In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims, and he begins to use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
The movie is set around a small group of characters experiencing relationships which build and crumble before the viewers eyes. The title of the film refers to the belief, expressed by several of characters, that the goldfish retains a memory of something for only three seconds. Tom, one of the principal characters in the film, draws comparisons between this and the human tendency to jump from one relationship to the next, "forgetting" the pain that any previous one might have caused. The film shows complexities involved in straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships.
Just 10 minutes from the center of Madrid (but also from Rome, Paris, London ...), hundreds of hungry men meet in a fortuitous and secret way. Some are looking for quick and easy sex, others are trying to escape loneliness, most are looking for themselves ...
Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his girlie magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.
Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.
A trio of thrill-seeking go-go dancers kidnap a young girl and attempt to seduce an old rancher and his two sons out of their small fortune, but their scheme doesn't play out as intended.
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
After a mishandled pandemic sparks political revolution, a young American couple (Emily and David) escape to a remote jungle village where their tepid romance is reawakened by a vow to seek ultimate pleasure before taking each other's fate in their own hands.
When teen-socialite Kelly Van Ryan and troubled bad girl Suzie Toller accuse guidance counselor Sam Lombardo of rape, he's suspended by the school, rejected by the town, and fighting to get his life back. One cop suspects conspiracy, but nothing is what it seems...
A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.
Vittorio, an American novelist teaching in Rome, meets the beautiful but damaged Bianca and they rapidly fall into an urgent, tempestuous affair. He's hesitant over their relationship since she seems to thrive on conflict and is constantly baiting him into physical altercation. Bianca gives Vittorio an exquisite leather belt as a gift; he knows immediately that she wants him to whip her with it. Driven by his craving for her, Vittorio complies to Bianca's desire. Their relationship escalates into a dark realm of S&M which becomes more and more self-destructive.
A woman catches her husband in bed with a much younger lady. Shocked and distraught, the woman leaves her husband. She decides to embark on a road trip of erotic self discovery. The woman meets a cartoonist during her sensual pilgrimage and gets involved in a torrid sexual affair with him.
A transgender woman returns – with her two male lovers – to her family home in the countryside to look after her dying mother.
Jordan White and Amy Blue, two troubled teens, pick up an adolescent drifter, Xavier Red. Together, the threesome embarks on a sex- and violence-filled journey through a United States of psychos and quickie marts.
On a Tuesday night, five couples have separate sexual adventures. Matt and Kris, friends for years, want to have an only-once, no-strings good time. Abby and Andrew, married, celebrate his birthday, but it's marred by angst and miscommunication. Mia and Eric are exes, making sure they are over each other. Jaime and Ken work together and this is a first date. Inez and Gord invite his roommate, Dave, to join them. By the time each couple has gone through a prelude, foreplay, sex, an interlude, orgasm, and afterglow, they've answered basic questions: can sex be anonymous, are we bored, is our marriage really finished, does anyone tell the truth, and how do we make someone happy?
Happily unattached, the sexually voracious Leila satisfies her desires with a host of rapidly changing bed partners, unconcerned about the emotional consequences. But that all changes when she meets an artist looking for a deeper commitment.
A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.
Two stories of perversion. 1) A Meiji era erotic artist forces his wife and maid to pose for his bondage themed paintings with dire consequences. 2) A WWII soldier develops a nasty sexual obsession overseas and which only grows stronger when he returns home.
A woman who makes her living as a prostitute must decide her fate between two totally different men.