Joy is a good girl who isn't willing to let her boyfriend deflower her, and after repeatedly insisting without success, he grows frustrated and breaks up with her. Arriving home sad and helpless, Joy opens the door to a pair of "delivery men" who are actually two rapists who rob her of her purity, only to discover that she has truly enjoyed the experience of sex too much. Once her passion has been "unlocked," there is no turning back for Joy, and she plagues New York City with a wave of "sex crimes" that are imitated by other women, adoring Joy's practices.
Between the traditional territory of rape-revenge dramas (which were a staple of the 1970s) and intelligent comedy, Joy remains an incongruous hybrid that has lost little of its power to disturb adult audiences and shake them out of their carnal complacency. Furthermore, Sharon Mitchell was supposedly underage when this film was being shot, and its release was delayed until after her 18th birthday. Like most New York-set sexploitation films, Joy benefits greatly from its realistic, filthy settings—as unlikely a setting for a paradise of pleasure and desire as you'd imagine.