The comments point out the difficulty with items like these, or any other controversial nature.
Personally I'm against the celebrity gained by certain "artists" whose only talent is to shock and offend then cover up what's basically offensive junk with some drivel of a description of its meaning. (Mostly the guy who built a career on putting stuff in jars of certain fluids)
But the reality is that the items exist. And if they're legal to own they must end up somewhere if the original owner doesn't want them. Or even when the second owner doesn't want them. I've had a few things like that turn up in collections of film or ephemera.
What's important is not the object, but the story and lesson it carries about the time that produced it. For some items that's an easy story to tell. For others it requires a bit more tact. And for some it's very hard to do that, occasionally requiring an entire museum to portray and teach the proper context. (The Museum of Jewish heritage in NY does a fine job of that with their holocaust related items) And even the best museums find some items worthy of keeping for study but almost impossible to display. The Smithsonian was given the worlds largest air sickness bag collection, over 900 ranging from the 30's into the 80's. They still haven't thought of a tasteful way to display them. - They also need to display objects that attract interested visitors, and I imagine interest in that collection would be pretty low.
Steve B
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