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New York City’s Museum of Sex is set to debut The Sex Lives of Animals - a celebration of the diversity of animal sexual behavior. Direct from Stanford University, this emergent research has resulted in new interpretations, delving into the possible evolutionary benefits of non-reproductive sex, for both individuals and social groups.

Set to debut in this exhibition are life-sized animal sculptures custom-made by Rune Olsen. Composed of the “social materials” of newspaper and tape, these pieces explore the physical world with the immediacy and expressiveness of hand drawing. Through the incorporation of human-like glass eyes, the distance between human and animal vanishes, seducing the viewer into a direct interaction with the gaze of the animal.

In this “new natural history” the Museum of Sex is presenting an uncensored story of the natural world, moving animal sexuality beyond the confines of reproduction and mating, towards discussions of orientation and cognition. By exploring the most intimate part of life, where it is often said we are most animal like, we can appreciate the significance of research on animal sexuality and, perhaps, extrapolate these concepts to larger issues regarding sexuality in general.

THe exhibit begins July 24, 2008 and continues into Spring, 2009. To know more about the exhibit, visit the Museum of Sex.