When a brothel closes because of new laws, four of the prostitutes decide to go into business running a restaurant. They discover they cannot escape their past.
When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must embrace her own sexuality, if she is to make a new life for herself.
In 1957 Trieste, a few months before the general ban on brothels, inexperienced country girl Mimma becomes Paprika to finance her useless boyfriend as a prostitute. Amid the hustle and bustle of Rome, Paprika drifts from one brothel to another as she learns the ropes and works her way up one client at a time. However, as Paprika embarks on a stormy journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation, the sense that something is missing haunts her. Is Paprika meant to experience a passionate romance and solve the great mystery of true love?
While waiting for the brain surgery of his daughter Angela, victim of a motorcycle accident, the surgeon Timoteo recalls his torrid affair with and passion for Italia, a simple woman from slums in the periphery of the big city where he lives. The ghost of the beloved and sexual object of desire Italia chases him in his memories.
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
The son of a courtesan retreats into a fantasy world after being forced to end his relationship with the older woman who educated him in the ways of love.