FIFTY SHADES OF KINKY: Sex Talks at the Vancouver Museum

There I was in a room jammed with people, surrounded by gizmos and gadgets — everything from nipple tassles and condoms to books of erotic literature.

 

 

 

It was the reception of the opening of the Museum’s edgy new exhibit: Sex Talks in the City.  People milled about, wine glasses in hand, and browsed the display cases of curios, some dating to the turn-of-the-century. It had been suggested to wear something red, so many of the women were tarted up in red dresses, some with up-dos reminiscent of the 30’s and ‘40’s. Even a few men wore ‘costumes’ suitable for the evening.  As it is the Lunar New Year, I thought it appropriate to wear my embroidered red silk Chinese jacket and black velvet pants.

 

 

 

The aim of the Museum is to normalize conversations about sexuality through photos, intimate artifacts and question. One room contains a series of dresser drawers that hold a variety of sex toys, burlesque attire and even some 19950’s mail-order ‘men’s physiques’ pamphlets. One drawer that amused me contained a ‘baby’ (doll) wrapped in a blanket. It seems that one person had told the story of how, when they were a child, they had come home from school one day and discovered a new-born baby in their parent’s bedroom dresser drawer. The baby had been born while the child was at school and because they lacked a proper cradle or crib, the mother had places her newborn in the drawer. From that time until they were an adult, the child thought babies came from inside drawers! (That would definitely be more comfortable than under a cabbage in the cabbage patch!)

Many of these intimate artifacts were once taboo topics but these days they are being talked about openly. The aim of the exhibit is to normalize these conversations between young and old. The exhibit is contained in three rooms, divided between different motifs and topics from the classroom, the streets and to the bedroom, representing everything from Vancouver’s sex trade to teen sexting.

Vancouver Police "rap" sheets, circa turn of the century

 

One exhibit I found interesting is a wall full of ‘rap’ sheets with photos taken of prostitutes, johns and anyone found in brothels or selling illegal liquor back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in Vancouver. Most of the women ranged in age from 17 to 65. Many of the men were Asian or black indicating some racial profiling at that time.  In the ‘classroom section’, near the display of electric “body massagers” were desks scrawled with questions about birth control asked by students from Grades 4 – 12. An adjoining display explores the phenomena of teens exchanging intimate messages and photos on-line and by texting.

Anything you want to know about homosexuality is there for you to see and read about.  One of the drawers contained a rubbery artificial penis used by a trans-gendered person who might want to pee standing up like a man!  Another display case has creepy, kinky sex tools including a hideous mask and whips. It seems there’s a fairly good-sized community of “Kinks” in the city!

Code words used by "Kinks" to indicate the sex-play has gone too far

 

Kinky sex anyone? (pretty scary!)

 

 

“Sex Talk in the City” explores the changing attitudes towards sex and sexuality in Vancouver. It’s a brave, new concept for a Museum to chronicle topics that have been taboo in the past. Sex education’s evolution is highlighted at the exhibit. Sex-education videos from the 1980’s are there for visitors to view. There’s also a copy of Asha’s Mums, a book about growing up with lesbian parents, banned by the Surrey school board until 2002. And books purchased by the Little Sister’s Bookstore that have been confiscated at the US border.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many other museums would be brave enough to present such an intimate display. Certainly none in those Bible-belt areas of the southern USA.  This display is bound to prompt discussion. There’s a lot there to talk about, and even to laugh, at making learning about sex less uncomfortable.

The exhibit runs until September 2, 2013.  Go and see for yourselves! There’s always something new to learn.

museumofvancouver.ca/sextalk

Twitter:@museumofvan

A BAD HAIR DAY (1952)

After my visit to the Museum of Vancouver last week, and finding another example of one of these hideous electric hair perming machines, I decided to revive a story I'd written a couple of years ago and submitted to the BC Museum in Victoria when they had a large display of memorabalia.  The story went along with the instrument of 'torture' after I'd  remembered all those unpleasant memories of a real 'bad hair day'!

Old fashioned electric perm marchine 

 Back in 1952 when I was soon to graduate from Britannia High School in Vancouver, there was a popular hair style called the ‘poodle cut’.  It was a short hair cut, permed into a soft curly style resembling a poodle’s pom-pom.  A lot of my classmates were having their hair styled this way for our grad, and I wanted to be like them.

 It happened that my Mom and little sister both came down with scarlet fever and were quarantined as they did in those days and I had to go and stay with a family friend, a very kind old lady named Mrs. Grey.  I told Mrs. Grey how much I wanted a poodle cut.  So one day she gave me some money and told me to go up to Commercial Drive and make a hair appointment.

Up to this time, my Mom always cut and permed my hair.  So it was quite a thrill for this teenager to have an appointment at a real beauty salon.  I felt somewhat daunted when I saw the electric perm machine, something left over from the ’30’s,  a kind of weird thing like you‘d see in a mad scientist‘s lab. But I was determined to get my ‘poodle cut‘.  The woman cut my hair, then rolled it up in the perm rollers.  The perm machine worked on electricity. As I sat under it, I could feel it sear my scalp and I smelled  burning hair. When the procedure was finished and the rollers were removed, to my horror I looked as if I had been zapped by 220 volts of lightening!  My hair was frizzed like a Hottentots.  You couldn’t even get a comb through it.  What a frizzy mess!  I was in tears.  I wouldn’t go out without a kerchief on for days and even missed school because I was so embarrassed.  How could I face my class-mates looking like such a freak?  I didn’t realize I was pre-dating the Afro hair style of the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. 

   My "poodle cut" after Mom had cut off most of the frizz!

 Fortunately, my Mom soon recovered enough for me to return home.  She immediately set to work on my ruined mop with her clippers.  She had to cut off most of my hair. Even then it was still tight and frizzy. When I returned to school, the older guy that I had a crush on started calling me Puppy Dog.  He’d pat me on the head every time I passed him in the hall.  At least he was paying attention to me.  After all, I did look like a poodle!