New York’s Museum of Sex: Serious, Sly, Fun, and Funky

Today is Valentine’s Day, so what to write, what to write? There’s Fragonard’s Progress of Love series at the Frick, commissioned by Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s last mistress, in the early 1770s. It’s bouncy and lush and gauzy, with a lovely young couple flush with romance. It’s suitable. There’s a dark cloud, though. Madame du Barry rejected Progress of Love. We don’t know why. Too fluffy? Too unreal? Du Barry, after all, had actually worked in a brothel and knew hard knocks before she met the king. Heck, Ethel Merman played her in Du Barry Was a Lady. And the romance between Madame du Barry and the king was cooling, from love to “Friendship, Friendship, Just the Perfect Friendship.” Write about chocolate? Making it is an art. Flowers? Growing them is an art, as is arranging them.

How about the Museum of Sex on Fifth Avenue at 27th Street in Manhattan? It opened in 2002 and is a serious place. Sex is serious stuff that can be fun, too, and the museum is both. It does intelligent exhibitions and has mastered the light touch. Now, we can look at sex in art here and there in museums. There’s Fragonard, of course, but also Titian’s Danaë, which is about sex and money; Cupid and Psyche, by Canova — cold marble can sizzle; or Hokusai’s Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, about a woman seduced by two octopuses while searching for pearls, and, boy, those octopuses look like they have magic tentacles that titillate. The possibilities for a museum devoted to sex are endless.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Today is Valentine’s Day, so what to write, what to write? There’s Fragonard’s Progress of Love series at the Frick, commissioned by Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s last mistress, in the early 1770s. It’s bouncy and lush and gauzy, with a lovely young couple flush with romance. It’s suitable. There’s a dark cloud, though. Madame du Barry rejected Progress of Love. We don’t know why. Too fluffy? Too unreal? Du Barry, after all, had actually worked in a brothel and knew hard knocks before she met the king. Heck, Ethel Merman played her in Du Barry Was a Lady. And the romance between Madame du Barry and the king was cooling, from love to “Friendship, Friendship, Just the Perfect Friendship.” Write about chocolate? Making it is an art. Flowers? Growing them is an art, as is arranging them.

How about the Museum of Sex on Fifth Avenue at 27th Street in Manhattan? It opened in 2002 and is a serious place. Sex is serious stuff that can be fun, too, and the museum is both. It does intelligent exhibitions and has mastered the light touch. Now, we can look at sex in art here and there in museums. There’s Fragonard, of course, but also Titian’s Danaë, which is about sex and money; Cupid and Psyche, by Canova — cold marble can sizzle; or Hokusai’s Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, about a woman seduced by two octopuses while searching for pearls, and, boy, those octopuses look like they have magic tentacles that titillate. The possibilities for a museum devoted to sex are endless.