Barbara Alper- Photo of crowd reaching to men strippers at Chippendales in NYC
About: Sex-Play -- Exploring secret worlds is fun, and a privilege. It’s even better when I discover a new subject in what’s conventionally out of sight. I started my series “Sex Play” in 1981 at the underground S&M scene at The Hellfire Club in NYC. Over the next decade I recorded different kinds of play at adult locations around the world. My camera captured what the audience of the moment saw: direct, raw, not glamorized, depicting people playing around, sometimes sexy, mostly not, with that gritty feeling emphasized in black and white.