NEW YORK.- The Museum of Sex proudly opens today Men Without Suits: Objectifying the American Male Body. Set against a timeline tracing male nude imagery from classical Greece to the 21st Century, the exhibition explores the impact of photography on American culture.

Challenging the statement “Clothes make the man,” Men Without Suits uncovers the facades and persona created in our society with what men wear. Interestingly, the exhibition also reveals these guises continue when the clothes come off, exploring the evolving nature of male erotic appeal, the objectification of the male body and the shifting notions of the male nude both as commodity and fantasy.

“Ubiquitous in modern culture, male nude imagery is seen everywhere today – from high fashion magazines, MTV videos and homosexual porn to the Hollywood screen,” says exhibition curator John E. Vollmer. “However, scarcely more than 30 years ago these very images were illegal and their photographers, models, and customers were subject to prosecution until a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which determined the distribution of full frontal nude photographs through the mail was protected by the First Amendment.”

And while male nude imagery saturates present day culture, according to Mr. Vollmer, its intrinsic value and meaning is less ingenious than in previous eras. Today nudes often function as a sort of sensual wallpaper, which is highly eroticized, but sexually bland, he says.

Men Without Suits bares masculine ideologies, sexual iconography, and the issues of meaning and perception – from ancient Greek athletes to early 19th Century muscle performers and the aesthetic nudes of George Platt Lyons, to the pumped physiques of comic book super heroes, the sexploitation in advertising and today's body-conscious metrosexuals.

“Once again, John Vollmer has created a visual epoch for our visitors,” says Dan Gluck, Museum founder and executive director. “Just as he brought 2,500 years of Chinese erotica to life in our second major exhibition ‘Sex Among the Lotus,’ he brings the American nude male to forefront of discussion today in this exhibit.

Who makes the images? What is their purpose? Who consumes them? The exhibition asks these and other questions, revealing the answers in three divergent themes: Aesthetic Nude: Health and Beauty; Beefcake: American Enterprise, and Naked Men: Commodity and Fantasy.

Men Without Suits will be on view June 16th through November 2005.