Sex on exhibit: New York's Museum of Sex unearths artifacts from the gay underground of eras past. (The Sex Issue).Among the documents on display at New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of City's new Museum of Sex is a World War II-period photograph of two uniformed sailors kissing, with their aroused genitalia genitalia /gen·i·ta·lia/ (jen?i-tal´e-ah) [L.] the reproductive organs. ambiguous genitalia exposed. "Possessing these kinds of photographs would have led to your arrest in that era--talk about gays in the military," says Grady Turner, the museum's executive curator. "There were many such photographs in the archives of urban police departments that had been actually confiscated con·fis·cate tr.v. con·fis·cat·ed, con·fis·cat·ing, con·fis·cates 1. To seize (private property) for the public treasury. 2. To seize by or as if by authority. See Synonyms at appropriate. adj. from people." Turner and his team at the Museum of Sex--which officially opens in late September in downtown Manhattan--have been busy trolling through police archives as well as many other unusual sources to cobble together one of the most extensive collections of sexual history ever assembled. Naturally, gays and lesbians figure prominently in the museum's first featured exhibit, "NYC NYC abbr. New York City NYC New York City Sex: How New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. Transformed Sex," a 15,000-square-foot show that will run through July 2003. "Gay and lesbian history is embedded throughout," says Turner. "We talk about the lives of average people who, looking back, weren't so average." Queer historians Martin Duberman and Joan Nestle advised the museum on the inaugural exhibit, and both contributed to the forthcoming book about it. But some of the artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. in the exhibit simply defy academic deconstruction and will leave visitors shaking their heads, like a police affidavit from a raid on a gay bathhouse in 1903. "They had no words to describe what was essentially an orgy," observes Turner. "A doctor testified for the defendant at the trial that anal sex was [physically] impossible. He lost." |
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