The World of Sex

Museums are buildings that hold objects of historical, scientific, artistic, and/or cultural interest that are stored and exhibited. Museums are great sources of entertainment as well as education. Many museums offer interactive art pieces which are great for people of all ages.

First Impressions

I recently visited the Museum of Sex, located on 5th ave in New York. I went with my partner and although it was fun I don’t feel like I got to experience it in full effect. This is because my partner wasn’t as interested in the history and reading part of the exhibit as I was. I wanted to read and take pictures of everything I saw. While my partner just wanted to speed up to the more interactive part of the exhibit. Right, when you walk into the museum it doesn’t look like a museum, at least I didn’t think it did. For starters, you enter the museum through the gift shop. You then proceed to check-in at the desk, if you have already bought your ticket online, you just scan your QR code which we did. We also got tickets to Super Funland which is located inside the museum. It’s referred to as the Erotic Carnival, it was honestly super fun. I don’t think I would have enjoyed my time there, as much, if we didn’t have access to that part of the museum. 

 When I first entered the museum I didn’t really know what to expect, I wasn’t sure what was considered too graphic for them to show us. I was nervous, excited, and afraid all at the same time. I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect, I was excited to see what “Super Funland” was about and I was afraid because I didn’t know if there would be any creeps there. The first part of the exhibit shows you old abortion tools they were honestly so terrifying. They looked like gigantic metal scissors with hooks. They have a wall with pictures of the evolution of condoms, to be honest, we have come a long way. People used to use lien and silk condoms, just imagine how uncomfortable that must have been. They also had a wall of mugshots of 2 doctors and a midwife who was convicted of performing an illegal abortion. The area of the “history of sex” was pretty dead, I assume that just like my partner people weren’t interested in the history part.

After we left the “boring” part of the exhibit, we entered the more interactive part, which was honestly so cool. The room we were previously in was bright, with bright lights want bright walls, it looked like a regular modern museum. The room we entered next was darker.  This is where most of the cooler/interactive artifacts were located. There was a wall of porno videos playing and there was a wall of nude pictures. It was like walking into a porn site, and looking around was your way of scrolling. You could see all types of sexual activities going on in the videos, all types of colors, shapes, and sizes from dildos to people. There was a booth in one of the rooms called “Pornomatic” which is a little machine, where you would show your face, take a picture and then create an animated porno using your face. Before taking the picture it will tell you to “moan”, my boyfriend and I found this booth to be very funny and entertaining. Although we didn’t get to see the pornos we created, it was fun making them. The porno took about 3 to 5 minutes to make.

 The carnival room looked like a regular carnival at night, very crowded, and noisy and there were neon lights. I found this room to be quite small. There were no more than 20 people there. We lasted a bit longer in this room because there were more people there, which meant we had to wait for our turns to play the games. Everyone was very respectful and waited for their turns. I won my boyfriend and I crowns since I was the only one who was winning the game. The crowns were made out of what seemed to be foam, my crown was pink and he was yellow. Our crowns both said “ Sex God” on them. After I won for the second time in a row I overheard someone say “this is rigged, you can only win if you sit where she was” I turned to my boyfriend and said that they were just jealous. 

As an outsider, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how the people would react and I for sure wasn’t expecting to hear so many moaning sounds throughout my whole time there. Even though it’s a museum of sex and I should have been prepared for that, it still took me by surprise. This exhibit was very informative and entertaining, I would definitely consider becoming an insider and coming to the museum every time there’s a new exhibition. It would be a fascinating new hobby to obtain. Plus, The museum has many spots where you can take really cool pictures. Who knows I could probably make some friends, who have obtained the same hobby. From what I observed, everyone who attended the museum that day was from ages 18 – to 25, basically, all were young adults.

Overall, I would 100% recommend this museum to anyone who is of age to go. For a better experience, it’s best to go accompanied by someone and the time of day, it doesn’t matter but you can always check what times are “slower/less crowded” so you can get to enjoy the whole museum without feeling rushed. Everyone at the museum was overall super cool, and not at all childish which was great because I hate people who go to museums to be loud and obnoxious. 

Reflection

This essay was extremely difficult for me to write. For starters, I wasn’t even sure what subculture I could belong to, let alone write a whole essay about. I like museums so I decided to write about something around those lines. I chose to write about the Museum of Sex because I thought it could be an interesting essay to read. My essay would have been an interesting essay to read if I was able to get my points across clearly. One of the course learning outcomes I used was enhancing my strategies for drafting, revising, and editing. I wrote my draft very last minute because I didn’t know how to turn my observations into an essay. The day I visited the Museum I took notes on the things I saw. I had very good/helpful notes but I didn’t know how to turn those notes into a rough draft and then a final draft. I had an idea of what I wanted to write about but I didn’t know how to start. My idea was to write about what I saw, who I saw, and my thoughts on these things. The second-course learning outcome that I used was developing and engaging in collaborative and social aspects of the writing process.  Meeting with my partner for peer review really helped me because without the feedback I received from her I probably wouldn’t have had any idea on how to edit my paper.  The third-course learning outcome I used was trying to acknowledge the range of linguistic differences. I hoped to write about how I felt at this event, but I didn’t know how to express that in words. I asked myself how can I make sure my audience knows how I feel if I don’t know how to express myself.  But it wasn’t until after I asked for guidance and help to reflect on my draft that  I got a better understanding of how to use this list of observations I made to help me write my paper. I should have read my essay a few more times after I was done with it so I could properly correct my grammar.