When I asked the famous bullfighter "El Tato" why he thought the Bullfight was still around, unchanged, after hundreds of years, he replied, "because everything in the bullfight is authentic. The emotions, the struggle, the presence of death -they're all real."

The "reality" of the bullfight affects you on a visceral level. I was expecting to view my first bullfight with a sense of professional detachment. I mostly wanted to confirm that all the things I had read until that point were accurate. But the moment the huge, enraged bull entered the bullring, I was filled with an emotion I never expected to feel - fear. The animal fiercely charged anything in its path with the clear intention of destroying it. He seemed unstoppable, and impenetrable. How on earth, could a man dressed in a leotard, armed only with a red cloth and sword face this monster?

Bullfighters are respected and even revered in Spain, because it is generally understood that no one in their right mind would ever face a "toro bravo", or "fierce bull" on foot. What makes this feat doubly impressive is that they perform with a sense of art and sensuality. The bullfighter truly personifies the essence of the ideal man in Spain.

By the time we'd left Spain, Marco (the camera man) and I were both huge fans of bullfighting. It's a rich and complex world. To the Spanish it represents people's relationship with nature, Spain's relationship with Europe, and (as was shown in this story) man's relationship with woman. The bullfighter is at once a sex-symbol, a noble (he is often called to meet the king), and a pseudo-religious figure who performs a rite of sacrifice.

As the bullfighter Antonio Ferreira says, "It's a way of feeling, it's a way of life, and it's a way of seeing life."

Pedro Orrego
Associate Producer, SexTV