Sex in the Museum
My Unlikely Career at New York's Most Provocative Museum
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Sarah Forbes was in graduate school when she stumbled upon a museum dedicated to . . . sex. The anthropology student hesitated when her boyfriend suggested she apply for a job, but apply she did, and it wasn’t long before a part-time position at New York’s MUSEUM OF SEX lead to a gig as the museum's curator. That was over twelve years ago. Now Sarah—a married mother of two—proudly sports her title as Curator of Sex.
In SEX IN THE MUSEUM, Sarah invites readers to travel from suburban garages where men and women build sex machines, to factories that make sex toys, to labyrinthine archives of erotica collectors. Escorting us in to the hidden world of sex, illuminating the never-talked-about communities and eccentricities of our sexual subcultures, and telling her own personal story of a decade at The Museum of Sex, Sarah asks readers to grapple with the same questions she did: when it comes to sex, what is good, bad, deviant, normal? Do such terms even apply? If everyone has sexual secrets, is it possible to really know another person and be known by them? And importantly, in our hyper-sexualized world, is it still possible to fall in love?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Forbes, curator of New York City's Museum of Sex, reflects on her career in this fun and thought-provoking memoir. Fresh-faced and ready to dive into her graduate studies in anthropology at the New School for Social Research, Forbes happened to find an apartment not far from the museum. Her interest in a particular exhibit drew her in, and when her then-boyfriend joked she should apply for a job, Forbes submitted her resume. To her surprise, she quickly fell in love with museum work and studying sex academically. In 2006, Forbes became the museum's curator, putting together informative and startling exhibits that include sex in film, animal sex, and historical brothel guides. As her career blossomed, so did the prestige of the museum. Along the way, Forbes struggled with the way her job affected her personal life, especially her romantic life and search for a committed relationship. Like the museum itself, this memoir simultaneously shocks, informs, and challenges myths about sex. Though the sections on Forbes's work are more intriguing than those on her personal life, her approach enables these ideas to transcend the academic world.
