A young man in Bangladesh can't even hold hands with a young woman. Without marriage there is no kissing, no holding hands, no going anywhere. So young boys can only go to the brothels for sex before marriage.

On one hand, they [prostitutes] don't struggle because it's simply their life. In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life.

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.

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

I think beauty is the splendor of truth, so if the people I portray think they're beautiful, they're beautiful. I don't make them that way.

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.

On one hand, prostitutes don't struggle because it's simply their life. In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life. In Bangladesh it's different because they live in the brothel, it's sort of a prison, but still there are two sides. When they think of their religion and their upbringing, they can be very moralistic. They're moralistic about giving blow jobs. On the other hand, they have an everyday life where there's no room for shame.