The mundanity of the objects contrasts with their provocative sales tactics. One of the more fascinating (and mordantly humorous) sections concerns the evolving use of sex in advertising. Installation view of Porno Chic to Sex Positivity Within a well-designed row of booths, viewers can look at the evolution of sex in popular music, from the controversy over girl groups on variety shows in the 1960s through infamous Jay-Z and Brittany Spears music videos in more recent decades. Experimental films are projected in one area, while a little screening room shows selections of mainstream cinema. The different sections reiterate the central conceit of increasing sexual permissiveness in popular culture, each focusing on a different facet of that culture. Porno Chic to Sex Positivity wends its way through a single room, accommodating multiple installation screens and timeline-style arrangements of artifacts and info placards. One of the Museum of Sex’s more impressive attributes is how its exhibitions can pack a lot of material and information into relatively small spaces. This thought occurred to me while perusing the Museum of Sex‘s exhibition Porno Chic to Sex Positivity: Erotic Content & the Mainstream, 1960 till Today, which traces the normalization of sex and nudity in media over the last half-century. Remember that viral tweet which states “a single shoegaze riff would turn a medieval peasant into a fine red mist”? Imagine what a Game of Thrones sex scene would do to a 1950s housewife worried about Elvis’s gyrations. It’s now an accepted if not embraced element of prestigious and popular entertainment. Not long ago, such explicit sexual content was relegated to softcore porn on TV, and not long before that it was completely verboten.
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HBO recently premiered its series House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones prequel which continues that earlier show’s enthusiasm for sex scenes.