Sometimes the presence of a camera is like opening a door.

In Bangladesh a prostitute normally wouldn't even undress for a man. He pays, she pulls up her sari, and he's done in 20 seconds.

Sometimes the presence of a camera is like opening a door, because many people want what Andy Warhol called "15 minutes of fame." But prostitutes don't want that.

There's always this problem in society where people know they need these places for social peace, but the fundamentalists want to shut them down. Sometimes that's for economic reasons, because they want to build a supermarket there. The imam will hold a prayer and say let's get rid of the girls, but on the other hand they're all going there.

In the Bengali language, there's not a real word for blow job. They call it "doing the ice cream."

Whenever a man enters the realm of prostitutes he's always regarded as a possible customer. If you enter as a woman, you're regarded as somebody who could be in the same place. Being a man brings the perspective of flirtation.

La Zona is such a closed area, a dangerous, outlaw area. My time in the Zona was a time outside of society, almost out of the real world. And the girls there had such a sense of irony and sarcasm. They were also really interested in my film. They'd be like, "Thank God we live in Mexico, because our kind of prostitution has a heart. We wouldn't want to sit behind a glass cage or be sold by our own mothers. We have free will."