ONLY A HINT OF THE EROTIC

Twenty-seven years ago, Perry Mann and his friend, Louis Abolafia, discovered they shared a common dream: to see thousands of half-naked people teasing and titillating one another, and embracing their sexuality. Thus, the Exotic Erotic Ball was born. It began in San Francisco as a press party for Abolafia's 1980 presidential run on the Nudist ticket. Since then, the ball has become a spectacular event and every year it packs the Cow Palace outside San Francisco with better than 15,000 erotic enthusiasts. This year, Perry Mann finally decided to bring the party to his hometown, New York City, to fulfill a promise to his departed mother.

"When she was 88, she came to a ball, and she loved it," Mann boasted. As he sees it, the ball doesn't have any age limit or beauty requirements; it's somewhere anyone can come to let it all hang out. "Everyone has a certain beauty inside, and they can express that at the ball," he said. "It's a very safe, loving environment. It's got a lot of flavor of the '60s, which I'm very proud of."

But sex and self-expression is something else in the 21st century. Erotica is a full-blown industry now, with revenues that make the square world jealous. So, keeping up with competition, the Exotic Erotic Ball tied in an expo two years ago. The expo is a showcase for the money end of the adult world. The ball helps its revelers indulge their pleasure; the expo helps businessmen profit off it. In New York, both came off last weekend at Pier 94, a cavernous industrial space located where West 54th Street meets the Hudson River.

Inside the pier complex where the expo was located, it looked like someone took the contents of a West Village novelty store and scattered them across a massive warehouse floor. There were booths selling paddles and sex swings. There were booths selling creams, corsets and T-shirts covered with clever puns. The Museum of Sex had a booth, and so did Ricky's, where they were showing off their costumes. There was even a law firm at the expo, one that catered to the adult industry. Never trust a law firm that gives away beer coozies.

A man strapped up in a renaissance tunic sold a couples' pheromone serum out of his stand. His outfit jibed with the company, "Master & Mistress." His pitch came off more refined than the rest-it was probably the tunic. "We're trying to bring a little romance and passion back into the life, as opposed to this sleazy stuff," the good knight declared. He actually seemed confident in the snake oil. "Our product is very high end pheromones," he said. "It costs about $200 a gram for the pheromones. Very high end, and very expensive."

Smart businessmen paid girls to hang around their stands in skimpy outfits. The star was Genesis magazine. While fair goers may have paused for a second or two at some of the other displays, they all waited on line to meet the adult actresses that Genesis trotted out. A swarm of eager men gathered around the booth, flush from being so close to their favorite girls, and feeling safe in their sympathetic community. In that, it wasn't unlike a Star Trek convention, or perhaps a Harry Potter book signing.

The girls-Joanna Angel, Carmen Luvana, Brooke Haven and a few others-performed their affectionate stripper routine with practiced ease. They sat behind the Genesis table, smiling and posing for pictures and autographing DVDs. Their constant posturing made it even better when you got to see one of them move to the side and relax for a second. There's a curious pleasure in watching a bored porno star in a see-through string bikini eat a cheese sandwich on her lunch break.

Whether it was the expo or the ball itself, the same people were in attendance. The men who bought tickets looked like they worked out too much or not at all, and wandered around in tight packs with their camera phones ready to fire. The women came with their hair dyed and their bodies modified, and their tattooed boyfriends stayed close by. Wherever they came from, not enough of them showed up.

At the ball on Saturday night, maybe a thousand people were there, made smaller by the voluminous, empty space in Pier 94 that echoed around them. The party's MC, comedian and magician Paul Nathan, did his professional best to entertain his meager audience in between contortionist acts, milk shows and costume contests. The crowd surrounding the main stage was subdued, and many of them came to the costume ball without any costume. With no mob to get lost in, people refused to abandon their inhibitions. Instead, most were content to remain mere spectators, searching for anybody they could stare at.

Those who did dare to expose themselves were miffed by the turnout. A tall woman wearing a ridiculous hat and a suit to match looked about in the VIP section, where people in street clothes relaxed on inflatable couches. "I was rather hoping that some people would have more fun," she said. Mr. Exotic Erotic Ball 2005 was also at the party, flown in from the West Coast to kick off the inaugural New York event. He was wearing nothing but body paint and one small, sheer piece of cloth, graciously placed. He was optimistic. "You just never know; this is the first one," he said. "Maybe the New York crowd is weird about sex and all that."