This is one of the most fascinating stories I’ve read in a long time. MoSex, located at 27th Street and 5th Avenue, occupies two floors of a 5-story building that reputedly was a brothel. Then there was the denial by the Board of Regents to charter it as a cultural nonprofit organization, saying that a “museum of sex” made “a mockery” of the concept of museums. And, of course, the controversy: immediately after opening in 2002, William Donohue of the Catholic League, condemning it as MoSmut, said, “If the museum’s officials were honest, they would include a death chamber that would acknowledge all the wretched diseases that promiscuity has caused.”
The museum is “wholly dedicated to the exploration of the history, evolution, and cultural significance of human sexuality,” according to the mission statement of founder Daniel Gluck, who has endeavored to give the museum an educational format. Gluck, a suburban family man, is a fine arts graduate of UPenn with a business degree from the Wharton School. The executive curator, Grady Turner, was a former director of exhibits at the New York Historical Society. There are 18 Ph.Ds on the board of advisors. He accepted no funding from anyone in the porn industry. Still, the content is explicit, and visitors must be 18. Exhibits include photos, film, porn, BDSM, lesbian and gay history, erotica, fetishism, and history – like that of Julius Schmid, an impoverished German-Jewish immigrant, who, in the 1880s, turned from sausage making to condoms, (illegal but later widely sold under the Ramses brand name) (read here).
The museum acquired the collection of Ralph Whittington, a retired curator who worked at the Library of Congress for 36 years and had collected and documented pornography since the 1970s (click here for article). The collection includes more than four hundred 8-mm films, 700 videos, 1,500 magazines, 100 books, and artifacts (such as blow-up dolls and artificial genitalia). And at 57, he lived with his mother…
Everyone knows there are lots of Santa’s helpers around the world. But we also know that there is only one real Santa. And where is he? 34th Street and Broadway, of course, at Macy’s – on the 8th floor in Santaland (a mere glance at the quality of Santa’s wardrobe should alleviate any doubts). Click here for photos of Santaland. The lines were long, and I thought it was a good idea to leave sitting on Santa’s lap and gift-wishing to the younger ones. So I opted to go to the line where one could get a peek at Santa – he was behind glass, hence the reflections.
