Sex and the Museum

I recently read an article on fox news about a museum looking for groups of people to pose nude. The idea is not to be “shocking’ but to offer an accurate picture of the modern American body instead of Hollywood’s American beauty. Although I am a Christian, I don’t really have any problem with the concept. The photographs are not to be shot in a provocative, sexually explicit manner, but just ordinary people in ordinary circumstance. I am not advocating that any one visit the museum (this is why I have not given its name) because they do intend to offer adult oriented material that maybe more difficult for me to endorse.

The body is an awesome machine, and professional artist can reveal it’s beauty with paintings, sculpture, and photography (playboy and penthouse excluded). There are artistic endeavors that seek to extol the beauty of shape and form, and there are others that use shape and form to appeal to lust and weakness. The problem I have with the museum is with this statement, “We never wanted to shock people. Our general motto is to educate, to entertain and to inspire people to talk about sex," said the Museum’s CEO Boris Smorodinsky.”

Does western civilization really need to talk more about sex? We are saturated with sexual speak almost constantly. Turn to radio, TV, magazines, billboards, grade schools through high schools, newspapers, and misguided politicians. We can’t escape talking about sex, and for crying out loud, I am talking about it right this minute! The problem isn’t getting people to talk about sex, the problem is getting people to think, act, and speak wisely about sex. Naked pictures of average American bodies might be interesting sociology, but I doubt it will lend any moral guidance for sexuality.

One has to wonder about the artistic motivations of an institution who thinks the west needs to talk and think more about sex. I am sure there more than a few hormone overdosed teenagers who would love a government sponsored school field trip to this museum, and I highly doubt that it would the IQ’s that were rising. Men do not see a woman’s body with artistic value; they see a woman’s body as the ultimate pleasure, and if they do not value her as a person, they will devour her with licentious contempt.

The west may need to talk more about sex, but not about having it. We need to see and understand this high pleasure in sacramental terms. Since it is the highest form of pleasure a woman may give to a man (I am not sure if this is true for women; it may be ice cream), he must honor this gift with fidelity and respect. Sex is a means of physical grace and comfort, and ultimate physical intimacy. We don’t refer to our genitals as privates because of shame, but because they are reserved for intimacy and union.

TOTT

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