly grin on my face.
I’m surprised to hear that Folsom had so much of the same attitude. There was a street fair here in NYC recently that apparently got a *ton* of mainstream attention. I hope you still had a good time!
Count Zero is a novel by William Gibson, not one of my favorite ones by him. I think you’d like some of his books.
subversive sub,
When I was fourteen, I had amassed a considerable collection of penthouses, which I kept in a compartment of my bed’s frame which was difficult to access. I had a number of friends who would come over when my parents weren’t home, to view my stash.
One fellow I remember, while turning each page (containing wholly vanilla pornography), would mutter “sick” which what sounded like sincere revulsion. And yet he kept turning the pages.
Children cast derision on things they know they are not permitted to appreciate. The more the appreciation, the greater the derision.
Alexis-
That behavior that you describe when combined with my observations of the (my age and older) crowd at the museum would serve for a good basis for the theory that the majority of people in our culture are never educated or encouraged in sexual aspects beyond the level of children.
Ha. May’s comment on this is “Duh!”
Actually your just lik most New Yawkers the majority of which haven’t been to any of the museums or the statue of liberty.
I know what you mean about feeling old or I think a beter term is experienced and travelled.
LOL. Thank you for this post. Now you understand why my profession sometimes drives me nuts!
Ms160 (museum curator, currently curating a traveling exhibition on kinky couture)
2 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] this post’s title courtesy of this 1976 SNL sketch, interestingly apropos to this post of Eileen’s. [...]
[...] about with some readiness; I can be five one minute and twenty four the next. I’m used to feeling older than my age group, making friends and sharing experiences across generation gaps in both directions. My fantasy life, [...]
Post a Comment