TUESDAY NEWS DAY: CABINET OF PERVOSITIES

BY ALEXANDRA JEFFERY

Hello friends! This week's Tuesday Newsday is slightly more risque than usual. It is about the things you don't usually see, our heritage that is slightly more body oriented than other material culture. If that was too vague of an explanation for you, I'm talking about smutty artifacts! Vintage Penthouse! Victorian panties! Naughty novels! (P.S. if you're offended by nudity you may not want to scroll down).

Bob Guccione's (the founder of Penthouse) Playboy and Penthouse covers collection (Source)

Now, I should probably explain why I'm talking about this. I was researching the use of folksonomies in museums and one article I read mentioned that if you looked up Annette Kellerman, Australia's "Diving Venus," you would find the Powerhouse Museum 's material on Kellerman on a blog called Silent-Porn-Star (Kellerman was arrested in 1907 for indecent exposure while wearing a bathing suit).

Wooden penny arcade peep show game by Esco (Source)

This discovery led me to think about the things that one doesn't see in the museum, after viewing several pages of the blog of course. The items which are featured on the blog are found on auction sites or in flea markets, though some are in online collections databases, like Kellerman's items. It made me wonder why don't we see items like smutty postcards or retro sex toys in regular museum collections or exhibitions.

Sex Museum (Source)

This led me to a bit more searching and I found the British Museum Secretum and the secret cabinet of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Both of these areas of the museums feature objects and imagery that was deemed too explicit for the public. The Museum of Naples initially exhibited the objects until the future King of the Two Sicilies, Francis I, told them off. Now the majority of objects are on display in both museums. There is also a Sex Museum in Amsterdam which features; "A rich and interesting collection of the objects about the human sexuality: art as well as photographs, china, figures, plates, arms and many other items."

I also just learned that under the Mark S. Bonhom Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies there is a Sexual Representation Collection. However, you need special permission to view the collection as it is for research only. And understandably so.

Items from the Gabinetto Segreto (Source)

The thing is, we all have sex (well most of us do) and there are a whole lot of accessories that can go with it.  Therefore, it is a part of our history as much as anything else. I don't think that "sordid," "lurid," or "smut" is covered under what we might call "difficult knowledge" (however, I still don't know what that means). So how does a museum handle less than savory items? Not accession them at all? Refuse them when donors try to thrust their naughty paraphernalia on curators? What are your thoughts? How should museums deal with this type of material culture?

Unpublished photograph of Madonna by Herman Kulkens in the collection of Bob Guccione (Source)

 This also leads to the question of whether or not all images of naked bodies are sexually explicit. Often they are not and we title them art. So where do we draw the line between art and pornography? Are vintage Playboy covers art? If they aren't then how should we handle them?

Photograph of nude sailor (Source)

Also what would the purpose be of such a non-art collection? Shock value? Pure entertainment? I, personally, am thinking that there could be some very educational and artistic sexual education traveling exhibits. Coming soon to your neighborhood middle school.

Virgins for the Cardinal, a book in the Monk's Secret Library Series by Star Distributors (Source)