You have to understand how these women are raised. There’s a real hierarchy—the senior wife, the second wife, and the junior wife. Then the man is the supreme master, so to speak. But, when I say that the man is the supreme master, it is because he believes this. In actuality, the first wife, not the husband, wields the power. People don’t say this, but it’s something that’s unspoken.

That’s why in the context of polygamy in my society, I just see the man as a progenitor—the only role he has is to make babies [laughs]. He has to satisfy his own sexual appetites, but he also has to satisfy the three women’s sexual needs. He’s just a sex machine, so to speak [laughs]. Of course, in this situation there’s inevitably some sort of rivalry between the three wives because they’re often denied sexual satisfaction. And when the man is around, no matter what he’s done during the previous night, he has to perform sexually. To help him perform, the woman feeds him food that functions as an aphrodisiac. Since women know more about these aphrodisiacs than men do, they share their secrets.

[From Cineaste (Winter 2004)]