The Museum of Sex has held my curiosity ever since it first opened in 2002, though I had never been there before this week. Its name suggested to me a place made up of equal parts Museum of Natural History (fossilized artifacts), Kinsey Institute (the scientific study of human sexuality), and "cultural institution" (it has both a mission statement and a gift store); in other words, a combination peep show, PBS documentary, and porn shop in which, civilized and guilt-free, you can expand your mind and other parts of your anatomy.

To varying degrees, I was right on all counts. "Peeping, Probing & Porn: Four Centuries of Graphic Sex in Japan," currently on view at the Museum of Sex, includes more than 100 works, some contemporary hentai ("perverted") manga and anime, but mostly traditional shunga ("pictures of spring"). Shunga were graphically erotic woodblock prints produced by artists from the so-called "Floating World" that flourished during the Edo period (1603-1868).

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