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Sex is everywhere in the Museum of Vancouver

Explore Vancouvers
sexual history with
Sex Talk in the City

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

he Museum of Vancouver

(MOV) plays host to several
exhibits, both permanent and
temporary, that serve to teach
us about Vancouver's vibrant
and colourful history. One
of the MOV’s recent exhibits
has been Sex Talk in the City, a
four-room look at Vancouver
from under the sheets. On
top of experiencing this
fantastic exhibit, Curator of
Contemporary Issues Viviane
Gosselin spoke to us on the
process of bringing many bits
of Vancouver's sexual history to
light.

Sex Talk takes the unique
approach of exploring
Vancouver's history in its
relation to sexuality. The four
rooms are carefully laid out to
blend with each other as folks
weave their way through the
city’s surprisingly liberated
history. Everything from high
school learning tools to the
different kinds of relationships

Rated M for

Have video games
reached sexual maturity?

By Brittney MacDonald,
Contributor

remember my first encounter

with sexuality in video games.
I was giggling over pixelated
nipples in Duke Nukem with
my cousins, hoping no adults
wandered in when we handed
her the cash. As I've grown
older, I’ve expected more from
my video games than a plumber
and his princess, or a chauvinist
beefcake interacting with
stationary “babes.” Romance
has always been a part of
console gaming, but the way it
is presented has changed over
time.

I’ve witnessed and played
through the fairy tale-like
worlds of Mario and Zelda,
helping the hero get the girl
and crossing my fingers for that
long-awaited end game kiss.

10

people can have to what has
been challenged and accepted
over time is analyzed in a
way that does not overwhelm
attendees.

“The idea came years ago,”
Gosselin starts, “I was working
on an exhibition on human
biology, and of course at one
point you talk about sexuality
and...teen sexuality. I noticed
that there were so many bright,
challenging conversations
with the staff and visitors that
I thought, ‘T have to promise
myself at one point I’d do
something like an exhibition
dedicated explicitly and solely
to the topic of sexuality.’

So when I came on staff at

the Museum of Vancouver

three years ago, that was the
first exhibition subject that I
proposed, and people were very
receptive.”

Perhaps the exhibit’s biggest
advantage is that it is taking
place in a museum that focuses
on Vancouver's anthropology.
Exploring the city’s sexual
underground from this
perspective shows us that, while
surprisingly liberated, we've
had previous issues with gay
rights, what sorts of learning
materials are allowed in schools,
and complicated issues such as
birth control.

In obtaining some of the

mature

The NES made these games a
popular new hobby and created
a generation (or two) of gaming
addicts, and that part hasn’t
changed. Kids nowadays are
growing up with graphics-
heavy titles, and complicated
game play. But what happens
to the other gamers? The ones
cultivated on Atari and Super
Nintendo? Those gamers have
matured, and so have their
tastes.

So games started going
through an evolution, starting
with the addition of mainstream
graphic violence like Mortal
Kombat. Though it sold well, it
also brought another element to
gaming: the idea of controversy.
Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, and
many other games got caught
up in a congressional hearing
protesting their content. All
this attention did little to
dissuade the gaming industry,
and only led to the addition
of game ratings. Ratings are a
little system for parents to use
to tell if the game is the “Curb

more historical objects, such as
dozens of vibrators, gorgeous
burlesque outfits, and a bondage
chest-and-head piece, Gosselin
added:

“T could not have done
[this] without a large advisory
committee. My challenge was to
calibrate and invite key people
and, at the same time, try to
have this very diverse topic of
sexuality live in that same place.
After six months of talking to
this advisory committee that I
gathered—they were educators,
historians, and public health
experts—it became obvious that
how we learn about sexuality
is an important question. We
think about where our ideas
of sexuality come from, and
how...our education, formal and
informal, influences the way we
live our sexuality.”

You'll also find that each
room is designed specifically
to reflect the key areas where
we all learn about sexuality:
the classroom, the bedroom,
and the streets. Gosselin further
explained these concepts:

“T came up with four themes
that became the four spaces
of the exhibition. So you have
pedagogy, how we learn about
sex and sexuality; pleasure,
how people define sexual
pleasure; politics, how certain
groups and divisions of power

stomping your enemies” kind
of fun or the “Learn to play the
flute from a talking boat” kind.

Games with questionable
sexual content had already
been created, but they were
now receiving sequels. The
early ‘90s for gaming were a
time I like to refer to as, “The
Hormonal Teenager.” A male-
dominated industry filled with
sex and violence, with little
substance to glue it all together.
There were exceptions of course
(such as Final Fantasy 7), but
titles like Duke Nukem 3D, the
Leisure Suit Larry series, and
many others displayed a certain
puberty-driven aesthetic that,
although entertaining and
hilarious, missed the mark on
being especially memorable.
After all, can you pick out one
Duke Nukem game from the next
purely based on substance, and
not the evolution of technology
or graphics?

But as teenage boys grow
up and learn the lingerie section
of the Zellers’ catalogue isn’t the

 

Vibrators through the ages | Photo courtesy of Rebecca Blissett

can influence the way we live
sexually; and permission, which
is a space dedicated to giving
visitors permission to talk about
sexuality, even to strangers.”
One of the most important
lessons to take from Sex Talk
is that, in terms of this being a
museum exhibit, unlike niche
interests, sexuality is one of
the few subjects that actually
does affect everyone. We all have
different turn-ons and fetishes,
some that are easy to enjoy in
this city and some that aren’t,
and how we come to learn those
things about ourselves requires

pinnacle of eroticism, the games
industry also grew. Suddenly
writers and storylines became
more important, perhaps even
more important than eye candy.
Attractive characters and love
interests were combined with
immersive game play and
deep, plot-driven arcs. The
early 2000s brought us games
like Final Fantasy X (a personal
favourite) and Shadow of the
Colossus (SOTC). In some ways,
this may have been a jump back,
especially with SOTC. A hero
is still doing everything he can
to save his “princess,” but the
key difference is the evolution
of character development.
Characters are now faced with
moral choices and gamers
become more emotionally
involved in the games they play.
More recently, sex has been
reintroduced as an achievement,
but unlike the early days of
the ‘90s, that achievement is
less of a conquest and more an
element to game play. Successful
series such as Mass Effect and

some very in-depth learning on
our parts. This exhibit offers a
warm and inviting environment
for visitors to openly discuss
sexuality with each other,
something that is inevitable after
viewing old copies of the 1950s
to 1970s gay magazine Physique
Pictorial and the uniform of
Vancouver's safe sex superhero,
Captain Condom.

Sex Talk in the City will be
running until September 2;
student tickets are $10, so take
a friend or partner and ruffle
through some drawers.

Dragon Age have incorporated
relationships and sex as an
optional element to enhance
the plot, but nothing is lost
should the player wish to ignore
it. These games have enjoyed
commercial success, and Mass
Effect 2 even won Game of the
Year (with a nomination for
Game of The Decade) from
Spike’s Video Game Awards.
But what does this mean
to older gamers? The ones
that grew up with the games
industry and have been a part
of the gaming market since
learning the ‘Konami Code’ with
their Kool-Aid moustache? I
can’t speak for everyone, but I
look forward to the continued
progression as writers and
developers work to perfect
the human experience of
relationships in the digital arena.
I just hope that means more
options like Garrus Vakarian,
because nothing says sexy like a
seven-foot-tall grasshopper in a
space suit.