Coming Attractions: Museum of Sex Finally Opens in Allapattah

It's been a long, hard road to opening for the Museum of Sex Miami.

Housed in a former Miami Herald printing facility in Allapattah, the for-profit museum, a branch of the New York institution dedicated to educating the public about human sexuality and its history and role in society, has had to push back its opening date several times. Initially, it was supposed to be spring 2023. Then, it was going to debut during Miami Art Week the same year. It missed that date but still managed to hold a VIP preview party in the unfinished space featuring exotic dancers, mermaid burlesque shows, topless women in thongs and cat masks, appearances by celebrities such as drag queen and Astroworld cover star Amanda Lepore and iconic party promoter Susanne Bartsch, and zero air conditioning.

Now, after nearly a year of hot and heavy anticipation, the climax has arrived. The museum finally opened wide to the public on Halloween, the sexiest holiday, with a party similar to its Art Week soirée from last year. But one question remains: Why did it take so long to get it up?

The answer is very simple and very unsexy: red tape.

"We were almost there; we were missing some small items," says Dan Gluck, founder and CEO of the museum. "And then there was just the process of going through inspections."

Still, the delay has allowed them to take advantage of the Halloween holiday, in which many people take to the streets in sexy costumes. "People definitely do get a little bit more erotic or tawdry for this season, but that's not why we opened. It was the closest holiday; it makes sense that we would have launched with a kind of cheeky Halloween party," Gluck says. "If we opened a week later, it wouldn't have been the end of the world."

That matter-of-factness demonstrates how serious the company is about launching its second location, a much bigger and more ambitious platform than its original premises, housed in a comparatively tiny converted apartment building on Fifth Avenue and 27th Street in Manhattan. Gluck sees the Miami space as a means of creating more expansive and ambitious programming, particularly a larger, souped-up version of their carnival-themed immersive exhibition, "Super Funland: Journey into the Erotic Carnival."
The show takes up the entire bottom floor of the museum, a cavernous space filled with sexy carnival games that can be entered via a spiraling slide, as well as a giant sculpture of a busty lady created in homage to the 1958 B-movie classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. There's a bounce house where visitors jump on ginormous, pillowy breasts and a mechanical bull for patrons to display their "riding" skills. A wall of claw machines gives out titty-shaped stress balls and penis plushies, while a Whack-a-Mole-type game makes you tug on colorful penises that pop out of bathroom stall glory holes. There's even a mechanical fortune teller featuring the likeness of RuPaul.

Along with a full tank and stage for the mermaid shows, which will keep the unique facet of Florida culture alive after the Wreck Bar in Fort Lauderdale discontinued the popular attraction earlier this year, the space is equipped with a DJ booth and a bar for events. (One cocktail at the opening, the "Penis Envy," was served in dick-shaped novelty syringes.) Gluck says the museum is currently working on a slate of performances to put the space to good use and keep guests coming back.

"Because we are able to essentially start fresh, we can have a much larger vision for this much larger space," he says. "It's very hard to come by this kind of space in a city like New York, and so we were able to really rethink what else would be interesting in a cultural institution. So now we're introducing the element of performance."

Sex Education

It's not all fun and games, however. This is a museum, after all, and the curators have assembled educational exhibits in addition to touristy novelties. "Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency," co-curated by Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson, assembles artifacts that delve into a century of cultural shifts and debates over obscenity and sexual health. You'll find archaic masturbation aids and anti-venereal-disease posters from the prewar era. There are books from the era of the sexual revolution and literary classics once banned for obscenity —The Feminine Mystique, Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterly's Lover — as well as clips from famous erotic and pornographic films starring Betty Paige, Jayne Mansfield, and Marilyn Chambers.

The 1980s and '90s give way to worries about the AIDS crisis and visibility for LGBTQ sexuality, with displays featuring gay and lesbian publications, the iconic ACT-UP "Silence = Death" poster, and sex toys such as the Sybian. Finally, the 2000s and 2010s discuss the visibility and marketing of sex and the mainstreaming of kink in pop culture through figures such as Kim Kardashian, who parlayed a sex tape with Ray J into a multimedia empire. These displays feature more modern artifacts, such as ergonomic vibrators and S&M gear, some of which are available in the gift shop.

