In which I shamelessly get your attention

This past spring I congratulated myself on getting my BA by spending a month in Europe. The amazing museums and art galleries in cities like Paris and Rome allowed me to finally see first hand many of the things I had spent four years studying - as a medieval/Renaissance/early modern scholar, I was in heaven. But while seeing Titians in Venice and Botticellis in Florence was amazing, I remember quite clearly another museum I visited (and don't judge me too badly) - Amsterdam's SexMuseum.

This institution is as old as I am, opening in 1985, and is one of Amsterdam's most popular museums with over 500 000 visitors per year. It only cost 3 euros (a steal in any European city) and let me tell you - this was like no other museum I had been in. Plastic mannequins in revealing clothing smiled at you while you walked past a small shelf with various ancient Egyptian, Greek and European artifacts - all illustrating some sort of sexual activity. The collection mainly consisted of walls covered in 19th century pornography - studio pictures, for the most part. Imagine an explicitly dirty postcard, but starring men that look like Civil War soldiers and women whose hair would look old-fashioned aboard the Titanic.

I feel like using the term "museum" loosely, and not because I believe sexuality is not a valid historical topic. In fact, as my profile states, I find it a very interesting field. I spent the second half of my time at U of T discussing 15th century cross-dressing English prostitutes, the medieval church's views on acceptable sexual positions and the gay nightlife of Renaissance Florence. I wouldn't consider myself a historical prude. The field is still growing, being only about 20 years old, but is popular enough (as one can imagine) that pioneer sex historian Vern L. Bullough even has his own Wikipedia entry.

The SexMuseum, though, was different. First of all, it is centrally located along a main street leading to the train station in arguably the most liberally-minded city in the world. Tourists come to Amsterdam for well-known reasons. The museum was clearly catering to the tourist demographic - young backpackers looking for raunchy activities to later recount to their friends in postcards with XXX on them. The fact that it is open daily until 11:30 is case in point.

So I began to think - what makes a museum a museum? Is it any building with any coherent collection of historical artifacts on any topic, or does it have to be something more serious? A collection of local artifacts illustrating the humble beginnings of a small town, with no budget and no visitors, or a gallery of pornography, which receives half a million visitors? Is the SexMuseum seen as a legitimate museum, as opposed to if I set up my childhood toys on a shelf in my garage and invited friends over to take a look? My previous post confirmed museums don't even need permanent homes. So what of a wild tourist trap designed to make young North American travelers blush and giggle? Is it a legitimate museum?

I should point out that there are now other sex museums that seem to have more legitimacy, such as New York's Museum of Sex. With award-winning exhibits and academics on board, this seems more like the museums we all know - just with a more colourful focus than dinosaurs or medieval art. While sexuality is not fully accepted as serious topic by all, the Museum of Sex is clearly a real museum. Amsterdam's museum is a bit harder to categorize. I'm not fully sold on stripping it of its title, but the idea of including it in the same category as the ROM, the Met or Theatre Museum Canada makes me shudder just a little bit. So I will have to end this post without a firm opinionated conclusion, just more questions.