TES-TNG: From Sex Parties to Political Parties: A Brief History of New York Kink

Join Efrain John Gonzalez for a look back at New York City since the 1980’s, when the old meatpacking district was packed with some of the kinkiest, sleaziest and craziest bars and one-of-a-kind underground clubs in Manhattan! Gonzo will show you the vanished underground clubs and vaults, illustrating their stories and legends with personal photographs, taken in places famous and infamous, and discuss the impact and activism that grew out of such storied spaces. See such wild and forbidden places like the infamous “Hellfire” club, that got great reviews by John Waters; The gay men’s club “Lure”; or “Mother”, an innovative over-the-top social club on 14th street that held a multitude of music, performance, Goth, queer, transgender, cross-dressing and fantasy events. Witness the recorded life and underground cultures that were part of New York City’s secret and forbidden history; wild, kinky, gender queer and now displaced, and the impact they’ve had on the city today.

Efrain John Gonzalez is a photographer who’s talents with a camera bend to the unusual, the erotic, the unique, the wild and slightly crazy, from the world of body modifications to the universe of radical S&M. An internationally published photographer, for the past 30 years Gonzalez has been seeking real life images that tells a story of people finding the path to their souls, finding their bliss, with piercing, branding, cuttings, tattoos, latex, implants, leather, and a whole lot of radical sex and sexuality. He seeks people who see their bodies as a blank canvas, and allow their imaginations and dreams to come to life upon a living canvas. Whether that canvas be painted with ink, pierced and molded by blade, or covered in latex and leather. What the artist tries to tell us through his lens is the idea that these cultures are a natural outreach of the curious and exploration of the self by those chosen few who’s inner voices dare them to walk down forbidden paths to seek an inner truth.