In a post-apocalyptic world, 99% of survivors have suffered an irreversible sexual disability that not only prevents them from performing any physical act with others, but also causes simple contact to cause them to retch. They are the so-called "Sex-Negatives." The remaining 1% have escaped the disease (the "Sex-Positives"), but are obliged to volunteer to have sex in public, thus visually delighting the infected. It is a moral obligation and a legal exercise from which they cannot escape, not even at the Café Flesh club, a sort of hotspot for live sex performances, sarcastically and masterfully presented by Max Melodramatic (with an astonishing performance by Andrew Nichols).

Alternative director Stephen Sayadian made this film after the groundbreaking "Nightdreams" (1981), thus displaying an expressionist erotic duality unparalleled in the genre. Much has been made of the supposed allegory of the AIDS crisis, especially in retrospect. Considering that the virus became a pandemic in the early 1980s, this interpretation would not be entirely impossible, although it is quite improbable, requiring an almost premonitory vision on the part of the filmmakers. In any case, "Café Flesh" triumphs as a midnight cult film rather than as an erotic or pornographic concept. Sex scenes are rare, and are presented essentially as dispassionate, if highly imaginative, theatrical productions. Only the scenes with the beautiful Michelle Bauer are truly exciting, hampered by exaggerated editing to hide the fact that she had a double for the penetration scene, although she definitely performed oral sex on Ron Jeremy in Svetlana's "Bad Girls" (1981).