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Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City
"Spirit, in the end the same quest, born of a crumbling economy and identity. The single most apparent sign is the proliferation in prostitution, an 'outing' of what has always existed, but furtively. The government has officially admitted that it is impossible to rein in the sex trade; Mexico City is not busy busting working women and men, but formulating legal and health guidelines for sex-workers."
-Ruben Martínez
From Nezahualcoyotl, the largest working-class suburb on earth, to La Condesa, Mexico City's hipster hangout, putas and putos stroll the streets, cruising for johns and surviving on their wit, born out of true desperation. These men, women, and everyone in-between are sex-workers in a country where extramarital sex is considered a mortal sin, and, confoundingly, where they ply their trade without official reprisal. In Mexico, macho husbands consort with other men, and virgencitas are anything but. Joseph Rodríguez and Ruben Martínez confront these contradictions head-on in Flesh Sex in Mexico City.
In Rodríguez's series of startlingly intimate black-and-white photographs and Martínez' gripping text, we encounter a re-sexualized and re-spiritualized country in flux, embracing religious dogma while discarding taboos that once shrouded sex in a haze of artifice, euphemism, and history. Rodríguez's beautiful and brutally honest images suggest a culture in which spirit and flesh have always been inextricably intertwined.
-Ruben Martínez
From Nezahualcoyotl, the largest working-class suburb on earth, to La Condesa, Mexico City's hipster hangout, putas and putos stroll the streets, cruising for johns and surviving on their wit, born out of true desperation. These men, women, and everyone in-between are sex-workers in a country where extramarital sex is considered a mortal sin, and, confoundingly, where they ply their trade without official reprisal. In Mexico, macho husbands consort with other men, and virgencitas are anything but. Joseph Rodríguez and Ruben Martínez confront these contradictions head-on in Flesh Sex in Mexico City.
In Rodríguez's series of startlingly intimate black-and-white photographs and Martínez' gripping text, we encounter a re-sexualized and re-spiritualized country in flux, embracing religious dogma while discarding taboos that once shrouded sex in a haze of artifice, euphemism, and history. Rodríguez's beautiful and brutally honest images suggest a culture in which spirit and flesh have always been inextricably intertwined.
- GenresQueer
96 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2006
19 people want to read
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September 9, 2025
Repression exists in every society, it’s just a question of what’s being repressed, and what’s being encouraged. You might think that Mexico, being a largely Catholic country, would demonstrate a fairly repressed attitude about sex, but you would be wrong. At least, when it comes to Mexico City.
“Flesh Life,” is a book of exclusively black-and-white photographs showing the lives of prostitutes in Mexico City at the beginning of the 21st century. These sex workers are of various orientations and genders—transvestite, transsexual, born females—but they all share something in common: they have been driven to “survival sex” by necessity.
That doesn’t mean their lives are entirely grim, though, or that all the photos on display here are dark. There are no exploitative Larry Clark-style shots lingering over the bruised, track mark-stippled flesh of tragic, nubile youths. Most of the exchanges between prostitutes and potential customers seem to be cordial, sometimes even flirtatious. And for every scene of a sex worker posted up on La Merced or on some sidestreet in Nezahualcóatl (Neza, for short, sometimes “Neza York”) there’s a domestic compliment. A stark and impressive photo of a couple coiled up on a mattress in a sparsely furnished bedroom decorated, say, with a Lady Guadalupe candle or Santa Muerte votive displayed either on an end table or nailed to the wall.
Those uncomfortable with nudity—especially the liminal and gender-bending stuff—might want to steer clear, or at least brace themselves. One shot—of a trans worker removing their “gaff” rig from over their genitals—is almost confrontational in how close-up it’s shot. That said, the purpose here is clearly not to shock or titillate, but to show and let the viewer take it from there. None of the accompanying captions fulminates about the destructive effects of globalism, nor do they try to romanticize the reality of survival sex. They merely provide some basic details about the parties involved in the tableaux, before moving on to the next image. And then the next.
Recommended, for a look at a side of CDMX you’re unlikely to encounter as a tourist, or maybe even if you live there but don’t go out past Medianoche.
“Flesh Life,” is a book of exclusively black-and-white photographs showing the lives of prostitutes in Mexico City at the beginning of the 21st century. These sex workers are of various orientations and genders—transvestite, transsexual, born females—but they all share something in common: they have been driven to “survival sex” by necessity.
That doesn’t mean their lives are entirely grim, though, or that all the photos on display here are dark. There are no exploitative Larry Clark-style shots lingering over the bruised, track mark-stippled flesh of tragic, nubile youths. Most of the exchanges between prostitutes and potential customers seem to be cordial, sometimes even flirtatious. And for every scene of a sex worker posted up on La Merced or on some sidestreet in Nezahualcóatl (Neza, for short, sometimes “Neza York”) there’s a domestic compliment. A stark and impressive photo of a couple coiled up on a mattress in a sparsely furnished bedroom decorated, say, with a Lady Guadalupe candle or Santa Muerte votive displayed either on an end table or nailed to the wall.
Those uncomfortable with nudity—especially the liminal and gender-bending stuff—might want to steer clear, or at least brace themselves. One shot—of a trans worker removing their “gaff” rig from over their genitals—is almost confrontational in how close-up it’s shot. That said, the purpose here is clearly not to shock or titillate, but to show and let the viewer take it from there. None of the accompanying captions fulminates about the destructive effects of globalism, nor do they try to romanticize the reality of survival sex. They merely provide some basic details about the parties involved in the tableaux, before moving on to the next image. And then the next.
Recommended, for a look at a side of CDMX you’re unlikely to encounter as a tourist, or maybe even if you live there but don’t go out past Medianoche.
Displaying 1 of 1 review