Step Inside The Alpha-In, The Most Famous S&M Parlor In Tokyo

Canadian photographer Nathalie Daoust has made female sexuality her stock in trade, and now she's taking her particular set of skills to Tokyo's most famous S&M parlor, The Alpha-In. A recent profile by Vice (link below) featured the photographs she took inside this mysterious den of all things kinky.

They cover a wide variety of topics, like how she managed to secure permission to take photos inside the notoriously secretive club...

I had to go back multiple times to persuade the owner. Luckily, he finally said yes and took a few hours to show me the rooms and tell me stories about the place. At the end of the tour, he said that I could come back to do a whole project on the Alpha-In... The owner was quite happy with the project, and has since changed the no-film and no-photo policy. If he finds the proposed idea interesting, he will grant permission.

Why she chose to photograph the women that worked there alone...

I began by photographing the girls with their customers but quickly discovered that I wasn’t interested in the men and their stories. What fascinated me was the women and why they would do this kind of work—especially in Japan, where women are seen as such passive beauties. 

And how this project fits in with the rest of the work she's done, photographic sex workers all over the world...

I think it helped me understand the larger picture. For example, from a young age I was told that women who prostitute themselves have no choice, or were abused as a child. But how many of the people making these comments actually know a prostitute? And who can say that one prostitute represents them all? I am not trying to say that it’s good or bad but that, like anything else, it’s not so simple. I am glad that I can say this from knowing many of these women on an intimate level.

Most of us have to pay cold hard cash to get to know these women intimately, so bravo for that.

Via Vice