"Modern Sex" is one of two shows on view at the Miami location, along with a presentation by Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama. The museum also has plans to show New York presentations here in Miami, such as its current show, "Looking at Andy Warhol."

"We always feel bad when we close a show. Often, it'll take a year or 18 months to do an exhibition, and we're running it for six months," Gluck says. "So now our resources have been effectively doubled, the scope of our exhibitions can actually get even more grand because now that we have two locations, there's a longer lifespan to exhibitions."
Of course, the Museum of Sex isn't the only game in town for erotic education. The Wilzig Erotic Art Museum (WEAM), a longstanding institution in South Beach founded by the late collector Naomi Wilzig, has housed a formidable collection of sexually themed art for nearly 20 years. The museum contains erotic folk art from around the world and works by famous artists such as Dalí, Picasso, Klimt, and Mapplethorpe, to name a few. It has hosted exhibitions focusing on gay art icon Tom of Finland, legendary photographer Helmut Newton, and even the sexy side of Rembrandt.

How do they feel about the new kids in town? According to curator Helmut Schuster, WEAM is quite excited. He believes the distinctions between the two places — a destination attraction focused on exhibitions and events versus a more traditional museum with a collection of largely static art pieces — are pronounced enough that it doesn't put them in competition.

"It helps us," he says. "We have similar missions and different styles, but they are very welcome."

Of course, the Museum of Sex has come out swinging with regard to its own art shows. Its exploration of Hajime Sorayama's eroticized robots goes way beyond the Japanese artist's more commercial fare. "Desire Machines" is full of shocking, explicit imagery of mechanical phalluses penetrating various human and robot orifices, of statuesque men and women tied up in shibari bondage ropes and chains. There are homages to historical artworks like Hokusai's "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" and Courbet's "L'Origine du monde." The show is completed with a room full of full-size replicas of Sorayama's famous fembots, which have appeared in campaigns for luxury brands such as Dior, standing in mirrored glass cases. It's the kind of work you'd never see in a mainstream museum, and that's the point.

"Many great artists have explored erotic and sexual content, and so we're hoping to show that part of their work," Gluck adds. "There are very few other places that can do that. I think artists appreciate what we have to offer. And again, we're taking it seriously. We're not doing this for prurient reasons."

There Goes the Neighborhood

There is at least one issue the museum has to contend with: its role in the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood. Since the Rubell Museum opened in the area in 2019, the warehouse district along the former FEC rail corridor has become subject to a feeding frenzy of new art institutions drifting west from Wynwood. Jorge Pérez opened El Espacio 23 the same year as the Rubells to house his art collection, while developer John Marquez did the same in 2022. Pace Gallery opened Superblue, a touristy destination for "immersive experiences," in 2021, and an entire gallery district has sprung up on NW 22nd Street east of Tenth Avenue.

Gluck says he's sensitive to such concerns and that Allapattah wasn't the team's first choice for the new location. The building's bona fides made it settle on the place. The former printing facility was being used as storage for an airplane parts distributor when the museum acquired it.

"We couldn't afford Wynwood, so basically, after looking at like 40 warehouses or so, we saw this one. This was like love at first sight," he says of the concrete structure. "It had the bones of an institution."

Whatever the future of Allapattah may be, there's still some work to be done to transform it. The museum's neighbors are mostly still warehouses and auto shops; walking around the area at night feels a bit treacherous. On opening night, a few of the carnival machines were on the fritz, and the space still felt a bit stuffy despite the large fans that had been installed.

Still, people seemed to be having fun on opening night. Straight and same-sex couples in Halloween costumes, sexy or otherwise, gleefully played games and admired the art. Women dressed in formalwear took selfies next to the sexy robots; others in Playboy bunny and French maid costumes gathered around the mermaid tank to watch the show.

As I overheard one gentleman's amusing reaction to Sorayama's sexy androids, "If that ain't the future."

Museum of Sex. 2200 NW 24th Ave., Miami; 786-206-9210; museumofsex.com. Tickets cost $29 to $36. Sunday and Thursday 1 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 1 p.m. to midnight.