In Murakami's Pornography as the Winter Museum, he opens with the line, "Sex, copulation, intercourse, sexual relations, and other words like this always make me fantasize about the winter museum". These two ideas are continuously compared throughout the short story and Boku's thoughts about his job at the museum seem to mimic his experience of sex. In the beginning, he describes how getting to the museum is arduous and complicated, but it eventually becomes easier with time. This connection between sex and the museum seems obvious and unobscured, but the analogy quickly runs deeper.
There is a constant feeling of disconnect between Boku and his job. As he fetches a key from a drawer, he says "I am working at this museum, if I’m not mistaken", implying a slight uncertainty. He runs through his opening tasks at the museum meticulously, checking them off of his mental list one by one. It's possible that Boku also feels this disconnect during sex, a feeling that he's not quite sure if this is what he should be or wants to be doing, but yet he completes the actions the way he's expected to, in a distant and clinical way. He speaks of the museum without reverence or awe of the collection surrounding him, but rather with confusion, as though he doesn't understand why people would enjoy it.
When Boku takes a break from his duty to go to the bathroom, he notices that he's sexually aroused, though he expresses no sexual interest or thoughts. His literal physical disconnect is apparent in the final paragraphs as he simply ignores this fact and leaves the bathroom to watch people filter into the museum that he is so utterly disinterested and confused by.
- May Painter
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