Candy Christian is an innocent young girl when she first hears MacPhisto, an alcoholic Welsh poet, talk of love and self-sacrifice. Candy narrowly escapes MacPhisto's attempt to rape her, only to succumb to her father's Mexican gardener Emmanuel. When her father catches her with the gardener, he banishes her to a trip with his twin brother, Uncle Jack, and Jack's wife Aunt Livia, who are headed for New York City. As Candy makes her way to the airport, Emmanuel's three sisters attack her because she has corrupted their brother: because of Candy, Emmanuel has now forsaken the priesthood. During the scuffle, Candy's father takes a blow to the head, resulting in a serious head injury. Candy nearly gives in to General R.A. Smight on the plane in exchange for a blood transfusion for her father. In New York City, egomaniacal brain surgeon Dr. A.B. Krankeit operates on her father, while Uncle Jack pursues his own operation on Candy. When she bashes him with a bedpan, Uncle Jack is put in her father's hospital bed, while her father wanders away unnoticed. Candy is now free to visit Greenwich Village where she takes part in a movie by underground movie director Jonathan J. John: a pornographic movie shot in a public restroom. Next she becomes the pet of a benevolent hunchback in Central Park, but she escapes from this arch-criminal into the truck trailer of Guru Grindl. During the drive to California, Grindl initiates her into the mysteries of the Seventh Stage and other secrets of life. In California, Candy seeks the Great Buddha, who will reveal to her the ultimate stage. In her search, she encounter a filthy hermit who leads her to a temple, where the two have sex. When a deluge destroys the temple and washes the hermit clean. Candy recognizes that the hermit is really her wandering father. Again, Candy runs away this time to land in a hippie orgy in which she's reunited with her past sexual partners.