Despite selling what sells, The Museum of Sex has been losing money since it opened in 2002. But now that it's finally "on the verge of profitability," according to founder Daniel Gluck, along comes the New York Times with their questions about the tourist trap's business model. In a probing article, the paper wonders whether it's right for the for-profit museum to accept tax-deductible donations of items like a dominatrix's "brushed steel bondage machine."
The Museum of Sex (which is not a state-sanctioned institution) uses the non-profit Muse Foundation to solicit tax-exempt donations of all sorts of sex memorabilia, such as "an anti-onanism device from Paris in the 1890s, a life-size sex doll and a large cache of magazines, videos and stiletto pumps signed by strippers." The Foundation and the Museum occupy the same building, but Gluck tells the Times, "The Muse Foundation is completely its own separate entity. We can’t take money from the foundation and we don’t plan to."
But one attorney who looked at the arrangement says, "It’s unusual to say, ‘'If you want to donate to my for-profit corporation, then donate to this tax-exempt organization.'" And the director of the Muse Foundation, June M. Reinisch, doesn't sound all that convincing in her double negative denial: "There’s no way it’s being used in a way that isn’t appropriate." Yes, that's what she said.
