College students from far and wide spend the months of December and January in their beds watching Netflix. While the time to binge-watch and relax is appreciated, the redundancy of waking up at 4PM every day and not changing clothes for amounts of time we’re too embarrassed to admit becomes old. We cast our blankets aside, rally the comrades who have yet to return to school and set out to adventure.
Adventure can be anything from going to a new restaurant to going bungee jumping, but if you want to find something in between, that will both liven your palette and put you on edge without making you jump off of one, I recommend the Museum of Sex in New York City.
I had made my way to the museum about a year and a half ago, just before going to college. I was unsure of what to expect but excited with what I’d find upon arrival. I’d discovered the museum from Instagram posts showcasing its unique “Jump for Joy” exhibit- more commonly referred to as the boob bounce house- and figured I should go experience that for myself. Freshly 18, (a very understandable and completely necessary requirement of entering the museum) I hopped on a train with 2 friends and made my way to New York to see what the museum had to offer. I spent my few hours at the museum giggling with my friends at the exhibits, 2 minutes jumping and getting photographed in the bounce house and an ample amount of time side eyeing the abundance of oh-so-publically-displayed sex toys in the gift shop. While my friends and I had fun, I would say I spent the vast majority of my time at the Museum of Sex avoiding eye contact with other patrons and trying not to blush as my friends and I stood around looking at Victorian pornography.
Like the fine wine that I’m not yet old enough to consume, I have matured with age and thought it was time for a return visit. With 2 friends- one of whom my original trip had been with and another who was a Museum of Sex virgin- I set off once again. With the knowledge of the content I would find, I was excited to see how my mature perceptions would interact with the exhibits.
Working our way through each room, we stumbled upon a multitude of sex toys, dolls, costumes, pamphlets and pornography. The “Hardcore” exhibit, which features the Victorian pornography I had blushed at years’ prior, was still there but in a renovated space. I expected that the content would have changed but everything was there- from the door with a glory hole, to the clerical pornography, to the people watching as a porno from the 80’s played in a corner of the room. We moved to the space that houses the “Sex Lives of Animals” exhibit and there I found the uncomfortably intriguing mass amount of information on what gets animals going. They really do it like they do on the discovery channel and the museum makes that abundantly clear through its sculptures depicting pandas having sex, monkeys having sex, and Oh deer! - a threesome between 2 buck and a doe. Despite my knowledge of my personal maturity, I didn’t feel the need to spend much time in either of these spaces for too long.
The highlight of this trip for me, was once again, the boob bounce house. Although visitors are only allotted 2 minutes in the bounce house, the fact that you are in a bounce house jumping on top of breasts makes up for it. The entire minute is spent laughing as your 1 allowed jumping partner falls down and has to grab onto the nearest nipple to help themselves up. It makes sense why, like myself, so many find out about the museum on Instagram- it is quite the photo op.
All in all, I recommend a trip to the Museum of Sex on the condition that you go to it with an open mind and a good sense of humor. I wouldn’t recommend going with someone you don’t know well nor would I recommend taking anything displayed too seriously. While I think it is important to go there with a decent level of maturity, don’t beat yourself up for not wanting to look at the graphic imagery or being the person laughing with their friends at the array of political condoms housed in the gift shop. Even if you’re not totally enticed by the exhibits, you’ll have the chance to jump for joy in the boob bounce house and not everyone gets to have that much fun in their life!
