Review of Whores' Glory (2011) by Michael B — 03 Feb 2013

I question the footage of actual sexual intercourse, how it was obtained and whether it was essential to the documentary? What is not discussed in the Thailand segment is the popularity of transgender prostitutes and male hustlers so "the non-judgmental study of sexuality" is ultimately an overlong study of heterosexuality as normative.

There is a surreal lesbian sequence at the climax of Whores' Glory that has more to do with crack cocaine addiction and less to do with desire. The most dire segment focused on brothels in Bangladesh where the stigma of prostitution taints generations of women who are forced into sex work because their mother was a prostitute and that familial association negates eligibility for marriage.

Paradoxically these women are revered and reviled by clients who in interviews claim that without brothels respectable women would be raped in the streets, chilling especially after the death of a medical student who was gang raped in New Delhi and pushed from a moving bus.