A photographer has explained why 2,000 women volunteered to take part in his boundary-pushing series which documented their expressions before, during and after orgasm.
Marcos Alberti's idea for The O Project came in 2017 after the viral success of his earlier series, The Wine Project, which captured people’s facial expressions before and after drinking several glasses of wine.
Inspired by how powerful genuine reactions could be, he decided to explore another human response through photography — but this time, he chose a subject rarely discussed openly.
“Usually, when we see a woman experiencing orgasm, it’s either in a real-life situation or through explicit content,” the Brazilian photographer told LADbible.
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“In both cases, there is a shared sexual experience between the subject and the viewer.”
How were the photographs of women orgasming taken?
Alberti spent around two hours getting to know each of the women and making them feel at ease.
Then he would photograph them while they used a personal massager, with the series showing 'the slow or, in some cases, rapid progression of each woman's facial changes as she reaches and recovers from orgasm'.
The first photo he took of the women often showed them betraying some nerves, but as they started to masturbate in the second image, they visibly relaxed and got lost in the moment.
The third photo captured the moment of climax, while the fourth shows them grinning and laughing in the afterglow.
The set-up for the photographs ensured Alberti could only see their faces.
He said: "There was a panel with a small opening where I placed the camera, directed only at the participant's face.
"The women were seated behind a table and covered with fabric, so I couldn't see anything beyond their facial expressions."
Why did the women want to take part?
Alberti believed that the women who chose to take part wanted to challenge taboos around female pleasure and weren't just doing it for the sake of curiosity.
"At that time, I posted on Facebook saying I would be in Singapore working on a new project focused on female pleasure. Around 2,000 women applied to participate, which was incredible," he added.
"However, as we started talking more openly about what the project really involved, many of them decided not to continue. In the end, we selected 24 women who truly understood the concept and felt comfortable with it."
Alberti said that the group 'agreed to participate because they saw it as something bigger than just a photoshoot'.
"They believed in the purpose — to challenge perceptions, normalize conversations around female pleasure, and help open a more honest and healthy dialogue about the subject," he explained.
"There was also a shared feeling that the project had the potential to resonate globally, much like The Wine Project."
When Alberti first shared the idea, many people immediately assumed it would be pornographic — something he believes highlights the lack of alternative ways the subject is usually portrayed.
He said: "I isolated the physical and emotional expressions, focusing only on the face, turning something typically seen as sexual into something observational, almost scientific, but still deeply human."
After the photographs were taken, two of the subjects asked if they could drop out of the project, saying they were 'concerned about potential professional implications', something Alberti 'completely respected'. In the end, 22 women's photos were shared.
Alberti said: "For me, the most interesting part is presenting a completely different perspective on something so familiar, and challenging the way people are used to seeing and interpreting it."
Topics: Community, Art, Sex and Relationships
Anish Vij