After a truck-driving grandma went on a crowbar-wielding rampage this summer — mutilating a sexually explicit, multi-paneled lithograph that depicted Jesus receiving oral sex — some museums might hesitate before showing any smutty cartoons, fearful of the violent brouhaha they tend to inspire. Not so with the Museum of Sex in New York, whose "Comics Stripped," an exhibition that explores the history of sex in comics, from the Great Depression to the present day, opened last week.

Curated by Craig Yoe (author of "Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Schuster") and Sarah Forbes, a curator at the museum, the show includes 150 comics, illustrated books, drawings, magazines, and videos. These lewd items are the handiwork of such notables as father of the risqué Comix movement R. Crumb; frequent Playboy contributor Jack Cole; Wally Wood, creator of the, ehem, seminal "Disneyland Memorial Orgy," on display at the museum; and Tom of Finland, who once declared, "If I don’t have an erection when I'm doing a drawing, I know it’s no good."

View Slideshow: Pow! Zap! Sex!: New Show Lays Bare the History of Erotic Comix

But Yoe — whom you may know as a creative director behind Cabbage Patch Kids and My Little Pony, or as the "general manager" of the Muppets — has a slightly different take on the purpose of bawdy cartoons. "Sex comics straddle borders and realms of possibility," he said in a release. "Some of the most eye-popping animated sex comes from the Japanese. The French are masters of coitus. Europeans illustrate positions that I couldn't get into without becoming a yoga master. Americans? Well, plastic surgeons can't even come close to accomplishing what we can with a pencil."

If the sex lives of cartoon characters don't get you hot and bothered, perhaps some of the other exhibitions on view now at the Fifth Avenue museum might pique your interest, such as "Sex Lives of Robots" and "Sex Lives of Animals." Just beware: only those 18 and older will be admitted to the institution. And if you think it is a tad strange that such an age limit would be set on a show filled with images of Wonder Woman in compromising positions and Lois Lane engaging in unspeakable acts with Superman, just remember that cartoons can seduce men and women of any age. One need only recall Chloë Sevigny's sultry comment in Whit Stillman's film "Last Days of Disco": "There's something really sexy about Scrooge McDuck."

To view images from "Comics Stripped," click on the slide show at left.