Photography: Cait Oppermann shoots the world's largest sex convention (some NSFW)

Sometimes being a photographer grants you access to places and situations that you might never otherwise consider (or desire) going to. Such was the case for Cait Oppermann, the Brooklyn-based photographer who found herself at Exxxotica, one of the world’s largest sex conventions, camera in hand and judgement tucked firmly away.

The results of her foray into this super-sexy underworld are not at all what you might expect. At times tender, occasionally touching and more often than not strangely lonely-looking, the images have an odd melancholy and heartwarming undertone, the reason for which Cait herself explained to us: “I went to Exxxotica, one of the world’s largest sex conventions, expecting to be completely disgusted by humanity. I was and I wasn’t. I saw a lot of people who didn’t seem to fit in anywhere else. People who looked like maybe they felt safer among people who wouldn’t judge them. I left feeling like I had just witnessed some of them finally getting a taste of freedom from judgment and the chance to just be themselves for a few hours, or even a few days. I never thought I’d look back and describe some aspects of a sex convention being sweet, but they were. Somehow sweet.”

Cait’s friend and fellow photographer Yael Malka also attended the convention, capturing a very different side, which you can see here.