Having received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowship that required a pledge not to make “obscene” work, Philip-Lorca diCorcia set out to reveal the bleak underside of Hollywood and respond to the self-righteous anti-gay bigotry of certain politicians. Only after scouting locations and planning each photograph with meticulous detail did he search for models among the hustlers, drug addicts, and drifters of Santa Monica. Almost as a defiant poke in the government’s eye, diCorcia paid his subjects (with NEA funds) the amount each would have charged for sex—$20 in this case of this young man from Houston.