The Museum of Sex

233 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016

I

I’d like to go, but who would go with me?Not everyone, of course, is up for this.My wife has called it a redundancyand said that I should go with David Katz,my poet-friend, but David’s not inclinedto visit such a place, just him and me.Would there be dioramas like the kindat the American Museum of Natural History?To go alone would be unthinkable.How sad, to wander through the galleriesinspecting things that don’t seem do-able.A group is probably best—a coterieof seven poets not so free from sin.I wonder if they’d even let us in.

II

Our poet-friend and sculptor, Meredith,was happening up Fifth Avenue one day,and there it was. She went inside forthwithto see how certain things might be portrayed.The gift shop—well, that’s where she ended up.She saw The Little Book of Giant Breastsand guides to New York City swinger clubs.Who would buy these books? The other “guests”were mostly in their 20s and in groups,and Meredith was not that comfortable.Which ones, she thought, had gone and shaved their pubes?The shop was fun but not that memorable.The net effect was nothing but ennuifor one who truly loved anatomy.

III

The days went by. I hadn’t been there yet.My life is tricky, maybe much like yours.I work a job, I try to pay my debtsand when the weekend comes, I do my chores.What is it, anyway, about this place?Who cares about the Museum of Sex?It’s not a space that all consider safe,and much there is inside that intersects.If you have 18 dollars, though, you’re in.It isn’t funded by the NEAand doesn’t need to be. It’s a win-win.The secret is that hanky-panky pays.A business plan, you ask? You needn’t fear.The public antes up to enter here.

IV

My wife, at last, agreed to go with me,and I was glad. She knew that I had plannedto try and conjure up some poetry—erotic and obscene . . . I’d try my hand.Much wiser now and having sown our oats,we wouldn’t feel ashamed at being there,but then she asked if I’d be taking notes.This gave me pause. I do admit I careabout appearances. So how could Itake notes in a museum such as thiswithout a fear that one might ask me why?These things, for me, aren’t easy to dismiss.But then my wife suggested—good for her!—that folks would likely say, “Oh look, a scholar.”

V

After having been . . .A major disappointment, this. I’d hopedto see outrageous paintings on displayor installations with machines and ropesand groups of tantric acrobats at play, the brave transgression of performance art.There wasn’t anything about frottage,no enemas and nothing on the squirt.Not even an exhibit on massage.There was the “Kinesthetic Camping Ground,”“A Thousand Years of Chinese Imagery,”and something called a self-pleasuring tent.But three copulating elk? That took the crownand undermined, a bit, one’s dignity,although, I guess, I’m glad to say I went.

VI

It might have fallen short in some respects,a house of only curiosities,but nothing there was not involved with sex,so one was spared from true monotonies.The John Boy doll, aghast and well prepared,with orifices opened up like O’s,had found himself, well, closer than he daredto something called a Pleasure Periscope.I saw the penis gourd, so primitiveit didn’t look to be much fun at all,and then “The Juicer Chair,” prohibitive,that featured on its seat a six-inch dowel.The Virtual Girl we will not soon forget.She wore a horse-tail butt-plug and a net.

VII

Unrivaled here, my wife agrees with me,was “The Uncensored Story of the Natural...